Runas: Viking Runes

Nobody carved runes to ask about the future.

The signs were used to mark who owned a comb, to name the dead on a standing stone, to ask a god for something — and now and then to write a joke. The reading we all know today was reconstructed in the twentieth century. Runas tells you both things: what each rune meant to the people who carved it, and what it has come to mean since.

◆ TODAY'S RUNE — one every morning, with a short thought you can actually use.
◆ THREE ALPHABETS — 24 runes of the Elder Futhark, 16 of the Younger Futhark and 9 of the Anglo-Saxon futhorc. Most apps stop at the first one.
◆ ORIGINS AND MEANING — where the name comes from, what the three medieval rune poems say (Norwegian, Icelandic, Anglo-Saxon), and how the modern reading was built.
◆ THE THREE ÆTTIR — the families the runic row is divided into, and why.
◆ FIVE SPREADS — from the single rune to the Norns, explained step by step.
◆ JOURNAL — log what you draw and read it back later.
◆ SHARE AS A CARD — clean, elegant cards with eight backgrounds.

Some of what is inside: that Fehu means cattle, wealth that walks and can be lost; that the Icelandic poem calls gold the serpent's path, the hoard the dragon sleeps on; that Eihwaz is the yew, the tree that lives for centuries beside the graves; that the futhark is named after its first six signs, the way alphabet is named after alpha and beta.

Runas is an entertainment and educational app based on runic tradition. It does not predict the future, it gives no medical, financial or psychological advice, and it is not a substitute for professional help. The history is sourced; the divinatory readings are presented as what they are — a modern reconstruction.

Works fully offline, no account needed, in 12 languages.