Runes

Runes - the ancient Germanic alphabet. Applied to the I-II on the XII century in the territory of modern Denmark, Sweden and Norway, according to X-XIII century in Iceland and Greenland, and in the Swedish province of Dalarna until the XIX century.

Following the adoption of Christianity in the Nordic countries as the runes have been superseded by the roman alphabet, but with the XX century they were used for divination and as symbols. The term «runes» links to drevnegermanskim root ru ( «secret»). Overall, it was discovered about 5000 runic inscriptions, most of them in Sweden. In addition, in medieval Europe had runic calendars.

Norse and Anglo-Saxon run, drevneislandskoe runar and drevnenemetskoe runa associated with German roots and ru Gothic runa, meaning «secret», as well as drevnenemetskim runen (modern raunen), meaning «mysteriously whisper». This name probably stems from the fact that the ancient Germans attributed runam some mystical properties.

A letter - from left to right, but in the early inscriptions found bustrofedon. Thus, the spear of Kovel inscription reads from right to left, and runes are also rotated in the opposite direction, as severnoetrusskie letters and Greek letters in the earliest monuments of the ancient Greek alphabet. Words are separated using a point-colon or a cross.