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Modern runic writing

The use of medieval runes mostly disappears in the course of the 14th century. An exception are the Dalecarlian runes, which survived, heavily influenced by the Latin alphabet, into the 19th century. Occasional use of runes also seems to have persisted elsewhere, as evidenced by the 16th-century Faroer Fámjin stone.

Antiquarian interest in runes first arises in the 16th century, with the 1555 Historia de gentibus septentrionalibusbyOlaus Magnus, and picks up in the 17th century, notably with Peder Resen's Edda Islandorum of 1665. In the 17th century, runology pioneer Johannes Bureus published his Runa ABC, the the first Swedish alphabet book.

Esotericism

Germanic mysticism and Nazi symbolism

The pioneer of the Armanist branch of Ariosophy and one of the more important figures in esotericism in Germany and Austria in the late 19th and early 20th century was the Austrian occultist, mysticist, and völkisch author, Guido von List. In 1908, he published in Das Geheimnis der Runen ("The Secret of the Runes") a set of eighteen so-called, "Armanen runes", based on the Younger Futhark and runes of List's own introduction, which allegedly were revealed to him in a state of temporary blindness after cataract operations on both eyes in 1902. The use of runes in Germanic mysticism, notably List's "Armanen runes" and the derived "Wiligut runes" by Karl Maria Wiligut, played a certain role in Nazi symbolism. The fascination with runic symbolism was mostly limited to Heinrich Himmler, and not shared by the other members of the Nazi top echelon. Consequently, runes appear mostly in insignia associated with the Schutzstaffel, the paramilitary organization led by Himmler. Wiligut is credited with designing the SS-Ehrenring, which displays a number of "Wiligut runes".

Modern neopaganism and esotericism

Runes are popular in Germanic neopaganism, and to a lesser extent in other forms of Neopaganism and New Age esotericism. Various systems of Runic divination have been published since the 1980s, notably by Ralph Blum (1982), Stephen Flowers (1984, onward), Stephan Grundy (1990), and Nigel Pennick (1995).

The Uthark theory originally was proposed as a scholarly hypothesis by Sigurd Agrell in 1932. In 2002, Swedish esotericist Thomas Karlsson popularized this "Uthark" runic row, which he refers to as, the "night side of the runes", in the context of modern occultism.

Runestones

A number of notable runestones of modern origin exist. Some of them are intended as hoaxes, their creators attempting to imitate a Viking Age artefact. This mostly concerns the American runestones, such as the Kensington runestone or the Oklahoma runestones.

Especially since the late 20th century, runestones in the style of the Viking Age were also made without pretense of authenticity, either as independent works of art or as replicas as museum exhibits or tourist attractions.^[1]

J. R. R. Tolkien

InJ. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Hobbit (1937), the Anglo-Saxon runes are used on a map to emphasize its connection to the Dwarves. They also were used in the initial drafts of The Lord of the Rings, but later were replaced by the Cirth rune-like alphabet invented by Tolkien.

Tolkien's mode of writing Modern English in Anglo-Saxon runes received explicit recognition with the introduction of three extra runes to the Unicode Runic block used by him in Unicode version 7.0 (2014). The three characters represent the English k, oo and sh (ᛲ) graphemes, as follows:

The k rune was published with The Hobbit (1937), e.g. for writing Tolkien's own name, as ᛁ ᚱ ᚱ ᛏᚩᛚᛱᛁᛖᚾ. His oo and sh runes are known from a postcard written to to Katherine Farrer on 30 November 1947, published as no. 112 in The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981).^[2]

Tolkien's mode for writing Modern English can thus be represented in Unicode as follows:^[3]

References