Dowsing for Divinity

I’m currently doing a series of videos on YouTube about the Old English and Northumbrian Runes.

To accompany the videos, I thought it would be helpful to share some layouts for rune reading. The simplest reading is just to draw out one rune.

When I do a reading, I always ask the Norns for insight, and then I ask the question and gently massage the runes in their bag. Then I start to draw out the runes and place them on the layout.

The Three Norns layout

This is the easiest rune reading to do: the Three Norns, who live by the Well of Wyrd.

Urd is (loosely) the Past. Her name is the same as Wyrd: what happened.

Skuld is cognate with modern English should and she rules the Present.

Verðandi means becoming, and is therefore the Future. Her name is cognate with modern German werden, to become.

The cosmic layout

Wyrd is changeable fate, the consequences of actions.

Ørlög is the layers of events that have already happened, setting up the present circumstances. The word means “original layers”.

The four elements represent the aspects of the psyche that correspond to the elements:

• Air: intellect and thinking
• Fire: passion and intuition
• Earth: sensation
• Water: emotions

Here’s a video I made about this layout:

And here’s an overview video about the Runes that I made a few years ago.