AUTHOR’S NOTE: I just bought a set of Elder Futhark runes and decided to experiment with them in combination with tarot cards and standard dice. In this reading I’ve used six randomly-selected runes to show the “Foundation of the Matter,” and six randomly-pulled tarot cards to provide “Anecdotal Commentary.” A single six-sided die was rolled to choose which of the six rune-and-card pairs depicted the “Best-Case” scenario, while the opposite pair described the “Worst-Case” situation. My thinking is that the runes are “close to the Earth,” similar to geomantic figures and lithomantic “lots” or “sorts,” so they make sense as signifiers of situational “foundation.”

I also received a nice obsidian pendulum with the rune set, and I may use it in the future instead of dice to make the decision on which pairs to read. However, my pendulum skills are sketchy at best, so I didn’t trust myself to do so this time around.

The tarot card backs are from the Retro-Thoth Tarot (privately published) and the card faces are from the Thoth Tarot, copyright of US Games Systems Inc, Stamford, CT. The runes are from the “kcrygogo” set, available at Amazon.com.

The question I asked was what the future might hold for an initiative I’ve been considering.

I rolled a one-spot on the die, which yielded Pair #1 and Pair #6 as the “best-case/worst-case” indicators.

For the best case, I received the Kennaz rune as the “foundation,” which, according to an online source I found, represents a torch, and by association, light. More pragmatic definitions are creativity, inspiration and vitality. This is a very encouraging symbol, and it’s interesting that at the moment I’m in the middle of reading Robert Anton Wilson’s Prometheus Rising with its “light-bringer” motif.

The best-case commentary card was the Wheel of Fortune. Due to its correspondence to astrological Jupiter, the “Greater Benefic,” I read it as a change in circumstances that will be generally favorable, as befits a “best-case” forecast. This seems like an almost perfect convergence of card and rune.

The worst-case pair gave me the blank, or Wyrd, rune as the “foundation,” which is a modern addition (from Ralph Blum in 1982) that is typically shunned by traditional lore-masters as not representing a letter in the runic alphabet. It can mean “no answer is forthcoming” or, as I chose here, a currently unknowable outcome that will be up to fate to decide.

The anecdotal commentary card was the 3 of Disks (“Work”) reversed. In this instance I interpreted it to mean “a hard row to hoe,” suggesting that achieving a desirable result will be a challenging task beset with mundane obstacles. It reminds me of the old Mississippi Delta blues song by Robert Johnson, “Stones in My Passway.”

Conclusion: I will position myself to take advantage of the best-case scenario and let the worst-case situation become whatever it is going to be without trying to force the issue. If nothing comes of my aspiration, so be it. But I have my fingers crossed.

I also want to put in a plug for the Shieldmaiden’s Sanctum blog, which has a thorough list of practical definitions for the Elder Futhark runes.

https://www.shieldmaidenssanctum.com/blog/2019/3/12/the-elder-futhark-runes-and-their-meanings