WORD HISTORY: Rune

Among early peoples writing was a serious thing, full of magical power. In its only reference to writing, the Iliad calls it "baneful signs." The Germanic peoples used a runic alphabet as their form of writing, using it to identify combs or helmets, make calendars, encode secret messages, and mark funeral monuments. Runes were also employed in casting spells, as to gain a kiss from a sweetheart or to make an enemy's gut burst. In casting a spell the writing of the runes was accompanied by a mumbled or chanted prayer or curse, also called a rune, to make the magic work. These two meanings also appear in Old English run, the ancestor of our word. The direct descendants of Old English run are the archaic verb round, "whisper, talk in secret," and the obsolete noun roun, "whispering, secret talk." The use of the word to refer to inscribed runic characters apparently disappeared in the late 14th or early 15th century but was revived by Danish writers on Germanic antiquities, who adopted it from Old Norse toward the end of the 17th century. Appropriately enough, this sense of rune, which had faded away like a whisper, reappeared from the mists of the past.