SECTION XV. ODIN AS THE INVENTOR OF RUNES.
The original meaning of the word rune is secret, and it was used to signify a mysterious song, mysterious doctrine, mysterious speech, and mysterious writing. Our ancestors had an alphabet called runes, before they learned the so-called Roman characters. The runic stave-*row was a futhore (f, u, th, o, r, k), not an alphabet (A, B) as in Greek or Latin. But what does it mean mythologically, that Odin is the inventor of the runes? Odin himself says in his famous Rune-song in the Elder Edda:
I know that I hung
On a wind-rocked tree[1]
Nine whole nights,
With a spear wounded
And to Odin offered,
Myself to myself;
On that tree
Of which no one knows
From what root it springs.
Bread no one gave me
Nor a horn of drink,
Downward I peered,
To runes applied myself
Wailing learnt them,
Then fell down thence.
Potent songs nine
From the famed son I learned
Of Bolthorn, Bestla's father,
And a draught obtained
Of the precious mead,
Drawn from Odrœrer.
Then I began to bear fruit
And to know many things,
- ↑ Ygdrasil.
