Anglo-Saxon Futhorc (400-1100) A number of extra letters were added to the Runic alphabet to write Anglo-Saxon/Old English. Runes were probably bought to Britain in the 5th century by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians (collectively known as the Anglo-Saxons), and were used until about the 11th century. The Futhorc are an extended alphabet, consisting of 29, and later even 33 characters.
Younger Futhork or "Normal Runes" (800-1910 AD) gradually evolved Elder Futhark (150-800AD) over a period of many years and stabilized by about 800 A.D., the beginning of the Viking Age. It was the main alphabet in Norway, Sweden and Denmark throughout the Viking Age, but was largely though not completely replaced by the Latin alphabet by about 1200 as a result of the conversion of most of Scandinavia to Christianity.
In a treatise called de inventione litterarum, preserved in 8th and 9th century manuscripts, mainly from the southern part of the Carolingian Empire (Alemannia, Bavaria), ascribed to Hrabanus Maurus, a runic alphabet consisting of a curious mixture of Elder Futhark with Anglo-Saxon Futhorc is recorded. The alphabet is traditionally called "Marcomannic runes", but it has no connection with the Marcomanni and is rather an attempt of Carolingian scholars to represent all letters of the Latin alphabets with runic equivalents.
Reidgotaland, Hreidgotaland or Hreišgotaland was a land in Scandinavian mythology, which usually referred to the land of the Goths. A meaning given by Nordisk familjebok gives the territories of the Goths in southern Europe, according to Anglo-Saxon sources, such that Hreidgoths was originally applied to the Ostrogoths in south-eastern Europe. appears as hraižkutum on the Rök Stone in Ostrogothia. In Hervarar saga, the name Hreišgotaland is applied to the territories of the Ostrogoths in south-eastern Europe. In Snorri's Edda, it is either applied to Jutland or to the Danish islands which are called Eygotaland.
On Runic Stones, runic inscriptions coincide with certin Latin sources, such as the Annals of St. Bertin and the writings of Liudprand of Cremona which contain valuable information on Scandinavians/Rus who visited Byzantium. Old Norse runic inscriptions have also been found in Haithabu in northern Germany, Russia, Greenland, northern Scotland, the Isle of Man, England, and Ireland, so the runic inscription habit followed the Norse wherever they went. In Denmark there aren't any rune stones which use the old 24 letter alphabet. By the time the tradition for raising rune stones reached Denmark, the language had gone under a transition resulting in a simpler and easier 16 letter alphabet. There are approximately 6,000 known rune stones in Scandinavia. Out of those discovered runes, 3,000 of them date from the tenth and eleventh centuries and have been found in Sweden.
The Icelandic and Norwegian rune poems have 16 runes, with the letter names ? fe ("wealth"), ur ("iron"/"rain"), Thurs, As/Oss, reidh ("ride"), kaun ("ulcer"), hagall ("hail"), naudhr/naud ("need"), is/iss ("ice"), ar ("plenty"), sol ("sun"), Tyr, bjarkan/bjarken ("birch"), madhr/madr ("man"), logr/lög ("water"), yr ("yew").
Runes were hundreds of years old by the dawn of the Viking Age. The majority of the 3,000 rune stones found in the region of Uppland in eastern Sweden have Christian references. The Younger Futhark (800-1910AD) is further divided into: the Danish futhark script, the Swedish-Norwegian runic script (also: Short-twig or Rök Runes), the Hälsinge Runes (staveless runes), the latinised Dalecarlian futhark script (ca. 15001910).
The Younger Fužark, also called Scandinavian Fužark, is a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, consisting of only 16 characters. The reduction correlates with phonetic changes when Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse. They are found in Scandinavia and Viking Age settlements abroad, probably in use from the 9th century onward. They are divided into long-branch (Danish) and short-twig (Swedish and Norwegian) runes.
The most likely candidates for the origins of runic scripts are the 5th to 1st century BC Northern Italic alphabets, Lepontic, Rhaetic and Venetic, all closely related to each other and themselves descended from the Old Italic alphabet. These scripts bear a remarkable resemblance to the Futhark in many regards.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,