What did the Vikings use runes for?

Runes were often used in magical charms for protection and for healing. They were also used to lay a curse. Runes themselves were thought to carry magical power.

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What does the name rune mean?

You can also ask did the saxons use runes? Anglo-Saxon runes were symbols used by the Anglo-Saxons as an alphabet in their writing system. All runes were known collectively as futhorc in Old English.

Are runes hard to learn?

The runes are easy enough to learn2. (It used to surprise me how many people believe that if they can't read an alphabet just by looking at it ? Cyrillic, say ? it must also be hard to learn. The early runes, the Elder Futhark, are a pretty good match to the sounds of Old Norse. In respect to this, how do i choose my runes?

Are all runes the same?

Each rune had a name, like our modern letters have names, but these very old names are no longer known. By their association with later letters, the old names of the runes have been reconstructed. Not all runes were drawn the same way, however, and some of the runes and their names were different in some places.