RUNES

This is the third drawing I've made for this manuscript series/project. The drawing is basically an explanation of the runes I've created, and what runes are, in a general historical sense.

Runes are angular letters used by the peoples of ancient Europe. They were carved into metal, stone or wood, and hence do not make use of curved lines. The most famous set of runes is the Futhark, used by the Norse. Tolkien's Cirth runes draw heavily from these runes. I have not drawn heavily from either set, being influenced by the Japanese Katakana alphabet, I have gone for simplicity, not linguistic correctness, and so my alphabet is quite small. Katakana employs a small mark called a diacritic (they call it a hakuten, I believe), this mark shifts their “g” into their “k”, from a voiceless to a voiced consonant. Taking this idea, I've managed to reduce my alphabet to eighteen runes, some of which stand for more than one letter. Letters like C and Q do not have their own runes. Ha!

The illuminated parts of the drawing reference old manuscript details, specifically of books and monks and saints and scholars copying books or studying. The mistletoe in the background is a druidic fertility symbol, and the oak that it is usually parasite to has significance in paganism. There are no visible band references in this drawing, which is pretty incredible. I cut a lot of details about gods of language and quasi masonic word magic from this drawing, and I think it is better for it, especially as this piece was meant to help people understand what I am doing. I am willing to help people.