Favourite Rune Sets?

[EarlofLeicester]

Many very old rune sets were carved on crystals especially the softer stones like Turquoise and Jade

Which ones, & what do you mean by "very old"?

Agreeing with Waelwulf here that I don't recall any historical precent for crystal carving in Norse runes.  Wood, bone, metal and stone seem to be the mediums of choice of ancient Germania.  If you are referring to people outside of Germania, well, then, that is another topic of course, but at that point they may not be runes anymore.

[EarlofLeicester]

But the Mountains of North Carolina was settled mainly by Scotts, so traditional sets made here in the mountains by old timers who hold to the old ways and  traditions tend to be in the Anglo Saxon Alphabet.

I have no problem with Anglo-Saxon.  While I prefer the Elder Futhark, there is certainly plenty of compatibility with the Anglo-Saxon rune set and the people who practiced the runes in that part of the world.  Of course, my mom was born in that part of the world which corresponds with coastal Wessex of the A-S days, so maybe I am a wee bit biased in favor.

What alot of people fail to realise when it comes to runes, that they were not just for devination. They were the alphabet of the day. When the Church decided to outlaw the old earth based faiths they attacked runes as the work of the Devil, and made Latin the only acceptable form of educated written correspondance. Of course Greek and Hebrew they had to keep for biblical reasons. The result was after about 200 years of interlectual oppression an illiterate population. Education became an underground venture, and languages became primarily oral. But that is off subject.

True enough.  Futhark comes from the first 6 letters of the runic alphabet (there is a single letter or rune for the phonetic TH sound).  The Christian scholarship of the dark ages was sadly devoted to destroying all pagan knowledge and tradition.  Odin be praised for that lil' island of iceland which gives us so much of what we know of the "runic" era.

The saddest thing about Runes is that many of the uses of Runes have been all but lost. There were many games that were played around the table by families years ago. Only a couple of those games remain. I recall watching the old folks play Maeldrew and Amergin when I was a child with Runes. Try to find someone today who even knows the basics of the game.

Have never heard of Mealdrew and Amergin.  Brief search engine hits convey to me that these terms are more Celtic than Norse, but that just means I didn't find anything on runes as games.  The only Norse era game I am aware of is Tafl (or hnefatafl, if you prefer) which is a wonderful game but has no connection to the runes.  I am reminded of the serious nature of which Viking era runemaster Egil Skallagrimson holds the runes.  I cannot see an Egil playing with the runes.  The Norse people were hardly a frivolous lot.  Tafl was their chess (I LOVE tafl) which was an intellectual pursuit and runes which represented the wisdom of Odin is something IMHO I can't believe the ancients played with.  It seems too disrespectful, given what we know of people like Egil.  Admitedly I don't know everything (truer words were never spoken) but a game based on runes seems to me to come from after the runic era (c.1000 AD give or take a few years for conversion to Christianity to set in).

[Wælwulf]

Yes, Mealdrew & Amergin were Celtic, & from two different branches as well. Mealdrew was from the Brythonic branch, while Amergin was from the Goidelic branch. Different system altogether from the Germanic, a semi-modern invention/reinterpretation, I would venture a guess. Kind of strays from the subject of runes though, so I'll leave it at that... unless someone rails me for being too brief & not going into detail & citing sources (which, admittedly, I would do), at which point, I suppose I could expound a bit.

[EarlofLeicester]

I think your track record speaks for itself and I won't require any sources.  Suffice it to say, it is, as you point out, straying from the runes, but MB is the kind of place where going off on tangents can be a way of life...

[EarlofLeicester]

These last two posts are needlessly inflammatory.  I will ask a mod to step in.  Lucky for Azamarak and Eliosduck I am not a mod anymore or those last 2 posts would be deleted.

[Rhutobello]

None of us know it all.....we are all here to share information....there are many opinions....there are not a single answer...but many.

I think this tread also have gone out of focus and I close it down.