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Most runologists like to argue about the details of the history of runes, but there is an agreement about the general outline. Runes were thought to have been created from some of the Old Italic alphabets that were used by the Mediterranean people who lived in the first century CE. They lived south of the Germanic tribes. Early Germanic symbols like those that were preserved in rock carvings in northern Europe helped to develop the script.
The earliest runic inscription was found on a Meldorf brooch that was created in northern Germany about 50 CE. It was a very ambiguous inscription, and scholars have been split over whether the letters are Roman, runic, or a combination of both. The first clear inscriptions were found on the Ovre Stabu spearhead found in southern Norway and the Vimose comb out of Vimose, Denmark; both of these dates back to about 160 CE. The Kylver stone in Gotland holds one of the earliest carvings of the whole Futhark in the correct order. It has been dated to around 400 CE.
Their switch up with writing, from southern to northern Europe, was caused by Germanic warbands who encountered Italic writing during wars against their neighbors to the south. This is also supported by the theory that the runes were associated with Odin. He was the god of war and the patron of all of the war activities. Tacitus, the Roman historian, had explained that Odin was the main god within the pantheon of most of the German tribes during the first century. It isn’t clear if the cult of Odin and the runes rose up together or if the latter came before the first doesn’t really matter.
The way ancient Germanic people perceive the runes is that they don’t come from a source that was as mundane as the Old Italic alphabet. They did not invent the runes, but pre-existed and eternal forced that Odin found by dealing with his harrowing ordeal. This story comes from an Old Norse poem called Havamal or The Sayings of the High One:
“I know that I hung on the wind-blasted tree all of the nights nine, pierced by my spear and given to Odin, myself sacrificed to myself on that pole of which none know where its roots run.”
“No aid I received, not even a sip from the horn. Peering down, I took up the runes – screaming, I grasped them – then I fell back from there.”
The tree that Odin hung himself from is said to have been Yggdrasil, which is the world tree found in the middle of the Germanic cosmos. Yggdrasil’s roots and branches hold up the Nine Worlds. Right under this tree is the Well or Urd, where you will find a lot of wisdom. The runes have their own dwelling place in the water. This can be seen in a different Old Norse poem called the Voluspa or Insight of the Seeress:
“There stands an ash called Yggdrasil; a might tree showered in white hail. From there come the dews that fall in the valleys. It stands evergreen above Urd’s Well.”
“From there come maidens, very wise, three from the lake that stands beneath the pole. Once is called Urd, another Verdandi, Skuld the third; they carve into the tree the lives and fates of children.”
The three maidens that the poem talks about are the Norns and the carvings that were on the runes. This has provided and a clear connection between the runes and the Urd or Well, as well as magic. The magic in them comes from the Norn's ability to carve the fate of every being.
Once Odin discovered the runes through his self-sacrifice and spent nine days fasting as he stared into the Well of Urd, he then gave the runes to the very first runemaster. His sacrifice was imitated symbolically in ceremonies where candidates learned about the history of the runes. There isn’t any concrete evidence about this practice that has survived over the years.
