Secrets of the 13 Articles

What Are the Witch’s Runes?

The Witch’s Runes are a modern system of divinatory symbols - often used for spellwork, intuitive reading, and magical insight. Unlike ancient rune alphabets like the Elder Futhark, the Witch’s Runes are not tied to any specific language or historical script. Instead, they were developed to be accessible, symbolic tools for witches and practitioners of modern magic.

Most sets include 13 runes, each marked with a distinct symbol representing a concept or archetype - like the Moon, Rings, Flight, or Crossroads. These runes are cast, drawn, or meditated upon to help unlock answers, patterns, or truths hidden within your question or situation.

While the exact origins are debated, the Witch’s Runes are believed to have first appeared in the mid-20th century, likely inspired by a mix of:

Traditional European folklore

Ceremonial and folk magic

Symbols from dreamwork and talismanic traditions

They are not ancient, but they have taken root in modern witchcraft because of their simplicity, power, and intuitive clarity.

Why 13 Runes?

The Witch’s Runes traditionally include 13 symbols, a number deeply tied to witchcraft, lunar cycles, and the sacred feminine. There are 13 full moons in a year and, in folklore, 13 witches in a coven - making this number symbolic of complete magical balance and collective power. Each rune represents a key archetype or force, together forming a compact but powerful system of divination.

How to Use Witch’s Runes in Your Practice

Witch’s Runes can be used in a variety of ways:

Rune Casting: Draw one or more runes from a pouch and interpret their meanings based on placement, direction, and interaction.

Daily Draw: Pull a rune each morning as a spiritual focus for the day.

Spellwork Symbolism: Use a rune symbol in a charm, on a candle, or in a sigil for added magical intent.

Meditation & Journaling: Reflect on the energy of a symbol to deepen your intuition or explore a situation.

Their small number makes them ideal for beginners and seasoned practitioners alike - and every witch is encouraged to develop their own interpretations through experience.

The Sun

Keywords: Clarity, Breakthrough, Energy, New Beginnings

Traditional Meaning:

The Sun is one of the most positive runes in the Witch’s Runes set. It symbolizes a breakthrough moment, where obstacles clear and the path ahead is illuminated. This rune brings light to the situation - revealing truth, offering guidance, and infusing your work with vitality and hope.

When the Sun appears, it signals that you are entering a phase of growth, success, or renewal. Expect a surge of motivation, confidence, and clarity. If you have been feeling lost, this rune reminds you the sun always rises - and your power is returning.

Magical Uses:

To represent solar energy in spellwork

As a symbol for manifestation rituals

For workings involving vitality, truth, or goal-setting

Draw the rune on a candle or charm bag for motivation or visibility

Ritual Prompt:

What in your life needs light? What are you ready to reveal, accept, or energize?

Journaling Idea:

Draw the Sun rune in your journal. Write about a time you overcame something difficult. What strengths helped you rise? What clarity came from that experience?

The Moon

Keywords: Intuition, Emotion, Mystery, Dreams

Traditional Meaning:

The Moon rune calls you inward. It represents intuition, hidden knowledge, emotions, and subconscious influence. When this rune appears, it is time to look beyond the surface and trust what you feel more than what you see.

The Moon encourages introspection. It is the quiet whisper, the dream that lingers, the sense that something deeper is at play. You may be receiving signs, nudges, or emotional cues that require your attention - but not your immediate action. This rune is about observing and flowing, not controlling or pushing.

Magical Uses:

In divination, dreamwork, or shadow work

To enhance intuitive insight or psychic awareness

During rituals aligned with moon phases

As a symbol in spells for clarity, feminine energy, or secrets revealed

Ritual Prompt:

What do I know deep down but have not yet admitted to myself?

Journaling Idea:

Draw the Moon rune. Record your most recent dream or emotional reaction that felt unusual or intense. Explore what it might be trying to show you.

Flight

Keywords: Movement, Freedom, Change, Escape

Traditional Meaning:

The Flight rune brings the energy of motion, freedom, and transformation. It represents the need - or opportunity - to leave something behind, shift direction, or break free from limitations.

When this rune appears, you may be ready to spread your wings. It often signals rapid change, travel (physical or spiritual), or the sudden urge to escape a restrictive situation. While it can suggest a literal departure, it may also reflect an emotional or energetic release.

It can also hint at messages in motion - news, communication, or insight on the way.

Magical Uses:

Use in spells to release attachments or cut ties

Draw during journeying, astral work, or spellwork to bring swift change

Helpful in banishing rituals or energy clearings

Symbolic support for starting over or seeking new paths

Ritual Prompt:

What am I ready to fly away from? What truth do I need to carry forward?

Journaling Idea:

Draw the Flight rune. Reflect on something that once served you but now feels like a cage. What would change if you gave yourself permission to leave it behind?

Rings

Keywords: Union, Commitment, Cycles, Agreements

Traditional Meaning:

The Rings rune symbolizes partnerships, bonds, and cycles - anything that involves commitment, connection, or contracts. This could mean romantic relationships, friendships, business deals, soul agreements, or even karmic ties.

It can also point to recurring patterns or cycles in your life - those loops you find yourself repeating until the lesson is learned or the tie is broken. When this rune appears, it asks: What are you bound to, and is it still serving you?

This is a rune of honoring commitments or releasing those that no longer align.

Magical Uses:

In rituals for love, union, or handfasting

To bind intentions, partners, or energy together (ethically)

In spells for reconciliation, trust, or breaking soul contracts

To recognize and close karmic or emotional loops

Ritual Prompt:

What have I promised - out loud or in my heart - and is that promise still sacred to me?

Journaling Idea:

Draw the Rings rune. List the most powerful commitments in your life. Are they choices or obligations? What needs to be honored and what needs to be freed?

Romance

Keywords: Passion, Desire, Emotion, Attraction

Traditional Meaning:

The Romance rune embodies emotional intensity, physical attraction, and matters of the heart. When this rune appears, it points to relationships where desire, chemistry, or vulnerability are front and center.

This is not just about love - it is about emotional charge. The Romance rune can signal infatuation, yearning, or the powerful pull between people. It can also bring attention to the need for love - romantic or otherwise - or the ways we give and receive affection.

It asks: Where in your life is passion blooming - or burning too hot?

Magical Uses:

In love spells (especially for attraction, passion, or intimacy)

To deepen emotional bonds in existing relationships

For self-love rituals focused on desire and worth

To examine where your heart is leading (or misleading) you

Ritual Prompt:

What am I truly craving - not just from others, but from within myself?

Journaling Idea:

Draw the Romance rune. Reflect on the difference between love and desire in your life. Where do you feel emotionally fulfilled and where do you still hunger?

Woman

Keywords: Intuition, Creation, Healing, Inner Power

Traditional Meaning:

The Woman rune represents feminine energy, regardless of gender identity. It speaks to the forces of nurturing, intuition, healing, and creation - whether that is creating life, art, ritual, or change.

This rune is a call to return to your inner world and honor the wisdom that comes from sensitivity, emotion, and cyclical energy. It encourages you to listen to your body, your dreams, and your subtle senses. It may also highlight feminine figures in your life, ancestral guidance, or divine feminine archetypes.

When this rune appears, it often signals that the answers you seek are already within.

Magical Uses:

In rituals for healing, fertility, creativity, or self-trust

To amplify intuitive power or deepen dreamwork

As an offering or symbol in goddess-based magic

For connecting with the sacred feminine within or around you

Ritual Prompt:

What am I ready to birth, nurture, or receive? What does my intuition know that my mind has not caught up to yet?

Journaling Idea:

Draw the Woman rune. Reflect on your relationship to intuition, softness, and creation. How do you honor your inner guidance - or when do you dismiss it?

Man

Keywords: Action, Drive, Protection, External Power

Traditional Meaning:

The Man rune represents masculine energy - assertion, movement, structure, and outward action. Where the Woman rune calls inward, Man turns you toward the external world, asking what must be done, built, or defended.

This rune speaks to willpower, ambition, courage, and leadership. It may indicate a male figure, or it may point to a need for decisiveness, discipline, or protective strength. Man is not about dominance, but rather the embodiment of responsible power and focused effort.

When this rune appears, it often calls you to take up your tools and do the work.

Magical Uses:

In rituals for protection, courage, or breaking inertia

To support goal-setting, focus, and grounded leadership

To balance soft or overly receptive energy with structure and fire

In spells involving masculine archetypes or honoring the divine masculine

Ritual Prompt:

Where in my life do I need to step up and take action? Where have I been waiting when I could be moving forward?

Journaling Idea:

Draw the Man rune. Write about an area of life where you need to assert yourself more clearly. What would change if you acted instead of hesitated?

Harvest

Keywords: Abundance, Reward, Gratitude, Results

Traditional Meaning:

The Harvest rune signals that your efforts are coming to fruition. It represents reaping the rewards of past work, honoring the cycles of sowing and reaping, and recognizing the blessings that are present in your life - whether material, emotional, or spiritual.

This rune reminds you that abundance follows intention, but also that gratitude is part of the cycle. When Harvest appears, it is a time to gather, reflect, and enjoy what you have built - while also preparing for the next season of growth.

It can also ask: What are you harvesting right now? And what seeds are you planting for tomorrow?

Magical Uses:

In gratitude rituals, sabbat celebrations (especially Lammas or Mabon)

For prosperity magic and financial blessings

To close a spell or intention with completion and thanks

As a symbol of earned abundance, not sudden luck

Ritual Prompt:

What have I earned - and how am I honoring what I have been given?

Journaling Idea:

Draw the Harvest rune. List 3 things you have cultivated in your life that you are proud of - spells, habits, relationships, etc. Then write about what you are ready to begin planting next.

Crossroads

Keywords: Decision, Transition, Uncertainty, Choice

Traditional Meaning:

The Crossroads rune marks a moment of choice or change - a fork in the path, a threshold, a liminal space where two or more realities are possible. When this rune appears, you are being asked to make a decision, or to acknowledge that you are in a moment of deep transformation.

It often arrives when you are stuck, unsure, or standing between the old and the new. Crossroads energy is both magical and uncomfortable - it is where initiations happen, where new paths begin, and where the spirits of change linger.

This rune urges you not to wait forever - it is time to choose, even if the way is not perfectly clear.

Magical Uses:

In spells for clarity, road opening, or making tough decisions

As a symbol in liminal rituals or threshold work

For workings during the waning moon, eclipses, or seasonal shifts

When asking for spirit or ancestral guidance

Ritual Prompt:

What crossroads am I standing at? What am I afraid to decide - and why?

Journaling Idea:

Draw the Crossroads rune. Map out your options. What is the path of fear, the path of comfort, and the path of truth? Which one do you know you are being called toward?

Star

Keywords: Hope, Inspiration, Guidance, Destiny

Traditional Meaning:

The Star rune is a beacon - a symbol of hope, higher guidance, and divine timing. When it appears, it reminds you that you are not alone. There is a greater plan unfolding, even if you cannot yet see the full picture.

This rune speaks to your dreams, purpose, and potential, calling you to trust your inner light and follow where it leads. The Star may signal spiritual insight, a breakthrough idea, or an unexpected blessing. It is the wish you make in the dark, the light at the end of the tunnel, or the moment when you remember who you are.

Magical Uses:

In spells for guidance, hope, or wish fulfillment

To reconnect with your soul’s purpose or higher self

During dark or uncertain times as a reminder of your path

In rituals of inspiration, creativity, and soul vision

Ritual Prompt:

What lights me up - and how can I follow it with more trust and courage?

Journaling Idea:

Draw the Star rune. Write about a vision or goal that feels just out of reach. What small steps can you take toward it? Where are you being called - even if it feels scary?

Waves

Keywords: Emotion, Intuition, Flow, Surrender

Traditional Meaning:

The Wave rune embodies the fluid, ever-shifting nature of emotions and intuition. It speaks of a time to let go of control, ride the tides of experience, and trust your ability to navigate even when things feel murky.

This rune often appears when you are facing emotional overwhelm, spiritual sensitivity, or internal tides that need to be honored - not resisted. It calls you to feel fully, release consciously, and move with life rather than against it.

Like water, this rune teaches that resilience comes from adaptability. Let it move through you.

Magical Uses:

In rituals for emotional release, cleansing, or intuition

During spells involving water, lunar work, or healing

For dreamwork, divination, or deep inner processing

Symbolic support when working through grief, fear, or uncertainty

Ritual Prompt:

What emotions am I trying to dam up - and what might happen if I let them flow freely?

Journaling Idea:

Draw the Wave rune. Reflect on a recent emotional experience. What did it teach you about your needs, your boundaries, or your intuition?

Scythe

Keywords: Ending, Release, Severance, Necessary Loss

Traditional Meaning:

The Scythe rune is a sign that something must be cut away. Whether it is a relationship, habit, belief, or fear - this rune brings the energy of finality, detachment, and transformation through release.

It can feel sharp, sudden, or intense, but the Scythe does not come to harm - it comes to clear space. Like harvesting what is ripe or pruning what is dead, this rune reminds you that letting go is part of the cycle of growth.

When Scythe appears, it is time to ask: What am I holding onto that is already done with me?

Magical Uses:

In banishing or cord-cutting rituals

To release emotional or energetic baggage

For ending bad habits, toxic bonds, or outdated beliefs

In shadow work where truth must be faced and something surrendered

Ritual Prompt:

What do I need to cut loose in order to breathe again?

Journaling Idea:

Draw the Scythe rune. List three things you have outgrown. Then write a release statement - “I let go of ___, with gratitude for what it taught me.”

Eye

Keywords: Awareness, Truth, Vision, Insight

Traditional Meaning:

The Eye rune is the seer, the inner observer, the moment you recognize the truth you already knew. It represents clarity, perception, and spiritual vision - a piercing awareness that cuts through illusion and reveals what has been hidden.

When this rune appears, it invites you to open your inner sight, trust your intuition, and acknowledge what you have been avoiding or doubting. The Eye sees clearly - but it also asks you to be honest with yourself.

This rune can also symbolize protection, the watchful presence of guides or higher awareness, and the invitation to step into your own knowing.

Magical Uses:

For truth-seeking, clarity spells, or uncovering hidden influences

In divination, especially to enhance second sight or intuition

As a protective sigil (watchful eye energy)

To support shadow work or past life insight

Ritual Prompt:

What have I known all along, but have not fully admitted? What am I ready to see without fear?

Journaling Idea:

Draw the Eye rune. Reflect on a situation where your gut knew the truth before your mind caught up. How can you trust that knowing more fully going forward?

Wrapping it up:

The Witch’s Runes may be few in number, but they hold infinite depth. Each symbol is a mirror, a message, and a moment - a glimpse into your own inner truth and the unseen patterns around you.

Whether you cast them in ritual, draw them in your journal, or simply meditate on their meanings, these runes are living symbols that evolve with you. Let them speak to you. Let them challenge you. Let them guide your path.

The Elder Futhark is the oldest known runic alphabet, made up of 24 distinct symbols used by Germanic peoples over 1,500 years ago. While their origins are linguistic, today these runes are revered as tools of magic, protection, and divination. A foundational system for any witch exploring Norse or northern European traditions.

Each rune carries its own energy, meaning, and resonance. They’re often carved into wood, stone, bone, or talismans, and used for everything from spellcasting to energetic sigils to full-scale rune readings.

Many witches use runes in a way similar to tarot or oracle cards. They’re drawn one at a time, cast as a spread, or engraved as protective charms. Each rune has a story: part symbol, part archetype that can offer clarity, insight, or direction.

You can:

• Pull one rune daily for spiritual focus
   
• Use them in spellwork to amplify specific energies
   
• Add rune symbols to jewelry, candles, or carvings for warding and blessing
   
• Cast a few on cloth or earth for intuitive readings

The Elder Futhark consists of three groups of eight runes, known as aetts. Each aett is associated with different themes: birth, transformation, and inheritance.
 

Each rune can appear upright or reversed (though not all practitioners use reversals), offering deeper layers of meaning depending on how they're drawn or cast.

• Start slow, one rune a day builds a strong foundation
   
• Make your own rune set to connect with their energy
   
• Keep a journal of your readings and impressions
   
• Don’t worry about memorization, focus on feeling and resonance first
   
• Let the runes speak in your own symbolic language

Not at all. While deeply rooted in Norse and Germanic history, the runes have been embraced by witches of all paths. If they call to you, there’s no gatekeeping here. Respect their history, but let them evolve within your own craft.

Each rune carries a symbolic essence, an energy that echoes through time. Here's a short introduction to each:

Symbol of earned wealth, beginnings, and prosperity. Often used in spells for abundance or successful ventures.

Represents raw primal energy, health, and the untamed force of nature. A rune of courage and personal power.

Associated with giants (Thurs) and trial-by-fire moments. A rune of protection, but also disruption and awakening.

The rune of Odin, linked to speech, inspiration, and receiving messages from spirit or higher self.

Symbolizes both physical travel and spiritual progression. Brings alignment, timing, and purpose.

A torch rune, sparking insight, creative flow, and transformation through understanding.

Balance of giving and receiving. Represents partnerships, blessings, sacred contracts.

A rune of happiness, celebration, and true contentment. Aligns with heart energy and 

shared bliss.

Like a storm, it clears away the old. Destructive at first, but always leads to transformation.

Represents necessity and endurance through hardship. A rune of discipline and delayed gratification.

The rune of frozen energy. Invites reflection, patience, and spiritual focus in times of stagnation.

The cycle of sowing and reaping. Symbol of natural timing, effort paying off, and seasonal magic.

Linked to Yggdrasil, the World Tree. A rune of transformation, death/rebirth, and spiritual strength.

Represents what is concealed, luck, secrets, and the unknown. Tied to intuition and divination.

A powerful warding rune. Often used in charms for spiritual safety and expanded perception.

A rune of radiant clarity, personal power, and achievement. Often called the rune of triumph.

Named after Tyr, god of law and sacrifice. Represents noble action, courage, and standing firm.

Associated with the birch tree and feminine energy. Symbol of nurturing, new beginnings, and healing.

The horse rune, symbolizing loyalty, cooperation, and momentum toward shared goals.

A rune of self-awareness and collective consciousness. Encourages inner work and community bonds.

Governs emotion, dreams, and psychic ability. Aligns with lunar magic and the subconscious.

A rune of gestation and inner fire. Signals completion, fertility, and quiet power building within.

Brings clarity, sudden insight, and transformation. Often marks major life shifts.

Tied to family, inheritance, and spiritual lineage. Used to anchor identity and ancestral power.