The runic alphabet is a specifically Germanic alphabet, not to be found in languages of other groups. The word rune originally meant ’secret’, ‘mystery’ and came to denote inscriptions believed to be magic. The runes were used as letters, each symbol to indicate separate sound. This alphabet is called futhark after the first 6 letters. Runic letters are angular; straight lines are preferred, curved lines avoided; this is due to the fact that runic inscriptions were cut in hard material: stone, bone or wood. The shapes of some letters resemble those of Greek or Latin, other have not been traced to any known alphabet, and the order of the runes in the alphabet is certainly original. The number of runes in different OG Ls varied. As compared to continental, the number of runes in England was larger: new runes were added as new sounds appeared in English (from 28 to 33 runes in Britain against 16 or 24 on the continent). The main use of runes was to make short inscriptions on objects, often to bestow on them some special power or magic. The two best known runic inscriptions in England are the earliest extant OE written records. One of them is an inscription on a box called the “Franks Casket”, the other is a short text on a stone cross near the village of Ruthwell known as the “Ruthwell Cross”.
OE scribes used 2 kinds of letters: the runes and the letters of the Latin alphabet. The bulk of the OE material is written in the Latin script. The use of Latin letters in English differed in some points from their use in Latin, for the scribes made certain modifications and additions in order to indicate OE sounds. The most interesting peculiarity of OE writing was the use of some runic characters, in the first place, the rune called “thorn” which was employed alongside the crossed ∂ to indicate [th] and [∂]. In the manuscripts 1 more rune was regularly used – “wynn” for the sound [w]. Like any alphabetic writing, OE writing was based on a phonetic principle: every letter indicated a separate sound. This principle, however, was not always observed, even at the earliest stages of phonetic spelling. Some OE letters indicated 2 or more sounds, even distinct phonemes. The letters could indicate short and long sounds.
