The blank rune is a curious appendage to most rune tile sets. Called the “Wyrd rune” or “Odin’s rune,” this mute little tile is the topic of much debate among rune readers.

The 24 Elder Futhark runes are—among other things—an archaic alphabet and a divinatory system. Each character has three broad levels of meaning: a phonetic sound, a worldly object or concept, and a spiritual/esoteric idea. The blank rune is no exception to this schema. It represents, respectively: The sound of silence (phonetic), the absence of things (material), and the unknown/unknowable hand of Fate (abstract). That’s why it’s associated with wyrd, the Norse word for Fate.

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