Fatecast Hand Made Engraved Slate Rune Set with 24 Elder Futhark Casting Stones | Complete Rune Row in Three Aettir | Leather Drawstring Pouch and Guide Card | RK-1695

This is a full casting set of twenty four runes, the complete Elder Futhark, cut into rounded rectangular tiles of dark grey slate with the strokes filled in white so they read clearly in poor light. It comes with a brown leather drawstring pouch sized to hold the whole set loose, which is how a set is meant to be carried and how it is meant to be drawn from.

The oldest surviving description of Germanic lot casting is not Norse at all. It is Roman. Tacitus, writing in the first century, describes the practice of cutting marks into strips of wood from a fruit bearing tree, scattering them on a white cloth, and lifting three while looking up at the sky. He is describing something a century or two before the Elder Futhark is first attested in the archaeological record, so the two are not the same thing, but the shape of the practice is recognisable. Cast, do not choose. Lift blind. Read in threes.

Every tile is cut, ground, engraved and filled by hand in our Memphis workshop, and the pouch is cut, punched and threaded here. The set ships with a folded guide card giving the name, sound value and traditional meaning of all twenty four staves.

Specifications

How a set is cast and read

There is no single correct method, but there is a traditional shape to it. The set is kept loose in the pouch. You put your hand in without looking, and you draw. Casting means scattering onto a cloth and reading only those that land face up, which is the older described practice. Drawing means taking one, three or nine tiles in order and laying them out. Three is the most common because it maps onto a past, present and future reading, or a situation, an obstacle and an outcome.

The twenty four staves of the Elder Futhark divide into three groups of eight called aettir, a word that means family or group. The first aett runs from Fehu to Wunjo, the second from Hagalaz to Sowilo, the third from Tiwaz to Othala. That grouping is genuinely ancient and shows up in the ordering of rune rows on artefacts, and some readers use it as a first cut on a reading, taking the aett a stave belongs to as broad context before the individual meaning.

One honest note. Rune divination as it is practised today is a modern revival, largely twentieth century, built on scattered classical and medieval sources rather than an unbroken tradition. The letters are real and ancient. The specific meanings assigned to each are reconstructed from the Old English, Old Norwegian and Old Icelandic rune poems, which describe each stave in a line or two of verse and often disagree with each other. Knowing that does not make the practice less interesting. It makes it more honest.

Why slate

Slate is a metamorphic rock, mudstone squeezed and heated until the clay minerals realign into parallel sheets. That alignment is what gives slate its cleavage, the property that lets it split into flat plates, and it is the reason it has been used for roofing, writing tablets and grave markers for centuries. For a rune set it does three useful things. It splits naturally into tiles of even thickness, so every stave in the set feels the same in the hand and none can be identified by touch. It is dense enough to have real weight, which matters when you cast. And it takes a cut stroke cleanly without crumbling at the edge of the line.

The tiles here are honed to a matt face rather than polished, so they do not skid across each other in the pouch and so the white fill in the engraving reads against a non reflective ground. The corners are eased by hand, which is slow, but a slate tile with a sharp corner will chip the first time it lands on a hard floor. Slate colour runs from a blue grey through to a warm charcoal depending on the block, and individual tiles often carry faint lighter banding from the original bedding.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel, the leather or the wood. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us where it goes. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it.

On this set the twenty four staves themselves are fixed, because a set with a name in place of Fehu would not work. What can be personalised is the leather pouch, which takes a tooled name, a date or a short phrase on the face very well, and is the usual choice for a gift. Tell us in the order notes and see the engraving page for lettering and lead time.

Handling, storage and display

Keep the set in its pouch. That is not just storage advice, it is part of how the set works, because the tiles need to be drawn blind and a set sitting face up in a tray cannot be. The pouch is deliberately sized so the twenty four tiles sit loose with room to move your hand among them.

If you want to display the set rather than only use it, lay the tiles out in their three aettir on a dark cloth or a shallow wooden tray. Slate looks best against wood, linen or wool and worst against glass, which reflects up through the gaps and flattens the depth of the cut strokes. Do not stack the tiles in a tall pile on a hard surface. Slate is tough in compression and brittle at an edge, and a pile that falls over will chip corners.

Care

Wipe the tiles with a barely damp cloth when they pick up dust or skin oil, and dry them. Do not soak them, do not put them in a dishwasher and do not scrub the engraved lines with anything abrasive, because the white fill sits in the cut and heavy scrubbing will lighten it unevenly. If the fill ever wears thin in a stave you use often, a white wax pencil worked into the line and wiped flush will restore it.

Feed the leather pouch with a neutral leather balm once or twice a year so the drawstring does not dry and fray. Keep the set out of direct sun for long periods, since sustained ultraviolet will slowly lighten both the leather and the fill.

Made in Memphis

This rune set is made in our workshop in Memphis, Tennessee. We cut the slate, hone the faces, ease every corner, engrave the staves, fill the lines and cut and thread the pouch here. It is not lifted from an importer catalogue and rebadged. Because a set is twenty four separate pieces made one at a time, the current lead time is one to two weeks before it leaves us, and shipping inside the United States is free. It carries a lifetime warranty against defects in the making, with no end date and no receipt needed.

A note on handmade variation

This set is hand made, not machine made and not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. Slate is a natural stone and every block runs a slightly different grey, from blue grey to charcoal, often with faint pale bedding lines that show on some tiles and not others. The cut strokes are engraved by hand and the fill is worked in by hand, so line weight varies a little between staves. The leather pouch is cut from natural hide and its grain and shade vary. The tile count, the tile size, the material and the full rune row are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

How many runes are in the set?

Twenty four, the complete Elder Futhark in its three aettir. There is no blank tile, because the blank rune is a modern addition from the 1980s and not part of the historic row.

Does it come with instructions?

Yes. A folded guide card lists all twenty four staves with name, sound value and the traditional meaning drawn from the Old English and Icelandic rune poems.

Can I tell the runes apart by touch in the pouch?

No, and that is deliberate. The tiles are cut to the same size and thickness and the faces are honed the same way, so a draw is genuinely blind.

Is the pouch included?

Yes. Every set ships with the brown leather drawstring pouch, sized to hold all twenty four tiles loose.

Will mine look exactly like the photograph?

Close, but the grey will vary. Slate is quarried stone and colour and faint banding differ from block to block. The size, the shape and the rune row do not vary.

How long does it take to arrive?

Making time is one to two weeks and United States shipping is free. Add a few days if you have asked for the pouch to be personalised.

What is in the box

• 24 engraved slate rune tiles, the complete Elder Futhark
• Brown leather drawstring pouch with leather thong closure
• Folded guide card with names, sound values and traditional meanings
• Care card covering cleaning, fill repair and leather feeding
• Lifetime warranty against defects in the making
• Made and finished in Memphis, Tennessee

Explore the range

See the rest of the rune stones and rune sets, the Viking home decor and the engraved and personalised pieces, or read the guides for more on the Elder Futhark and the rune poems.