Make a rune set
Turn any rune, a full set, your name, or a bind rune into a 3D model you can print. Drag the preview to turn it, then download an STL for your slicer.
Where these shapes come from
Some of these shapes copy things people really carved runes on. Others come from the modern rune sets sold since the 1980s. Here is which is which, and what we know.
Draft content, not yet reviewed.
Shapes from the past
Bracteates are thin gold discs stamped on one side, made mostly in the 5th to 7th centuries and worn as pendants. Most have a loop to hang them from a cord and a beaded rim, and they are thought to have been amulets. More than 1,000 are known, and about one in nine carries a runic inscription, usually a short one.
The Vadstena bracteate, from about 500 CE, has the whole Elder Futhark on it, split by dots into three groups of eight. It was dug up in Sweden in 1774; a goldsmith was about to melt it down when a local clergyman stopped him. Its last rune is hidden under the loop and is known only because the Mariedamm bracteate, found nearby in 1906, was struck from the same die. The Vadstena bracteate was stolen from the museum in 1938 and has never been found.
The Lindholm amulet is a piece of bone carved into the shape of a rib, about 17 cm long. It was found in 1840 by peat cutters in a bog in Skåne, in southern Sweden, and is kept at the Lund University Historical Museum. Its runes begin "ek erilaz", "I am an erilaz". It is from the Iron Age; sources date it anywhere from the 2nd to the 6th century.
Tacitus, writing around 98 CE, describes a branch of a fruit-bearing tree cut into slips, each marked with a sign, for casting lots. He does not say the signs were runes, and whether they were is debated. The Slip shape here follows his description; you can cast with slips like these on the Cast page.
Rune sets are modern
A bag of 24 rune tiles or stones is a modern thing. It took off after Ralph Blum's The Book of Runes (1982), which came with a small bag of round tiles. Sets today are made of clay, stone, crystal, resin, or glass. The Tile, Pebble, and Wood slice shapes here belong to this modern tradition, not to an ancient one.
Runes on everyday sticks of wood are real, but later. Since 1955, about 670 medieval runic inscriptions have been found in Bryggen, in Bergen, Norway, mostly on wood: name tags, business letters, short religious texts, and messages such as "my love, kiss me". They are written in medieval runes, which grew out of the 16-rune Younger Futhark that replaced the Elder Futhark by the 9th century. That is why Rista, which teaches the Elder Futhark, does not offer a Bryggen-style stick.