Offers a full introduction to and survey of runes and runology: their history, how they were used, and their interpretation.

Introduction
The origin of the runes
The older futhark
Inscriptions in the older futhark
The development of runes in Anglo-Saxon England and Frisia
The English and Frisian inscriptions
The development of runes in Scandinavia
Scandinavian inscriptions of the Viking Age
The late Viking-Age and medieval runes
Scandinavian inscriptions of the Middle Ages
Runic writing in the post-Reformation era
Cryptic inscriptions and cryptic runes
Runica manuscripta and rune names
The making of runic inscriptions
The reading and interpretation of runic inscriptions
Runes and the imagination: literature and politics
A brief history of runology
Where to find runic inscriptions
Glossary
Phonetic and phonemic symbols
The articulation of speech sounds
Transliteration conventions
The spelling of edited texts
Index of inscriptions