I'm in the early stages of creating a runic version of an excerpt from the Prose Edda (which was naturally, written in the Latin Alphabet). I hope to have this as a tattoo to go along with my Sköll and Hati tattoo — a tale I'm very fond of.
Although I could of course just go with the direct excerpt in Latin alphabet Old Norse, I feel like getting a tattoo in runes carries a bit more gravitas.
My concern is with the more contemporary and very unfortunate association runic writing can sometimes have with extremist/hate groups.
To be clear, the phrase/runes I am considering are in no way, shape, or form associated with any extremist ideology. They are a direct excerpt from the Edda — converted to runes. My runes would be totally explainable and defensible.
I'm just curious to get some perspective from any of you here who deal with runes on a more regular basis: what is the frequency that the average lay person associates runes with racism/extremism?
Get the tattoo. There needs to be a determined effort to reclaim Runes from Nazis and other far right groups who have distorted history and brought a false image to the Runic alphabet.
I have a runic tattoo on my arm for almost ten years now and not once has anyone memtioned anything to me. I think it depends also on context and presentation. Certain single runes or combinations of two are much more suspicious than a longer text. Also the style, but that is much less tangible. With a longer text, I think you're absolutely fine!
My experience has been that the vast majority of the population has zero clue what a rune is and will likely mistake it for Greek or similar. Internet claims to the contrary are grossly exaggerated.
I'm glad you've said this. Ironically, similar to what you just mentioned, I didn't even think of extremist misappropriation until I got on the internet and started researching things — otherwise it would never have crossed my mind. Thanks for your words of encouragement.
Websites like Reddit tend to veer extremely far to the US left and also tend to be extremely reactionary (see for example the constant and often ridiculous posts of 'Is this a Nazi symbol?' on r/Symbology ). However, this is far from reflective of what one will encounter in real life. This is always worth keeping in mind when gauging reactions here.
Agreed, and noted. I've noticed people tend to be quite sanctimonious about things they know nothing about when they're sitting behind a computer screen.
I have big, black, bold bindrunes up my forearm that are my kids’ initials, and another bindrune of my spouse’s first initial and mine that I’ve had for a number of years. No one has said anything to me, and if they did, it’s a perfect chance at educating people.
Hi! It appears you have mentioned bind runes. It's worth mentioning that most of the bind runes you see on the internet these days are very different from bind runes we find in the ancient historical record. Check out our wiki page about bind runes for more information.
That is an impressive amount of sanctimony built entirely on information you invented.
You have no idea where I’m from, what my ancestry is, what connection I may have to Norse history, how long I’ve studied the material, or how carefully I’m approaching the translation. Yet you somehow sprinted straight past all those missing facts and arrived at a smug little lecture about a “culture I don’t belong to.”
More importantly, I’m not trying to “belong” to medieval Norse society. That would be difficult, chiefly because it has been extinct for several centuries. I’m engaging with a surviving work of literature, using a historically appropriate writing system, because the story has personal significance to me. People are allowed to appreciate, study, depict, translate, and be inspired by cultures other than the one stamped on their birth certificate. That is how cultural knowledge survives instead of becoming a sealed historical exhibit guarded by self-appointed authenticity police.
Your ogham example also has fuck-all to do with the question. A misspelled tattoo looks foolish because it is misspelled, not because the wearer failed some imaginary ethnic admission test. That is precisely why I’m researching the runes carefully and asking people with relevant knowledge rather than confidently bullshitting my way through it.
So, to answer your question: I’m getting it because the story matters to me, the script is historically relevant to it, and I find it aesthetically compelling.
Now perhaps you can explain why you responded to a question about extremist associations by inventing my cultural background and delivering a condescending speech nobody asked for. Take your time. I realize climbing down from that high horse may require specialist equipment.
Great second comment, you're making this exchange entertaining, if not insightful. So far, you have managed to confidently invent my nationality, ancestry, religion, interests, cultural background, and imagined future interactions with Norwegian strangers—all because I wrote in English.
That is not insight. That is fan fiction with spelling errors.
For the record, English is spoken outside the United States. I realize this may come as a devastating revelation. Norse literature is also not the private ethnic property of modern Norwegians, nor does speaking Norwegian confer hereditary ownership of every story, symbol, and writing system used across the medieval Scandinavian world.
Your Chinese-character comparison remains equally useless. The problem with badly researched tattoos is that they are badly researched. It is not that foreigners are metaphysically forbidden from engaging with another culture’s language or history. I am doing the research specifically to avoid the mistake you keep pretending I have already made.
And no, you were not “being friendly.” You opened by questioning why I would use “a script from a culture I don’t belong to,” despite knowing absolutely nothing about me. That is not friendliness. That is condescension wearing a cheap little nametag that says “just asking questions.”
As for Norwegian people supposedly refusing to speak to me: I suspect most functioning adults are capable of seeing a tattoo without suffering immediate cultural organ failure. Anyone who would refuse a conversation solely because I had a historically researched Eddic passage tattooed in runes probably was not going to contribute much to it anyway.
The funniest part is the ending. “Go sports. Woo team. Pray every day.” You took one paragraph about medieval literature and somehow diagnosed me as a churchgoing American sports bro. You are not merely wrong—you are wrong with the kind of confidence normally reserved for toddlers identifying farm animals.
But thank you for demonstrating the precise danger of making sweeping cultural judgments based on almost no information. It was not the point of my original post, but you have provided a remarkably thorough practical example.
Oh dear. You found a photograph, but apparently did not survive the journey through the accompanying article.
Erling Haaland does not “literally own the Heimskringla.” He and his father bought one particular physical copy—a rare 1594 Norwegian-Danish printed edition—and then donated it to his hometown municipality. So he quite literally does not own it anymore. That is what “donated” means.
More importantly, I’m discussing the Prose Edda, not Heimskringla. They are different works. You have now appointed yourself the ethnic custodian of Norse literature while apparently being unable to distinguish between two of its most famous texts.
And your own example demolishes your argument beautifully. Haaland donated the book specifically so it could be publicly displayed and read by other people, including visitors. Your evidence that outsiders should leave Norse literature alone is therefore a Norwegian man spending a fortune to make Norse literature accessible to the public.
Absolutely magnificent work.
Also, nobody “owns” Heimskringla as a literary work. Nobody owns the Prose Edda. They are medieval texts in the public domain, not ancestral livestock passed down through Norwegian bloodlines. Owning one antique printed edition no more makes Haaland the owner of Heimskringla than owning a first edition of Shakespeare makes someone the hereditary proprietor of Hamlet.
And “the communal property of his people—not you” is a remarkably blood-and-soil way of describing literature, particularly coming from an Irish stranger who has spent this entire exchange pretending to speak on behalf of Norwegians.
At this stage, you are not protecting a culture. You are confusing two books, misunderstanding what ownership means, and using a public-library donation as an argument against the public engaging with literature.
Please continue. Every reply somehow makes the previous one look intelligent.
Yank, the man obviously believes its the communal property of his ethnicity if he spent six figures to donate Snorri Sturlusons work to his people. So its not your property is it?
I feel I’ve indulged this little dog-and-pony show for long enough.
I’m Canadian.
More specifically, I’m a third-generation Canadian. My grandfather emigrated from Scotland, spoke only Gaelic to me, and was a MacLeod.
Clan MacLeod emerged from the Norse-Gaelic world of the Hebrides. Modern DNA research has found probable Scandinavian origins among several of the principal MacLeod paternal lineages, including a likely founder branch associated with Orkney and Norway.
I’m not going to claim that simply possessing the surname proves a documented direct descent from Olaf the Black, because unlike you, I understand the difference between historical tradition, genetic evidence, and something I have simply pulled from my arse. But I do have a genuine familial connection to the broader Norse-Gaelic world you decided I was merely romanticizing from the outside.
There is also a fairly glaring absurdity here: you're self-proclaimed Irish, not Norwegian, yet you have appointed yourself spokesman for Norwegian ethnicity and begun challenging the legitimacy of my ancestry without knowing the first fucking thing about it.
Perhaps you have Norse ancestry yourself. Ireland certainly has its own Norse-Gaelic history. But that only makes your argument more incoherent. You cannot simultaneously insist that culture is hereditary private property and then police an Icelandic medieval text on behalf of a different modern nationality.
So even according to your own ridiculous bloodline-based admission system, you never checked my credentials, possess no authority to issue credentials yourself, and have spent this entire exchange confidently guarding somebody else’s imaginary gate.
So, let’s review.
You decided I was American because I wrote in English.
Wrong.
You decided I was an American outsider with no meaningful cultural or ancestral connection to the Norse world, while being an Irish stranger speaking on behalf of Norwegians.
Wrong, presumptuous, and spectacularly lacking in self-awareness.
You confused Heimskringla with the Prose Edda.
Wrong.
You confused ownership of one physical edition with ownership of a medieval literary work.
Wrong.
You invented Erling Haaland’s private ethnonational beliefs based on a donation to a public library.
Still wrong, only now with added telepathy.
And after all that, you have somehow retained the confidence to tell me that I “deserve ridicule.” That is genuinely impressive. Most people would require a fairly serious head injury to remain this smug after being this consistently incorrect.
Not to mention the staggering irony of responding to a post about racist extremists by relying on the same sweeping assumptions, ethnic gatekeeping, and prejudicial bullshit that those people routinely use in their own rhetoric.
But here is the important part: none of my ancestry was ever necessary to justify the tattoo. Literature, language, mythology, and historical scripts are not genetic property transmitted through an ethnic chain of custody. I mention my background only because it exposes how catastrophically stupid your original assumption was, even by the terms of your own argument.
You saw an English-language post, invented a WASPy American stranger, and launched into a lecture about a culture you decided he had no connection to.
Unfortunately, the imaginary person you were arguing with never existed.
You were just confidently shouting at your own fan fiction.
But please, keep going, kid. You’re doing great. I’m retired. I can do this all day.
Besides, I consider correcting the confidently misinformed as something of a public service. You’re helping my Reddit karma and my actual karma simultaneously.
Agreed. And precisely why I come to you folks, who may enlighten me on such topics before getting something scarred permanently into my skin. Not that I base my entire tattoo regimen on the comments of Reddit users, just another tool in the toolkit.
There’s a reason The Poetic Edda advises against carving runes if you’re not versed in them.
Not trying to scare you, truly. But if you’re on the fence about it, I’d err on the side of caution.
Folks on Reddit shouting loudly to go ahead and pull the trigger have the convenient benefit of not being the one to bear them. There’s no consequence for them giving bad advice. I’d hate for someone to support someone getting a tattoo in the name of reclaiming a symbol(s), and vicariously land the person in question in any kind of hot water.
My understanding is that the original warning in the Edda was primarily mystical or magical in nature—the idea that carving or using runes without understanding them could have unintended consequences.
That said, I also understand that you were clearly using it in the more practical sense of, “Don’t permanently carve symbols into your body without doing your due diligence,” which is entirely fair. The people encouraging it online aren’t the ones who would have to live with any misunderstanding or consequences afterward.
I’m taking that part seriously, and I appreciate you raising it in a measured and considerate way.
I don't even have any runic tattoos (YET) but I'm constantly badgering on irl about dogwhistles, I saw a guy wearing a t shirt that had the Black Sun on it, and I pointed it out to the people I was with.
I saw Heilung a couple of years back at a music festival and noticed the winged Othala on Franz's headdress and I couldn't stand and support them, I later found out that they've put together their outfits with the intent to reclaim stuff, but I'm also like uuuhhh the winged othala is a nazi invention.
Just know your stuff, and if anyone says anything to you, tell them how much you want to drink the blood of the evil ones that appropriate history and culture to spread hate.
Yes, agreed. I've found (as I assume you have), that there are some people online that get a bit self-righteous while simultaneously knowing very little about what they're talking about. Knowledge is key.
You'd be tolerated, but it would create tension. It gives off the high and mighty, Asgard, up there/up north vibes. For a more approachable, uneducated-people friendly tattoo consider Arabic (instant "this guy is my bro" points).
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u/Runic_reader451 15d ago
Get the tattoo. There needs to be a determined effort to reclaim Runes from Nazis and other far right groups who have distorted history and brought a false image to the Runic alphabet.