I have noticed a few Rune Schools around and I would like to know the pros & cons of them and if it is better to go through a school or try it on one's own.
What are the differances-if any.

Sincerely,

Carolyn

Depends what you need. If you want clear and detailed instruction to work on by yourself at home with email correspondence backup then choose Freya Aswynn's correspondence course at www.aswynn.co.uk.

If you want an online course sharing knowledge and correspondence with the treachers and other students through their 'online campus' system then choose the Rune School at www.runeschool.org

Thanks for buying my book BTW, you could do worse than studying that for a start

Thank you.

I ran across another school- The Denali School of the Northern Tradition. I ran across it on the web. Google
"Runes by Ragnar" and it will come up.

Have you heard of him? Any pros or cons about his school that you know of?

I am trying to weigh all my options.

Thank you. I am looking forward to receiving and working with your book.

Carolyn
PS- Right now I am working on finding a name.

I believe they have the reputation of being rather cultish, but surf their pages and make up your own mind.

I have never bothered to read their website any further than the top of the home page. If you look at their Futhark you will see they have the Jera rune the wrong way round (i.e. a mirror image) and IMHO any organisation that claims to teach the runes ought to be able to represent the Futhark correctly.

In fact all they have done is downloaded a free font called "Runic Regular" by Digital Type Foundry and used it to produce their image of the Futhark without checking to see whether the font designers had made any mistakes. I told Digital Type Foundry about their error 9 years ago but to date they have done nothing about it.

So The Denali school along with thousands of other rune users are unwittingly rendering Jera as a mirror image because the font has it that way.

Denali aren't the only so-called authorities caught by this trap. When you get to looking at the notoriously inaccurate "Book of Runes" by Ralph Blum you will see this same error along with a few dozen more, and one of the most highly regarded rune gurus alive today - Edred Thorsson - has the same mistake in several of his books.

Denali also incidentally put Dagaz at rune 23 and Othila at rune 24. Whereas there is a minority school of thought that accepts this order, the great majority of rune users put Othila at 23 and Dagaz at 24.

Those two obvious points of contention were enough to put me off any further exploration of their ideas.

My advice - read Sweyn Plowright's book "The Rune Primer" to avoid any more inaccuracies and misconceptions. You will see it listed in the Bibliography at the back of my book and you can buy it from Amazon on the "Recommended Books" page on www.runemaker.com

Thank you.

One seems to have to be a bit wary of the differant schools out there.

Carolyn

You're welcome.
Sweyn's book will help you sort the genuine stuff from the dross. Visit his website at: http://www.mackaos.com.au/Rune-Net/
His book is also available on the site as a pdf download.

I was peeking around the Rune School's site and in their Order of the Runes section they have-

"With respect to the last two runes Dagaz (Daeg) and Othala (Ethel) there are historical and literary sources which support either of these being the final rune. It is possible then, it was equally acceptable for either rune to be the last one-depending on circumstances".

Carolyn

Yeah I know. Like I said it's a school of thought. You will notice that Sweyn of the Rune Net and indeed Wikipedia (for whatever that's worth) subscribe to the "Othila last" order, but I don't.

I will simplify the reasoning for both contentions:

"Othila last" is based on just one ancient carving from one location in Scandinavia. It happens to be the earliest known rendering of the full Futhark and that is taken by adherents to be definitive justification for this order.

"Dagaz last" is based on around 20 carvings of the full Futhark up to 200 years later in date than the above. My opinion is that 20 "Dagaz last" outweigh 1 "Othila last", although the carvings are later. After all, who's to say the earliest discovered Futhark wasn't erroneous? Is it more likely that a score of later carvers were all in error?

Anyway, in modern times it suits us to have Dagaz at 24. It's the last rune and therefore marks a transition point and it's meaning is "day" or "dawning" which is also a transition point - the breakthrough of light after darkness. I also like that 24 matches the number of hours in a day, but that isn't really significant. It is highly unlikely that Northern European rune users had clocks or any formal method for measuring time as precisely as 24 hours in a day.

You must make up your own mind based on which order suits you best. I only mentioned it in the earlier post as an example of how the Denali people differ from the majority view. It's one of the few things I noticed on their site before I clicked off the home page in dudgeon.

I like your rendition. I have been drawn to the Runes for a long time. A few years ago, I started on the path, but, was confused as to which way was the way to go. I peeked around on the Rune Gild, but, I am not all into the Germanic aspect. I prefer the Elder Futhark. I like your site-it feels right to me.

Carolyn