A review of the Sleipnir Rune Cards
by Dave Lee
The depiction of runes has come a long way over the centuries. Most of the inscriptions from the ancient and medieval world are of course on imperishable materials, the rune-stones, and so on, and any runes the ancients carved on wood are long since lost. So rune-cards are a relatively new thing. I now own three sets – an Anglo-Saxon set by Tony Linsell, from so long ago its origins are lost in the mists of personal history, a pre-publication set of Anwen Fryer’s designs, and these, by Dave Strychnine.
Dave is an ‘outsider artist’ with a deep immersion in both Chaos Magic and the Northern Tradition. His paintings are often spells.
His new cards are a highly individual oracle set that resumes ancient patterns. Each rune has a picture, painted in his characteristic style. On the reverse of the cards are Dave’s haikus, his own rune-poems. These form words of guidance for divination and contemplation.
My one quibble is with the title on the package – the runes already have a ‘th’ sound – thurisaz in the Elder row – so we don’t need to spell the word ‘the’ with three runes. However, this is a minor point, because modern English is rather distant from Proto-Germanic, the language of the Elder runes, so there’s never going to be an exact equivalency.
My magical group has already put some of these cards to magical use and they did us proud. I can unreservedly recommend them to anyone who wants to own a set of magical runic designs, as a beautiful oracle set and for doing magic. They are a flowering of the runes in a new form, and they resonate powerfully with the Elder tradition.
Dave Lee