Runes

Runes and runic magic. Runes were used more as sacred script worthy of recording important events or for magical protection of people or things. The original runic system (alphabet) is considered to be the 24 runes or the elder FUTHARK (named after the first 6 runes), which were revealed to Odin when he hung on a tree pierced by a spear in sacrifice to himself for nine days and nights.

Other runic alphabets have 16-33 characters.

Regarding the age of runes, we have only one historical certainty: they are a script at least as old as Hebrew, and they were written from left to right. As the script evolved, people adapted it while writing, and words could be written in several phonetic forms, so we can encounter different shapes of runes (added "little legs" or mirrored representations).