ᛋᛖᚲᚱᛖᛏᛋ ᛟᚠ ᛏᚺᛖ ᚱᚢᚾᛖᛋ

Discover the secrets of the Elder Futhark Runes used in Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Learn their phonetic meanings and hidden messages within the game.

Have you ever wondered if the Runes Senua finds throughout the game have any actual meaning? Senua has. The voices in her head ask this question all the time.

Turns out they do mean something. These are Elder Futhark Runes - the earliest known secret Runic alphabet, used by Celtic and Norse people in the 3rd to 9th century.

The word Rune literally means Secret. This is a secret alphabet that was used by certain people in that era to convey messages. The Runes were often carved on plaques of wood, and because of this they contain no horizontal lines. Horizontal lines would have to be carved along the grain of the wood, which would often make the wood split, and were hard to see because they would blend in with the wood grain.

The way they are used in the game, each Rune has a phonetic connection with a letter (or multiple letters) of the English alphabet. Some Runes may be used to represent a couple of different letters. In fact, if you went to a tattoo parlor and asked for a tattoo in Celtic writing, they would likely show you an alphabet almost identical to the Runes found in the game.

There are 24 Runes in the Elder Futhark alphabet, and each Rune has a specific phonetic connection to our alphabet.

You'll notice the absence of some letters such as C, Q, and X. These letters have phonetic values that can be achieved by combining other letters, such as KW for Q.

These Runes are actually mainstream enough that they even have Unicode characters associated with them.

So are there any secret hidden messages in the game?

Once again, the answer is yes. The Runes associated with the Lorestones found around the circular ring around each Lorestone form a hidden message.

ᛋᛖᛖᚲ • ᚺᛖᛚᚨᛋ • ᛏᚱᚢᛏᚺ • ᛁᚾ • ᛗᛁᚱᚱᛟᚱ • ᚷᛟᛞᛋ • ᛒᛖᛏᚱᚨᛃ • ᚢᛋ • ᚢᚾᛗᚨᛋᚲ • ᚠᛖᚨᚱ

SEEK HELAS TRUTH IN MIRROR GODS BETRAY US UNMASK FEAR

Other Runes appearing throughout the game have less meaning. For instance, on this very stone, if you transcribe the Runes etched around the edge of the stone in the picture, you get

ORWZ • TIDZ HELWEG(N?) • ENITHZOKNGRTHZ

The Runes associated with the Rune Doors also don't appear to have any specific meaning. The Runes appearing on the doors through the Surt level spell...

HZ DR NWTH

I haven't examined all the Runes throughout the game looking for patterns. It's certainly possible that there's something I'm missing. Also, it's worth noting that these Runes also have additional meanings beyond the phonetic.

For instance ᚠ phonetically is associated with F, but the Rune itself also means "Wealth", or "Cattle"

So it's possible there is some other meaning that I'm just not recognizing.