16. Rune Casting was one of the main ways the ancient Germans, and maybe even the Nordic people, tried to foresee the future
When the ancient Romans first made contact with the Germanic peoples, they found that they had their own system of writing. Known as runic writing, they were made up of symbols. As well as serving as letters, these symbols – or runes – were also pictographs. And, according to the ancient historian and politician Tacitus, the Germanic tribes would consult the runes to try and predict the future. And it wasn’t just in modern-day Germany that this was happening. Runic writing has also been found in Denmark and Norway, though the theory that the Nordic people used runes for divination has been hotly-contested by scholars for many years.
Interestingly, the accounts of Taciturn show that rune-reading wasn’t the only means by which the ancient Germanic tribes tried to predict the future. In his history of the campaigns of the general Germania, he notes that they would also have special white horses. These were seen as sacred and it was believed that the noises they made might serve as omens. For instance, their snorts or neighs might be used to predict how a looming battle might go. Even for the ancient Romans, this was seen as illogical and overly-superstitious!