Runes are quite frequently mentioned in modern writings usually imprecisely as a source of mystic knowledge power or insight. This book sets the record straight. It shows runes working as a practical script for a variety of purposes in early English times among both indigenous Anglo-Saxons & incoming Vikings. In a scholarly yet readable way it examines the introduction of the runic alphabet (the futhorc) to England in the fifth & sixth centuries the forms & values of its letters & the ways in which it developed up until its decline at the end of the Anglo-Saxon period. It discusses how runes were used for informal & day-to-day purposes on formal monuments as decorative letters in prestigious manuscripts for owners or makers names on everyday objects perhaps even in private letters. For the first time the book presents together with earlier finds the many runic objects discovered over the last twenty years with a range of inscriptions on bone metal & stone even including tourists scratched signatures found on the pilgrimage routes through Italy. It gives an idea of the immense range of information on language & social history contained in these unique documents. R.I. Page is former Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Cambridge.