The one thing unique to viking culture is Runes. These strange cryptic letters and symbols were used at first for magic and then later for writing in general. Odin is said to have entered the spirit world to learn them by hanging on the great tree Yggdrasil. The graphic above represents the earliest group of runes which varied by country and was added to later to make a Latin style alphabet. Runes were also carved on weapons,armor and ships for protection and victory.Runes could be sounded verbally as spells in battle.Used as an alphabet,they marked daily items as to ownership,and carved on great stones,they marked memorials to great kings, warriors, or family members held in honor. Used as divination symbols,runes were carved on strips of wood called staves or small stones and cast on the ground and read as they fell in response to a question. Most vikings would not go into battle, on a voyage or even enter into some business with a foreign merchant without first consulting the runes. They are the one item of viking culture that is easily recognised even today. Below is a chart naming the runes and their meanings in magic and divination. The alphabets above are the early Danish and full Germanic and Anglo-Saxon runes used for everyday writing. There were variations in the runes depending on the country using them but most of the alphabets were very similar and shared a lot of the same major runes.