Proto-Norse language

Think of it as basically the same reason we call it a QWERTY keyboard.

But this system of writing first appeared during the Proto-Norse period, roughly 2nd to 8th century.

This was a written transcription of the phenomes that were used by the people living in the Scandinavia and northern Germany area at the time.

And most important to the distinction here, this was pre-Viking times.

That's a totally different thing.

In truth, if you're looking for a real-life citation or anything close to it that can be cited as saying, oh, the runes were used for divination, you have to look at a text called Germania, which was written in the first century by Tacitus, which you might notice is also not a Scandinavian name.

But the book, which wrote about Proto-Germanic and Proto-Norse cultures, contained a single passage making reference to divination.

I'm going to read it to you verbatim.