Background Information
What are the Tengwar?
Tengwar is an alphabet invented by J. R. R. Tolkien for use in his constructed languages, tied especially to Quenya and Sindarin, two languages native to elves but spoken by many others in his fictional Arda setting.
Quenya is, in-universe, the first purposeful, structured language that elves created for themselves after 'waking up' (coming into existence). It was influenced in part by Valarin, the langauge created for and spoken by Valar, the deities/geniuses of Arda, thought the Valar quickly resolved to stop speaking Valarin around elves so as to not influence their own language too much. Sindarin is a language highly influenced by Quenya. Over time Sindarin becomes to common tongue and Quenya becomes archaic, like the Latin of the elves.
'Tengwar' is the Quenya word for 'letters'. It is plural, a single letter is 'tengwa.' As Tengwar is both the name of the alphabet and the word meaning letters, and as Quenya treats plurals diffrently from English anyway, its grammatical use can be shifty.
Exactly how many letters make up a tengwar alphabet varies depending on the version of the alphabet you're using. Tolkien liked his languages to shift and change across the long ages of his setting, so the tengwar used for Quenya, Sindarin, and later Westron (human) languages are all slightly different. Typically a full set of Tengwar will number a little over 30.
Tengwar is completely functional as an alphabet and can be written with. It is a phonetic language, in which each letter represents one sound, and it is an incredibly well-organized phonetic language, showing a deep udnerstanding of how sounds are made inthe human mouth and how those sounds are spatially grouped.
It is also a runic alphabet, meaning that while the symbols represent sounds, they also have names and represent concepts. The first tengwa is not called 'tee', though it is pronounced as a T, it is called 'tinco', which means 'metal' in Quenya. All the traditional names for tengwar are in old Quenya, though they have later Westron names as well and many have shifted over time both phonetically and in conceptual association.
The fictional origin of the Tengwar alphabet was never ironed out in any text published by Tolkien, but posthumously published notes say Tolkien considered making them another invention of Feanaro son of Finwe, a prince who is credited with many of the early technological and academic inventions of the elves. This would make sense, as the symbols, visuals, and references chosen for the names of the letters show a bias toward life in Aman, the land Feanaro grew up in, and to the Noldor, his own people/family of elves. One of the tengwar is named 'Noldo', but there are none named after any of the other peoples of the elves, and numerous tengwar named after metals and heat reflect his profession of smithcraft. There isn't proof that the Tengwar really were a noldorin invention, but I feel like a telerin or sindarin inventor would have included at least one word for water instead of forcing me to really make choices to assign watery symbolism to at least one of them.
When I started studying Quenya, it eventually sunk into me that, since the letters have conceptual names, and since those names are deeply rooted in the lore and visuals of their fictional setting, one could do fortune-telling with them exactly as Norse Futhark runes are used for fortune-telling.
I tried it. It's, like, exactly the same. Just 1:1.
What are the Futhark?
The Futhark was and is a real world alphabet created by northern European peoples, adapted from earlier alphabets, to write their own languages (Old Norse being a blanket term for many of them). How many letters are in any version of the Futhark varied greatly over the many centuries and many peoples who used them, usually landing around 12-24.
There is a version of the Futhark used by modern pagans called the 'Elder Futhark' with 24 letters. The Elder Futhark is based in historical reality and can be found on historical artifacts, though it was not the only valid version of the alphabet. We know from historical poems, lists, and texts that the letters of the Futhark, just like the Tengwar, had names and strong associations with concepts and images. These concepts were used in acts of magic in which the letters, standing in for their associated concepts, were incribed, cast, drawn, and used to dictate power, on their own or in the form of full words.
Because of their historical association with magic, modern pagans also love them for rituals, spells, and fortune-telling. I have worked with Futhark runes for both fortune-telling and protective spellwork for many years, so when I realized how strong the similarities between Futhark and Tengwar were, I intially resisted and then gave in to the urge to make a fortune-telling system for Tengwar grounded in the imagery and history of Arda but pulling from my experience with Futhark, Tarot, and other fortune-telling systems (wax telling, bird-reading, ect.).
This is Not a Coincidence
Tolkien, the man, with a mythologist and a linguist. He pulls from the finnish Kalavala, from the norse Prose Edda, from the german Niebelungenlied in his written works. He even retranslated/rewrote the Niebelungen crossover sections of the Prose Edda as his highly musical and readable Sigurd and Gudrun. The story of Turin Turambar, whose name coincidentally has a purposefully meaningful tengwa in it ('umbar', fate) was influenced by the same legend.
Appreciation for germanic and icelandic lore does not prove Tolkien knew his Futhark, but the fact that he put Futhark directly into Arda sure does. The dwarven language Khuzdul uses letters that simply are Futhark runes. He changed which sounds map to which letters for many of them, but those are Futhark.
These similarites are not incidentaly—here's a letter Tolkien wrote to a fan in which he discusses 'historical' runes and how he used them for the runes (Khuzdul) in the Hobbit. Tolkien knew and studied more languages than old Norse and there are many inspirations in Tengwar and Quenya, which is famously more influenced by Welsh and by Finnish). But meaningfully named letters do not, to my knowledge, exist in Welsh or in Finnish, and the background fact that all magic in Arda is made by song or speech maps pretty closely to the spoken, language-based magic of the norse sagas. Feanaro's crafting of the magic runes can be tied into the legend of Wayland/Volundr—no, let me not go too far afield.
Tolkien didn't intend his Tengwar to be used for telling fortunes. Heavens, no. But it's not a coincidence that they feel so alike to a historically magic alphabet that he loved so much that he also put it right into his fictional universe as another one of his alphabets.
Interpretations
I will provide first a standard/mean interpretation of the letter in divination, then provide which aspects from the legandarium I used to interpret the letter's name, and then, for funsies, ruminate on any similarities to other runes/cards/what have you that inspired me in interpreting that letter. To be clear, while the names of the tengwar are Tolkien's, the interpretations are my own.
Tinco / Parma / Calma / Quesse / Ando / Umbar / Anga / Ungwe / Sule / Formen / Aha / Hwesta / Anto / Ampa / Anca / Unque / Numen / Malta / Ñoldo / Nwalme / Ore / Vala / Anna / Vilya / Romen / Arda / Lambe / Alda / Silme / Esse / Hyarmen / Yanta / Ure / Osse
Tinco
In Divination: What happens next is up to you. The future is raw, you may shape it as you will.
In Tolkien: Tinco simply means metal, any kind. The elves of Tolkien value smithcraft, the making of both practical and art objects out of metal, and much of the early Silmarillion focused on the culture-moments of the newly-created elves becoming civilizations, learning crafts, language, art, skills, governance and war. Many Noldor (and the Tengwar have a noldorin bias) in particular are smiths; as are dwarves, of course, though the invention of the Tengwar pre-dates the two species meeting each other. (That said, I wouldn't fault anyone who chose to associate this tengwa with dwarves, their skill, their prowess in building/maintaining, and their steadiness instead.)
Being a smith, at least a good one, often makes one something of a magician in Tolkien—the sword reforged is a prophetic part of the return of the king and it takes a special smith to reforge it; Celebrimbor in crafting the magic rings weaves powers and fate that would warp history Ages after his death; Eol in his creation of speaking, thinking galvorn makes a form of life. Think of metal here almost as a quintessence, a limitless substanc that can be used to make physical or metaphysical objects, the star-stuff of making both matter and magic.
If you wonder why I don't mention the silmarils here, that would be because, though made by a smith, they were not made out of metal.
Elsewhere: Tinco is the first of many obvious 'fire' tengwar, to be associated with elemental fire, the sword suite of tarot, or have martial (planet Mars) associations. Since it is 'metal', not any metal in particular, I would hold off on alchemical associations; since gold and iron also have associated tengwar I did not want to associate it with any particular kind of metal but instead with the act and medium of creation. Mythic smiths that likely influenced Tolkien in his depiction of them in his mythos are Volundr, the Sampo-forging Ilmarinen, and the dwarven-smiths of the Volsungensaga, also making swords and rings of fate.
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Parma
In Divination: You will come to a conclusion about your issue/question, but only after hard work, thought, and study. The truth will not come easily but the labor will be rewarding.
In Tolkien: Much of the early section of the Silmarillion is about ‘culture-making moments’, descriptions of the first time something was invented or done in a particular society. Tolkien takes the time to at least mention the origins of family groups, government, law, city-building, craft-making, and language-forming among elves. Oral culture forms and flourishes long before written culture, so Lambe below is the tengwa that symbolizes the magic and power of speech; Parma, book, carries connotations of invention and study instead. It suggests not the magic of the silver tongue but the hard-won expertise of the hard-working scholar.
Whether our own example is studious Rumil or Frodo writing down his knowledge and experiences over the course of years, this hard work looks to the future, preserving knowledge for generations, done not for the present but the future.
Elsewhere: Tolkien was a medievalist; sometimes his frame of reference for his cultures is further back than fans expect. Bilbo and Frodo’s incredibly culturally important book of memoirs and knowledge becomes a part of the Red Book of Westmarch. This book is based on the real-life Red Book of Hergest, a Welsh Medieval time of knowledge that gives us by itself about a quarter of all information and knowledge we have about Wales in this time.
To reflect the Knowledge/Wisdom split I’ve put between Parma and Lambe, Parma could be associated with knowledge or scholar deities like Thoth or Ogma or (even better) memory figures like Mnemosyne, but not with wisdom or inspiration deities like Brigid, Odhinn, or Athena, which are best seen elsewhere.
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Quesse
In Divination: The gentle encouragement of Quesse asks you to consider the tides, the greater pattern. Are you swimming with the current, or against it? Are you in harmony with others, with your partner, with your kin? Are you on the right side of history? If Quesse represents a single person, it is likely a romantic or life partner.
In Tolkien: One thing that is interesting about Quesse is that it’s not Quente, or Quette, or any number of qu- words that mean speech, story, word, ect. Perhaps because it comes so soon after Parma, or perhaps because it felt too muddled to name a letter ‘word’. In any case it is ‘Quesse’, feather.
There is much good bird-watching to be done in Tolkien’s works; nightingale Luthien Tinuviel, the white gulls that call on the shore, the swans of Alqualonde, Manwe and his Eagles. My initial instinct was to make Quesse a symbol of the eagles, of might, of forward motion, of quick solutions to problems. But there was another tengwa already easily associated with him, Sule, and there was another bird I thought could have easily been the one in mind when this tengwa was named Quesse (especially if it was named in Aman by a certain Noldo).
The feather in question, I think, is then the white feather of a swan, the white side of a swan-ship; Quesse is the tengwa for a Teler, for loyalty, partnership, and fidelity, for right action and trust in the natural order. As fate is pre-destined in Arda and it was a loving Deity who designed it, it is usually the right choice to follow the current and trust in the people and natural world around you. In this universe, better understanding of the tides of the world, better understanding of its past and history, usually leads a wise person to flow with those tides; sometimes, very rarely, inspires action against a surge in the wrong direction.
I like having Quesse be the swan’s feather instead of the eagle’s feather better; it does a little to balance the noldorin bias and to bring some water elements into a very fire and air-heavy set of symbols.
Elsewhere: As this is a symbol related to air no matter what, you can do any air-related correspondences to it (like the Wands Suite of Tarot or directional associations), but if you choose to follow the swan associations, you can do water/cups instead.
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Umbar
In Divination: End the reading. The Tengwar will not help you. You know what you know.
In Tolkien: In Francis Young's Twilight of the Godlings, a masterful work of nonfiction about the minor deities, supernatural beings, and non-human non-god figures of Britain, Young demonstrates that the French (and then English) words for 'fairies' and 'fey' especially came from Latin terms for fate, connecting later 'fey' creatures to the Parcae, the Norns, and other deific figures of mortality, doom, and inevitability. Tolkien aptly demonstrates that he understood these connections well when he uses the word 'fey' to describe characters drawn toward an ill fate because of their own choices, like heroes of Greek tragedy that frantically take every wrong turn out of the maze in their desperation to free themselves of it; Feanor, for example, has 'fey' laughter after making one terrible choice that leads to his doom and before making another; Turin, too, is 'fey' in this statement that makes this case better than I ever could in describing it:
Then at last Túrin knew that doom had overtaken him, and that he had slain Brandir unjustly; so that the words of Glaurung were fulfilled in him. And he laughed as one fey, crying: ‘This is a bitter jest indeed!’
Turin, much like Oedipus, strives to avoid the fate he knows/feels he has; he makes up new names for himself so that fate will not find him, and then, in a tragic moment of hope, names himself 'Turambar'; tur (victory) - umbar (fate), Victor over Fate; Master of Doom. Another character has, in some versions, 'Umbar' in his name; one of the twin sons of Feanor, Umbarto/Ambarto. His mother, struck by a vision after his birth, initially names him 'Umbarto', Fated One; disliking this, the father changes is to 'Ambarto', High/Lofty one. Here again the renaming does not trick fate, and Feanor's own fey decisions lead U/Ambarto to an earlier grave than the rest of his kin.
One becomes 'fey', a kind of mad, once entangled fully by fate; fate in the Silmarillion is almost always a result of an individual's choices and yet part of the ultimate fate of the world, designed from the start by Eru's score. This tangled, difficult juxtaposition is not one a cheerful reader of runes wants to be in. For this reason I designed Umbar in reading to be a 'hard stop'; when you see it, stop. Don't ask this question of the Tengwar again, at least, not without some time and serious thought.
Elsewhere: I included my connection of Umbar to 'fey' and the Parcae/Norns/other fate goddesses in the section above. I also relate it to the Furthark rune Perthro (P) which has the interesting distinction of being the rune we know the least about. Most of the sources that give us meanings for the runes do not list Perthro; the late Old English sources are vague, using symbols of luck and gambling. The 'luck' associations easily relate Perthro/luck to Umbar/fate, and I tend to personally use 'Perthro' to mean unknown/unknowable in readings to respect the fact that we actually know nothing about the oldest/classical uses of the rune, whatever they were. Making Umbar a draw that ends the reading as inspired by my own idiosyncratic use of Perthro as a non-answer, a sign that the runes won't help me here and I really shouldn't push them.
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Anga
In Divination: You are acting inflexible, harsh, or thoughtless. To be blunt: you are the one in the wrong.
In Tolkien: Not all metals are equal in Tolkien. Iron is typically associated with villains. Morgoth’s prison-fortress is Angamando/Angband, literally the ‘Iron Prison’, and the crown on his brow is the Iron Crown. Orcs use iron axes specifically to bit trees, the malice-filled black blades of Eol are named for and contain meteoric iron, Thurigwethil has claws of iron, and of all elf-homes only Formenos is described as being iron. ‘Steel’ is used neutrally, without the bitter bite iron has; good weapons or ornaments are often ‘bright’ or ‘silver’ or ‘shining’ without a specific metal being named.
I reluctantly observe an additional element of ‘barbarity’ in the association of iron with evil and especially orcs and monsters in the legendarium. Tolkien associates iron with less ‘civilized’ or ‘advanced’ cultures as it is an unblended metal and it takes more cultural advancements to turn it into steel rather than just working it raw. I decline to use this association in readings but must note that it is there.
Anga is not a baleful tengwa, but it is harsh; Anga bluntly informs you that you are in the wrong in this situation. Your opinion is uninformed, your actions are cruel, and you have got to temper yourself. But just like the nice, soft runes, Anga is helping you, and better than any ‘ambiguous’ tarot card that can be twisted into a compliment if you delude yourself hard enough. Take a deep breath, and then the plank from your own eye.
Elsewhere: I have associated Anga with Uruz, though it does not quite fit the reading, because of Uruz’s similar associations. Literally translated as ‘auroch’, Uruz comes with a multitude of images in rune-poems, not just the auroch itself but drizzling, cold rain, slag or scum, and cold iron. Uruz has a dreary, chill aspect associated with hard work, beasts of burden, waste, a parcel of images hard to link up with each other or the way (in my opinion) so many use it to mean forward motion or might. If it is might, it is a more baleful might, I think, than many want it to be.
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Ungwe
In Divination: You are bound, caught in indecision or statis. There is no easy way out. You can struggle fruitlessly or you can seek aid.
In Tolkien: There is no symbol here with a clearer connection to the legendarium. The monstrous spider Ungoliant (you see Ungwe in her name) came from nowhere, from the void, as an evil seemingly from outside of creation, a spirit from Eru’s plane of existence, not ours. She is the one who steals the light of the trees and had the power then to eat Morgoth himself if he hadn’t gotten away from her. Ungwe represents trials and entrapment that a mere mortal cannot escape on their own power. The defeat of her descendant, Shelob, suggests what routes one might turn to instead: assistance from friends and family, gifts, the advice or helping hands of compassion experts.
But stop trying to struggle alone.
Elsewhere: Like Anca below, the association of Ungwe with primordial monster-spiders can easily lead one to primordial chaos-monsters like Tiamat or Ekhidna. I note that I associate it with the Swords Suite of the tarot above; this is not an elemental association but a thematic association with some of the later cards in the suite, especially 8 and 9, which show bondage impossible to escape, despair, a self-woven web tightening around the reader. Incidentally, it is the sword that one must grasp to get out of the web, and in this cards we see how the struggler has made themself incapable of grasping the tools they have. While I have made Anca the monster’s rune, Ungwe, despite being clearly connected to monsters, I see as more connected to traps and tools; both the webs we weave and the tools and assistance we need to escape from them.
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Ampa
In Divination: Something you think is straight and plain is twisted. You may have badly misunderstood the situation, or it may have become more bent out of shape than you realize. You have both trouble ahead and work to do to fix this.
In Tolkien: Faced with the word ‘hook’ (or crook, or claw) and without anything obvious to apply it to, I decided to relate it to the concept of ‘marring’ in Arda and to make it a baleful rune.
In its first form, the world Arda was crafted according to the inherently harmonious design of deity Eru. But it was ‘marred’ by the work of his prodigal servant Melkor, who changed it to suit himself, an act of essential evil in this setting. Since Melkor changed it the entire world is sometimes referred to as ‘Arda Marred’, the world that is no longer its own ideal; Arda Marred is the only world its mortal inhabitants have ever known, though its deities remember a paradise that even they in their power cannot replicate.
Arda Marred seems to have its own roots. Evil acts spring from them, with their own DNA, evil actions with their own divine progenitors, working the world by their evil thoughts; in Arda all evil comes from a counter-melody against the harmony, a second landscape superimposed on the first. Marring is an unbroken chain of missteps coming from these earliest errors.
I have had a lot to say about Tolkien’s concept of evil and its origins in the past. I’m not going to rehash what I feel about it here. Suffice it to say Ampa is meat to symbolize evil as Arda knows it, a design altered from intention.
Elsewhere: Ampa does remind me of the rune Hagal/Hagalaz, which translates to ‘hail’ and usually means ‘trouble’ in a reading. We always say in Futhark reading ‘in tarot there are no bad cards—in Futhark, there are bad runes.’ Hagalaz is a bad rune, it always means trouble. My vision for Ampa is that it’s just always a bad tengwa to see.
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Anca
In Divination: The ‘Dragon’s Rune’ at its most straightforward warns you that a foe is acting against you. When more subtle it may ask you to examine what your supposed enemy is and whether you haven’t let your fear of them overwhelm the real danger. In either case, you should consider the possibility of a malicious actor (and how malicious they really are) more seriously than you have.
In Tolkien: Anca is a tengwar that is used quite well in the name of an existing character: Ancalagon, ‘biting-storm’. Since it comes in the name of the mightiest of dragons I fancifully titled it the ‘dragon’s rune.’ As Anca was created in Aman like the rest of the Tengwar it predates the existence of dragons, but I still prefer to imagine that it was connected to the image of monstrous, biting jaws before, referring to murky memories of monsters in the old continent, or perhaps to the jaws of the snakes associated with one of Feanaro’s own enemies; a younger brother who in actuality bore him no ill will.
Elsewhere: I really want this rune to hearken back to the Chaos Serpent, the primordial monster that the God of Civilization must defeat to establish the beginning of the world/culture and end the animal chaos of pre-humanity. Culture-making myths hold a special interest to me; the myth of beginning culture is likewise interesting, especially as it so often requires an enemy to defeat. To me Anca is Tiamat and Apep and Midgardsormr, but I know how far I’ve taken this from the word ‘jaws’. Then again, we don’t usually say ‘jaws’ about people or domesticated animals, we can ‘teeth’, ‘chin’, ‘mouth’; ‘jaws’ is for wild animals or monsters.
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Malta
In divination: This line of inquiry will eventually bear fruit, and a lot of it. Be excited but be mindful that you do not gorge yourself. (Or, if not asking a question: show gratitude by giving back.)
In Tolkien: As I noted in the section for Anca (iron) above, metals are not equal in Tolkien. Some have positive associations, some have negative; gold has both in equal measure.
On the one hand, it is gold-sickness that does in Thorin in the Hobbit; Ar-Pharazon is ‘the Golden’, and the one ring itself is of glittering, seducing gold, but the golden light of Laurelin and other golden glows are unequivocably good, as are golden hair, golden paint, golden architecture. Valinor is dressed in gold, the divine steed Naxar is shod with gold, gold features in Meduseld, the Golden Hall; both Hador and Glorfindel are heroes named for their golden hair.
The gleam of gold is an allure that must be managed. Gold as a metal tends to be ill more often than gold as a color or a light, and indeed in Quenya these words are distinguished from each other; laure and laurea are for golden color, cala for something shining with golden light, and malta, specifically, is golden metal. Gold hoarded (as the treasured of Nargothrond under Glaurung’s coils) is often a rotting ill, but moving gold—gifts given, shining light, glittering domes, flowing hair—is both beautiful and good. The rune being malta, not laure, begs the more negative associations, but I wanted its interpretation to contain the complexity of gold in Tolkien. Malte is a promise of riches; that comes with a warning that you must mind what you spend them on and be ready to give back.
Elsewhere: I relate Malta to the futhark rune Fehu, meaning ‘cattle’ or ‘, as for the early Norse a moving heard was the best possible indicator of wealth. Northern Europeans used golden bands to signify loyalty to a ‘bond’ lord, and that exchange emphasized the generosity of the lord: he was a good lord that shared his gold freely. Great gifts made good vassals, and the gifting was meant to be generous and continual. Malta, too, is a vein of the earth meant to flow, not be pinched or become a stagnant pool.
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Vala
In Divination: The way you understand the world will change enormously. Go forth boldly, but piously.
In Tolkien: There is a reason many fans hesitate to translate ‘Valar’ and leave it as is despite being willing to translate ‘Eldar’ into ‘elves’ and ‘Istari’ into ‘wizards’. Valar are Gods, in a way, but different enough from most real-world pantheons that translating Valar as Gods leads to some unrealistic expectations.
Arda was created by an almighty but removed creator, Eru; their Valar are their servants and are intended to be servants of mortals as well. Valar have domains that they manage, like Ulmo of sea and Varda of the sky, but few are conceived as ‘ruling’ those domains. Others really have jobs rather than domains, like mourning Nienna. The ones that seek power suffer for it. Even choices made by their leader and judge, Manwe of the Winds, cause as much trouble as good. When the Valar become wiser they remove themselves more and more from mortal lives, tend to the natural world, watch and assist when asked, but stop making decisions themselves. If you expect Valar to be Gods, you expect them to rule, enforce, punish; in this setting they are not intended to do that.
They do advise, counsel, and aid. In setting, I imagine that someone drawing the tengwa Vala might think of the Vala they are most connected to or which one to call on for aid, or even ruminate on the domain of a certain Vala in their reading. In my original version of this method I posited that Vala, in fortune-telling, might eventually become associated with Melkor in particular, ‘I Vala’, ‘The Vala’, in the places in which he rules. I think it would be best, however, to see this symbol and recognize by intuition which Vala it indicates; that is, assume whichever one comes to mind is correct. While ‘Valie’ is technically the feminine, I am confident ‘Vala’ here is meant to be the archaic gender-neutral masculine (that is, a word grammatically masculine but intended to be read as universal) and could refer to any of them. If you wanted to title your own V rune 'Valie' as an act of cool subversion I can only support this, I'm the one who insists on using they/them for Eru.
Elsewhere: For someone reading tengwar in our world, Vala can easily stand for your god if you’re religious. I am a polytheist, so I would likely decide which deity is indicated by context. If you’re not religious, I do not presume to tell you what this symbol would mean for you.
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Anna
In Divination: You may be offered a trade in the future, and you may have to think about what you’re willing to give up to get what you want. Or, perhaps, you might think about whether you should be willing to give more.
In Tolkien: ‘Anna’ is found in the names of two divine characters, Yavanna and Annatar. Yavanna, Valie of nature and agriculture, is strongly associated with the autumn. Her name means fruit-gift and the month of September is named after her in-universe (Yavannie, month of fruit-gifting). Annatar, however, is one of the personas of Sauron, a name he used in the Second Age as an alter ego/false personality. It translates to gift-lord, or Lord of Gifts. My vision for reading this tengwar is that it always contains two possibilities, both of receiving a gift or of giving something away. But the most balanced way to understand this tengwar in its totality is that of a symbol of exchange, both giving and receiving, and being prepared to give away in the hopes of receiving.
Elsewhere: I strongly associated Anna with the Futhark rune Gyfu/Gebo. It is the rune for the letter ‘g’ and its name means ‘gift’. It is shaped like an X, two arms exchanging, two streams crossing. The Hovamol, the sayings of Odhinn, stresses that one should return gifts with more gifts instead of leaving them unanswered, tells us that those who are generous live the best lives, and ruminates on Odhinn giving up his eye to receive inner sight. I have put some of Gyfu’s emphasis on giving to receive and returning gifts with gifts onto Anna, but considering Anna’s dual appearance in the generous gift of fruits from the earth and the double-edged, expectation-laden gifts of Annatar, I feel that this complicated emotional edge of Anna is not unearned.
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Ure
In Divination: Scrap it. It’s time to give up on something that isn’t working. Break it, melt it, remold it, and make something else.
In Tolkien: Most versions of the Tengwar start with Tinco, metal, and end with Ure, heat. Ure is overmuch heat; a room that is ure is hot, not warm. It features in the term ‘uruloce’, a fire-breathing dragon (specifically; that is, as opposed to dragons that do not breathe fire). This overheat I related to the heat of the forge.
I spoke about metalworking culture in my entry on Tinco; how fitting that it comes up again at the end with the very heat of that forge. Our work is thrust in again to be purified, changed, re-shaped; the process ends and begins once more, all things sacrificed to the future and whatever better shapes they may take then.
Elsewhere: I cannot help associating Ure with one of my favorite futhark runes, Kenaz. Kenaz is usually translated as ‘torch’, but its symbols in rune poems are varied. Torch, but also fever, ulcer, sickness, pyre. I see Kenaz as the pagan funeral pyre that medieval Christian governments so hated and tried to desperately to ban, both sacred and solemn; I see it as the burning fire of fever, brining pain but trance-like imagination inside the state of mental melting; I see it as the heat of ritual fire, hot as a forge, burning away the impurities not of metal but of the soul. Kenaz is the refining fire, equally painful as useful, stripping away the skin for rebirth.
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Osse
In Divination: The tengwar say that they’re not telling, and that’s what you get for asking.
In Tolkien: This ‘last’ rune is set apart from the others as it isn’t usually a proper part of the Tengwar. As a tengwa, it seems to have been considered and then discarded, removed from the alphabet before it could be given a phonetic association but not before it was named. Tolkien’s languages did not just change with time, they were meant to change with time; he wanted languages that felt alive, that shifted and remade themselves over the Ages of their use. Letters changed in pronunciation as they went from some people to next and some disappeared entirely. While feeling organic, this shifting over time and place also reflected reality, as Tolkien so loved constructing his languages that he freely changed their rules over time, reportedly disliking publishing them just because it meant whatever version he had published was then locked into permanence and couldn’t be altered again.
Osse’s half-association and changing position fits well with its namesake, Osse the Maia. Osse, like Sauron, became a thrall to Morgoth in the early days before the Trees. When his wife Uinen was sent by Aule to fetch him, Osse defected again and returned to the Valar, making him just about the only example we have of someone who went willing into the camp of the Enemy and then bounced back; certainly the only Ainu. Osse as a character is a massive outlier, an unusual example of someone fixing their shit up (with the help of loved ones) in a world where the wages of sin are almost always death.
The excellent turncoat is not a baleful rune. Osse chooses good in the end. It is, however, obviously shifty and untrustworthy. If you want to read Osse seriously as a tengwa, I would interpret it as ‘expect the unexpected’. I choose to read it as the Tengwar replying with a cheeky ‘wouldn’t you like to know’.
Elsewhere: I think of this as the Joker, or, in Tarot, the Fool; there’s just a mite of implied judgement on the reader. If your tarot deck calls you the Fool, you should consider rephrasing the question or else just using your own brain to think about it instead of asking oracle cards. At minimum, reshuffle and try again.
