The different systems of runes, all accordant up to a certain point, have been classed as the Anglo-Saxon, the German, and the Norse, each containing different subordinate varieties. The Norse alphabet is generally considered the oldest, and the parent of the rest. It has sixteen letters corresponding to our _f_, _u_, _th_, _o_, _r_, _k_, _h_, _n_, _i_, _a_, _s_, _t_, _b_, _l_, _m_, _y_, but has no equivalent for various sounds which exist in the language, in consequence of which the sound of _k_ was used for _g_, _d_ for _t_, _b_ for _p_, and _u_ and _y_ for _v_: _o_ was expressed by _au_, and _e_, by _ai_, _i_, or _ia_; and the same letter otherwise was made to serve for more than one sound. Other expedients came, in the course of time, to be employed to obviate the deficiency of the system,—as the addition of dots, and the adoption of new characters. But the runic system received a fuller development among the Germans and Anglo-Saxons, particularly the latter, whose alphabet was extended to no fewer than forty characters, in which seem to have been embraced, more nearly than in any modern alphabets, the actual sounds of a language. The table on the following page exhibits the best known forms of the Anglo-Saxon, German, and Norse runic alphabets, with the names and the power of the several letters. [Illustration] The Anglo-Saxon runes, as here given, are derived from a variety of MS. authorities, the most complete containing forty characters, while some only extend as far as the twenty-fifth or twenty-eighth letter. Neither the name nor the power of some of the later letters is thoroughly known, and they are without any equivalents in the Norse runic system. The German runes are given from a MS. in the conventual library of St. Gall, in Switzerland. Though the various runic alphabets are not alike copious, the same order of succession among the letters is preserved, excepting that, in the Norse alphabet, _laugr_ precedes _madr_, although we have placed them otherwise, with the view of exhibiting the correspondence of the three systems. The number of characters in the Anglo-Saxon alphabet is a multiple of the sacred number eight; and we have the evidence both of a Swedish bracteate containing twenty-four characters, and of the above mentioned St. Gall MS., that there was a recognized division of the alphabet into classes of eight letters,—a classification which forms the basis of a system of secret runes, mentioned in that MS. Of these secret runes, there are several varieties specified: in particular, 1. _Iis-runa_ and _Lago-runa_ (of which specimens exist in Scandinavia), consisting of groups of repetitions of the character _iis_ or _lago_, some shorter and some longer, the number of shorter characters in each group denoting the class to which the letter intended to be indicated belonged; the number of longer ones, its position in the class. 2. _Hahal-runa_, where the letters are indicated by characters