THE creation and employment of amulets bearing runic inscriptions was both an ancient and longstanding tradition. The earliest examples are often the earliest inscriptions in runes that have survived and the most recent are often contemporary with the decline in use of the Old Germanic alphabet in each of the descendent runic traditions. Rune-inscribed amulets are found in England, Frisia, and East and Central Europe, as well as in most of the reaches of the Viking world: from Greenland and Ireland to Denmark and Sweden. It is also evident that the different traditions share a common inheritance in terms of some fundamental aspects of amuletic practice, but notable regional developments clearly occur too. The runic amulet tradition was far from static; instead in some respects it proved rather lively, a feature especially evident in mainland Scandinavia, though this is, of course, the region from where most evidence for the use of runes hails. From the laconic five-part formula to the manuscript-influenced charms of the later Middle Ages, considerable development and variation is a notable feature of talismanic runic texts.

The early amulet legends of the five-part type when taken in the light of votive and otherwise divine aid-invoking runic texts seem to indicate that the first inscribed Germanic amulets developed mostly as an extension of cultic tradition. Comparison of likely models in terms of formulaic types and context suggest a crucial influence from early North Italian and Alpine votive practice is to be recognised in the first Germanic amulet inscriptions.