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The Rök Runestone features 'tent runes' in its uppermost row. Centered in the bottom row is a hook rune.

Cipher runes are the cryptographical replacement of the letters of the runic alphabet.

They were intentionally challenging to interprete. Even the Icelandic scholar and chieftain Snorri Sturluson once failed to read cipher runes and because of this he lost his life.^[1] He had been sent a message in cipher runes (of a kind called stafkarla-letr) which warned him that evil and murderous men were on their way to his house, but failing to read the runes he was murdered.^[1]

The knowledge of cipher runes was best preserved in Iceland, and during the 17th and the 18th centuries, Icelandic scholars produced several treatises on the subject.^[2] The most notable of these is the manuscript Runologia by Jón Ólafsson (1705-1779), which he wrote in Copenhagen (1732-1752).^[2] It thoroughly treats numerous cipher runes and runic ciphers, and it is nowadays preserved in the Arnamagnæan Collection in Copenhagen.^[2]

Jón Ólafsson's treatise presents the Younger Futhark in the Viking Age order which means that the m-rune precedes the l-rune.^[2] This small detail was of paramount importance for the interpretation of Viking Age cipher runes because in the 13th century the two runes had changed places through the influence of the Latin alphabet where l precedes m.^[2] Since the medieval runic calendar used the post-13th century order, the early runologists of the 17th and the 18th centuries believed that the l-m order was the original one, and the order of the runes is of vital importance for the interpretation of cipher runes.^[2]

In the runic alphabet, the runes have their special order and are divided into groups. In the Younger Futhark, which has 16 letters, they are divided into three groups.^[3] The Icelandic tradition calls the first group (f, u, þ, ã, r and k) "Freyr's ætt", the second group (h, n, i and a) "Hagal's ætt" and the third group (t, b, m, l and R) Tyr's ætt".^[3] However, in order to make the inscription even harder to decipher, Freyr's ætt and Tyr's ætt change places so that group one is group three and vice versa.^[3] There are numerous forms of cipher runes, but they are all based on the principle of giving the number of the ætt and the number of the rune within the ætt.^[3]

The tent runes are based on strokes added to the four arms of an X shape: Each X represents two runes and is read clockwise, the strokes on the first arm representing the aett (row of eight runes), the strokes on the second arm the number within that aett.

The branch runes are similar, the strokes being attached to a vertical stem and branching upwards. Strokes on the left indicate the aett, and strokes on the right the number within the aett.

There are variants of these two schemes, such as inverting the numbers (counting backwards the aetts, and the runes within the aetts). Tree runes and hook runes are like branch runes, with the strokes pointing downward diagonally and curving downward, respectively.

There are several runestones using such devices of obscuring the inscription, especially found on Orkney.

A comparable system of letter modification is that of the Ogham "scales" recorded in the Ogam Tract.

• Enoksen, Lars Magnar. (1998). Runor : historia, tydning, tolkning. Historiska Media, Falun. ISBN 91-88930-32-7

• bind rune