A closer look
Vikings definitely carved runes into stones for writing, but they weren't using them like a Magic 8-Ball. The modern practice of pulling a rune from a velvet bag to predict your future was almost entirely fabricated in 1982 by a man named Ralph Blum. He published 'The Book of Runes,' taking heavy liberties by arbitrarily assigning mystical meanings to the ancient alphabet and inventing the 'blank rune' simply because his manufacturer accidentally included a blank stone in his set. Odin weeps at the commercial success.
