Rune Cards are a nice way to bring the medium of rune divination to those who are more acquainted with the use of cards.  That said, if any artist was going to tackle the concept of a rune deck, and make it look good, that would have to be Hermann Haindl.  His vision is dark, but his artwork has a strong ethereal feeling to it which works incredibly well for the runic concept.

There are 25 cards in the deck, with off-white backgrounds and a hexagonal area in the center which contains the painting of the rune.  In the four corners of the cards are the traditional rendering of the rune, the phonetic spelling of the rune, the number of the rune, and the letter of the alphabet to which it corresponds.  The paintings of the runes themselves are representational, portraying scenes from life with various items (trees, rocks, et al) in the shape of the rune symbol.

The cards are slightly shorter than standard but have a comfortable feel in the hands.  Shuffling a smaller pack of cards takes some getting used to, but they break in well enough.  Early stiffness isn't a problem for long.  There is a little booklet which comes with the deck, that gives fairly good little descriptions of each rune card and its meaning.  The book which has been written to go with the deck would probably go into far greater depth.

For someone who wishes to learn the runes, but is attached to the use of cards, a rune deck can be a very helpful and insightful oracle.  Also, I believe it helps in putting the meaning of the rune into context, since the paintings often portray the contextual meaning in symbolism.  This deck accomplishes all of this, and retains a sense of artistic beauty as well.  I highly recommend it for rune students, as well as collectors.

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also by Hermann Haindl:
The Haindl Tarot

Review Copyright 1998 by Gina M. Pace