Amazon.com description: Product Description: From the beginnings of the scientific study of runes, questions concerning their magical nature have been raised. In this book Stephen Flowers puts this question in the context of current theories of magic for the first time. He approaches problems of runes and their connection to magical thinking from a structural standpoint based on linguistic models of communication. Certain formulas are isolated and analysed as to the possible ways in which they could be considered «magical» within the context of general conceptions of magic in archaic Germanic culture. Flowers'analysis of the runic evidence from the perspective of current theories of magic and the history of writing systems brings us a good measure closer to a comprehensive answer to the riddle of the runes.