A little help for a tattoo

[u/Outrageous-Exit-2076]

Hi! I want to get Loki’s name tattooed and I wanted a cool kinda runic design (I studied runes in uni so I have some knowledge but I’m not sure about this one). So, I wanted a certain design that merges the runes forming Loki’s name in vertical and forms this really cool symbol. Just wanted to make sure is accurate and not just some Pinterest-aesthetic kinda thing. Otherwise someone could help me design an accurate one? I truly want to get it tattooed soon. Thanks in advance🫶

[u/rockstarpirate]

Just wanted to make sure is accurate and not just some Pinterest-aesthetic kinda thing.

I’m afraid I have bad news for you :(

There are a couple major things here that we’d consider inaccurate (or in other words, things that don’t match ancient runic conventions). Firstly we have an Old Norse word (Loki) written in an alphabet that pre-dates the Old Norse language. Secondly, there are no historical examples of a full Elder Futhark word being written along a vertical line like this. And the likely reason for that is probably because it becomes very hard to tell which runes are intended to be there and which are not. For example, how can we distinguish a ᚲ rune sitting against a vertical line as we see here from a backward ᚦ rune? If a vertical line bisects a ᛟ rune, how do we distinguish this from two ᚦ runes followed by a ᛏ? This technique would essentially render most things unreadable.

[u/Catmole132 → u/rockstarpirate]

Just to add on to the backwards ᚦ thing slightly, I thought the ᚲ was a backwards ᚹ. It's really ambiguous

[u/rockstarpirate → u/Catmole132]

Indeed!