Hey - my mum has some old necklaces of these one and I was wondering if they were real symbols and, if so, what are they? Thanks :) (can be found at (/a/vt3C0 and /a/3O52A on imgur)
After 2 decades (the 1970s and 80s) of interest and writing on the subjects of heathenry and runology, including Asatru, Odinism and the Troth, Steven Flowers wrote his first book “The Galdrabók” that brought Galdrastafir to his many fans. While a lot of the stave content was based on fact, much of the rest was heavily biased in heathenry and the staves he wrote about and showed were in several cases flawed or contained translation errors.
By 1992 he had changed his name to Edred Thorsson and began dabbling in creating his own staves, which he shows and discusses in detail in Chapter 8 of his book “Northern Magic ”. It has an even mix of his own and pre-existing staves. The pre-existing ones he duplicated from his earlier book, which in turn have their origins in the Huld Manuscript (which you can easily look up my translation of).
The two you refer to have been recopied from his book as follows:
(To paraphrase) Helm of Awe - to enhance powers when casting other magic
(To paraphrase) a bind-rune for great personal power or life force.
These and most of the others you can see graphically recreated by Tisha Ardis on https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/vector-set-ancient-runes-iceland-galdrastafir-497113015
So, to answer your question, yes, they are real. They do compare favourably with the traditional Galdrastafir of Iceland circa 1600 - 1700 AD. However, they were created in the modern heathen revival period of the late 20th century, by what I can only describe as a polarising and controversial practitioner.
