ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book explores how the runic imagery in the Old English poems Daniel, Beowulf and Andreas consistently associates the script with prophetic messages that both foreshadow the destruction of pre-Christian peoples and anticipate their conversion. It looks at a group of Old English poems in which runic symbolism is indeed co-opted in the present, focusing on the runic strategies employed within the late tenth-century Exeter Book. The book considers the 'ornamental textuality' of the runic script in three contexts in which the visual alterity and materiality of the script appears to have played a key role in the conceit of the poem and its expression on the manuscript page. It examines the role of runes within the mythological poems of the Poetic Edda and the role of writing within the wider mythic complex.
