Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Pagan Tama

Home
Pagan
Divination Rune Cookies for Yule

Divination Rune Cookies for Yule

Last updated on: December 14, 2016 at 12:36 am by Megan Manson

Divination Rune Cookies for Yule 2016-12-14T00:36:18+00:00 Megan Manson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I’m the only Pagan in my family, but I like to try and inject a little dash of Paganism into our Christmas celebrations. One of my favourite Pagan activities for Christmas that my whole family enjoys is making “Christmas rune cookies.”

Very simply, I’ll make some Christmas cookies with different runes cut into them. My favourite recipe is this Samhain soul cake recipe, but using raw cane sugar for a more “Christmassy” taste. Serve them with mulled wine, cider or Buck’s Fizz for a real Christmas feel!

Make sure you have a chart of the runes’ meanings handy; you can find plenty of rune charts online or in books. Then offer each person a cookie. They can either pick one that they just like the look of, or you can put them all in pouch so guests can’t see which one they are drawing. Your guests can then look up the rune on the cookie on the chart. The meaning of the rune will reflect what they can expect for the next year. If they like the rune that they’ve drawn, they should eat it. If they don’t like it, they should offer it to someone who would prefer that rune, cast it into fire, or put it outside for animals to eat.

When we first tried this two years ago, my husband drew a cookie with a Peorth/Hearth rune on it. We were looking to buy a house at the time so a rune meaning “Hearth” seemed like a very good omen. Sure enough, in the following year we succeeded in buying our first house. On the other hand, my sister who had recently given birth to her second son picked out the Inguz rune, which apparently can mean “fertility.”She refused to eat it as she’s quite happy with two children!

Of course, feel free to come up with your own variations. You might prefer to ice the rune designs on, or to cut the cookies in more interesting shapes. Or you can use your own divinatory symbols. Whether you decide to offer these rune cookies in a more ceremonial style among Pagan friends, or just treat them as a bit of fun with non-Pagan friends and family, it is an enjoyable activity that generally goes down well.

Christmas and New Year Divination

I don’t think fortune-telling activities like this are usually associated with Yule or Christmas. I think Pagans would associate divination with Samhain. This makes sense. Samhain is the time when the veil between this world and the spirit world is at its thinnest and therefore allows us to receive messages from the Otherworld more clearly. Moreover, Samhain is the Celtic New Year and people often want some kind of guide as to what the New Year has in store for them, so divination becomes particularly attractive. However, it should be remembered that there’s a considerable historical overlap between Halloween and Christmas traditions. Ghost stories, candles, candied fruit, costume parties and magic of all kinds have been associated with both festivals over the years. Perhaps because Christmas is more associated with the coming New Year than Halloween these days, some of the associations with Halloween and Christmas have become a little blurred.

Visitors tie up their o-mikuji fortunes at Kasuga Shrine in Japan. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Divination is very much a part of Shōgatsu, Japanese New Year. This festival, which is now celebrated on January 1st just like New Year in the West, is the most important in the Shinto calendar. People take any dreams they have on the night of Shōgatsu very seriously as they are said to foretell the year ahead. I remember one Japanese friend telling me that she was delighted to have dreamt of Mt. Fuji on the night of one Shōgatsu, which is possibly the best omen one can have. Another popular activity that people may do while visiting a shrine at New Year is o-mikuji – a kind of fortune telling “raffle” where the participant receives a slip of paper that tells them how lucky they will be in the future. Some o-mikuji include slips of paper foretelling bad omens. If one draws a bad omen, they should tie it to a pine tree so that the tree traps the negative energy.

Some Japanese academics have suggested that the “fortune cookies” so popular in Western Chinese restaurants may actually originate from the o-mikuji tradition of Japan. If that’s the case, making rune cookies, or any other edible form of fortune-telling, is tapping into the spirit of Shinto new year traditions as well!

Art, Craft & Expression

Ritual & Festivals

Shinto & Japanese Religion

Previous Post

December 10, 2016

Shinto In Britain: Stories from UK Shintoists

Next Post

December 17, 2016 A Green Tip For Christmas Cards

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art, Craft & Expression Musings & Miscellaneous Nature & Science News & Reviews Ritual & Festivals Secularism, Politics & Human Rights Shinto & Japanese Religion Uncategorized

Select a Month August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: In Mark, Jesus healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, which angered the Pharisees.

Select your answer to see how you score.

TRUE FALSE