Tines
Tines are small pieces of wood (usually, because of the ease of working with it), stone, paper, metal, bone, or whatever! These are fashioned into shapes that can then accept Runescripts, or Bindrunes. These can come in many shapes, but usually as below:
These can be used as guide to start you off to making your own shapes.
When using wood, certain types of woods have different properties. Below is provided a list timbers and their Magickal properties. The magickian should consider which timber is most appropriate to the use of the overall talisman before just jumping into making a tine.
What should be noted here, is that if you are going to go out into the wild and "take from a tree" its wood, you must honour it when you do. The following is an excerpt from A Practical Guide to the Runes, Peschel, L, Llewellyn Publications (1998), outlining the basic harvesting process for 'wild' timbers.
"The best times to harvest the wood are at dawn, twilight or high noon. Go to your chosen tree, stand quietly in front of it and compose your thoughts. Concentrate on your need and purpose of the tine you are about to make, then circle the tree nine times (nine being an extremely potent magickal number [i.e. 3, a number of strength, x 3]) while saying something like this:
Hail to thee, O Tree of Oak (or Ash, or whatever)!
I respectfully ask you for this branch.
Into it send thy energy
That it might aid me in my work
All for the good!
Repeat as many times as is necessary for you to make the nine rounds about the tree. Then proceed to cut off the branch you want. It is good at this time to visualize the runes that are to be carved upon it if you have decided on them. This is not necessary but is helpful in both infusing your subconscious as well as the living wood with the runic energies involved.
Once you have completed your harvesting, always remember to thank the spirit of the tree for its generosity and good energy."
It should also be noted at this point that the harvesting should be done in a way that will not harm the tree by leaving it open to disease etc. Killing what is giving you a source of Magickal power will certainly bring bad Karma to you and your work. I am sure that there are many gardening sites that will be able to assist you in your tree lopping! Also, some people like to bury a silver (or silver-coloured coin) at the base of the tree as payment. Just do whatever seems right and just to for the tree.
On top of wood choice, the magickian need also consider a sympathetic colour for the runes, a sympathetic moon phase, and a sympathetic day of the week. It should be noted here that near enough can be good enough, since the full and new moons do not last for an entire week. The basic idea however, should be adhered to, but you can take into account your intuition and "gut feeling" just as much. Remember, the pathway is internal, and you shouldn't take what other people say as gospel if it really doesn't feel right to you. Below are the tables of correspondences for colours, etc
The runes can be carved, etched or painted (on any other method of marking) onto the tines, although carving is the traditional method. A sharp knife or scalpel will produce good results on wood, although v-shaped carving tools can also be employed. To carve with a knife or scalpel, simply cut the line of the rune into the wood, ensuring not to go too deeply into the wood. After this is done, cut small horizontal lines at the end points. Next, carve slivers of wood at 45 degree angles along the first lines. These will then pop out quite easily, leaving you with a finished rune. This carving method is done as below:
Once you have carved the runes, it is a good idea to sand off all of the rough edges. This will make it a lot easier on your hands when you read, and will essentially make the life of your runes that little bit longer.
The actual rune symbols can then be painted or dyed into the carving areas to further highlight them. Red is traditionally the colour which people paint the rune symbols, although blue (the colour sacred to Odin) is a suitable substitute. Most of my sources do not suggest sealants or lacquers that hold the rune and tree powers inside, out of your reach.
The size of each rune should be uniform, and the reverse should have no distinguishing marks. This is done so that when the runes are turned over, no rune can be chosen to give a result. Each one must be chosen by intuition alone. The only decoration that should be put on the reverse side of the runes is a simple north-south axis, so that when the runes are turned over, the reader doesn't need decide whether the rune is more than 50% upright or 50% upside-down.
Once you have made the runes, it may be an idea to take a few moments to pray to your own significant gods, or you may wish to accept Odin and Freya, as they were the traditional patrons of the runes. This should be simply a blessing of the runes themselves, and a blessing for the work that they shall do in their life. Then they can be kept in a small natural-fibre such as cotton, linen, fur or leather.