The Rownish stavesets (runes in English) are the old stave tokens that were brooked by the Theedish folk for writing and other things. The Shedenish sunderings are known as Fuþark and the Old English sundering as Fuþorc, both spellings being the first six staves of each staveset.
Brook of the rowns is witnessed from about 150 YL until about 700 YL in middle Broadland and until about 1100 YL in Shedeny when the staveset was mostly oversteaded by the Latin staveset with the spread of Christendom. The brooking of rowns went on in Shedeny, longest in outborough Sweden until the early 20th hundredyear, mostly for decking and rownish timetales.
The three best-known rownish stavesets are the Elder Fuþark (150 to 800 YL), the Old English Fuþorc (400 to 1100 YL) and the Younger Fuþark (800 to 1100 YL). The Younger Fuþark is further sundered into the long-branch rowns, short-twig (or Rök) rowns, and the staveless (or Hälsinge) rowns. Younger Fuþark grew further into the so-called Markmanish rowns, the Middletidish rowns (1100 to 1500 YL) and the Dalish rowns (about 1500 to 1800 YL).
The headspring of the rownish staveset is yet unsettled. Many staves of the Elder Fuþark look akin to staves from the Latin staveset. Other likelihoods are the Northern Italish stavesets of Lepontish, Rhaetish and Venetish from the 5th to 1st hundredyear BC, all of which are nigh akin to each other and brook stavesets borne after the Old Italish staveset.
Background
The rowns were made known to the Thedish folk in the 1st or 2th hundredyear. The oldest known rownish carving is believed to come from about 150 and is found on a comb found in the bog of Vimose in Fyn, Denmark. The carving reads harja. Another hopeful for oldest carving is on the Meldorf bow-pin in southern Yootland. This timeframe may be within the late Ortheedish rung, when the ongoing whole of its by-leids may not yet have become the three arms of years to come: North Theedish, West Theedish and East Theedish.
In known rownish writings, short selflouds and long selflouds are written the same, although they were not spoken as such. Likewise, there were no written pursed withlouds in the Elder Fuþark; such tokens were put in to the Old English Fuþorc and the Gottish staveset as sunderings of Peorð.
The name given to the tokens is witnessed on a 6th hundredyear Allmanish rownstaff as runa, and maybe as runo on the 4th hundreadyear Einang stone. The name is from the root run- (Gottish runa), meaning "hidden from or untold to outsiders" or "whisper". In Finnish, the loanword runo means "leeth".