Runes on Screen ‘The Last Kingdom’ and ‘The Green Knight’

Abstract

Runes and rune-like characters have been part of the fantasy genre ever since John R. R. Tolkien integrated historical Old English runes and invented runic characters in his fictional universe. In popular culture, runes have come to be almost exclusively associated with medieval Scandinavia; however, this paper draws attention to the use of runes in two recent pieces of televisual media that are inspired by medieval Britain: ‘The Last Kingdom’ (2015–2022) and ‘The Green Knight’ (2021). It will show that, in contrast to Tolkien, who claimed that his runes had no connection to historical writing systems, the makers of ‘The Last Kingdom’ and ‘The Green Knight’ reclaim the historicity of the runic script for different purposes.