I don't know about the website, but the mystical side of the runes is very old. In fact, the story about how the runes came to be is that Oden hung over the Well of Mimer (Mimer was a giant well versed in magic) for nine days and nine nights. In the end, he lost one of his eyes, but received the runes instead. The runes describe the world, so the world can be altered through the runes (the idea goes). Each rune describes an aspect of the world, like the Is-rune being both the sound "i"/"ee" and the concept of "ice".

I may have the details wrong. I read about it in school after all. I love the story though: http://norse-mythology.org/tales/odins-discovery-of-the-rune...

Edit: like I wrote above, this is the STORY, ie the cultural myth about how they came to be. The STORY shows how they were THOUGHT OF as more than a practical language.

no, that is most definitely not how 'runes came to be'. as others have pointed out in this thread: there are practical, not mystical, reasons why runes used to be a thing and it's got nothing to do with giants...

You didn't quite aprehend what he said.

Poe's Law strikes again.

Only someone willing to experiment would be able to know.

It seems rather unlikely that if people were selling books of magic on the internet which actually worked we wouldn't know about it. People would talk about it, and they'd have the results to back up their talk when other people called them nuts.