Mannaz is the Rune of humanity.
Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem
Man byþ on myrgþe his magan leof:
sceal þeah anra gehwylc oðrum swican,
forðum drihten wyle dome sine
þæt earme flæsc eorþan betæcan.
Man is in his mirth dear to his kinsman;
although each shall depart from the other;
for the lord wants to commit, by his decree,
that frail flesh to the earth.
Norwegian Rune Poem
Maðr er moldar auki;
mikil er græip á hauki.
Man is the increase of dust;
mighty is the talon-span of the hawk.
Icelandic Rune Poem
Maðr er manns gaman
ok moldar auki
ok skipa skreytir.
Man is the joy of man
and the increase of dust,
and the adornment of ships.
Homo sapiens is a curious species. Most of the traits that we thought made us unique, like using tools or abstract problem solving, have been proven to not to be as unique as we would like to believe. Chimpanzees use are quite capable of performing both of these feats and surprisingly some species of corvids even surpass them. But humans have taken many things that exist in the animal kingdom to the next level. We have developed a language that doesn’t just allow us to communicate content necessary for our immediate survival but to use and convey abstract concepts. No form of animal communication is as precise and diverse. We even have the ability to teach someone valuable skills not by showing them but by talking about it. In order to preserve knowledge we invented scripture so things could be passed on to future generations.
This shows one special trait of humanity that is mentioned in the Icelandic Rune Poem, our capacity for innovation. Another trait the poems talk about is our extreme need for social interaction. There are other mammals that live in small societies but none are as social as we are. The size of the societies we’ve built over time has no parallel in the animal world and even dwarves communities of insects that live in large groups like ants, termites or bees.
The third thing that the poems talk about is the fact that we all have to die no matter how social or innovative we might be. This actually applies to all living organisms (except for protozoans and some bacteria), but what sets us apart in that regard is that we are very aware of the fact even though most people act as if they were immortal.
So Mannaz is not often used in practical magic but mostly in the quest for Self-transformation. It is a Rune that can help us to connect with our human nature. It can help us to understand who we are, where we’re coming from and where we belong. It allows us to re-discover the very social nature that lies at the core of our being and help us to face the inevitability of our own death. Much of the destructive behavior our species has displayed over the course of recorded history actually stems from our alienation from the concept embodied by Mannaz as we’ve isolated it from the rune row, tried to remove ourselves from the natural world and the circle of life, raising Mannaz above everything and everyone else.