How To Create Ancient Runes Class - Hogwarts Dinner Event

Last updated on 25 September 2021

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Welcome to the Ancient Runes edition of the Ultimate Hogwarts Dinner Event series!

Recently I was part of a team that turned our church into Hogwarts for a youth event. We decked out the entire building in Harry Potter magic, and for 2 hours the kids were students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In this series I’m sharing how we set up each classroom, and the activities we held in them. Be sure to check out the rest of the series by clicking the links at the end of this post.

“I mistranslated ehwaz… It means partnership, not defence; I mixed it up with eihwaz.” – Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

The set-up for the Ancient Runes class at our epic Hogwarts Dinner night was both simple and complicated. It involved translating, cutting out large polystyrene shapes, and painting on runes. While I wasn’t part of the creating of the activity, I did watch them do it, and I have to say they did a great job. It looked amazing.

Ancient Runes Decor

The cross in the background is permanently set up at the church, but we used a large table to place a blackboard and a polystyrene instructional piece on, which had the codes they needed to complete the activity. I wrote up the quote that they had to figure out so it could be displayed upright on the table.

For more decor ideas, check out Pinterest, or print out a heap of Ancient Rune symbols and pop them on the walls. Using old-timey pieces of furniture also works well, to create that historic, ancient sort of feel to the room.

Apologies for the photo – cell phone pics in a dark church don’t do any favours.

Ancient Rooms Activity

The aim of the activity was to take the phrase “it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live” and translate it into runes, rather than the other way around. The kids were given the runes, and the code for cracking each letter. They then had to move around large pieces of polystyrene shapes and cubes to fit the bits together like a puzzle, to make the quote.

The students passed the OWL if they translated it correctly, and failed if they got it wrong or gave up.

And that was Ancient Runes class! The hardest thing for this class would be making the runes shapes. We already had the polystyrene lying about from a You could make it easier on yourself and create a giant puzzle out of cardboard with the runes painted or drawn (or printed!) on. Another idea would be to re-purpuse an old Dominos set – on the black side, paint white runes on so they can be easily shuffle around. Check out your local second-hand shop.

Check out the rest of the series:

Massive shout out to our fearless leader in this epic endeavour, and the fantastic team who put it all together. I helped where I could, but it’s you guys who made the whole night come together!