EN (English)
Runic scripts
Anglo-Saxon Futhorc
The runes of England and Frisia. Faced with a language acquiring new sounds, the Anglo-Saxons did the opposite of the Scandinavians and added letters, taking the row from twenty-four to twenty-six, then twenty-eight, and eventually past thirty. It is also the script that preserved the rune names, which is why almost every meaning on this site comes through here.
- 29
- runes in the poem
- 28
- in settled epigraphic use
- 33
- counting the manuscript letters
The row
The twenty-nine runes of the Old English Rune Poem in its order, followed by the later letters found in Northumbrian inscriptions and manuscript alphabets.
Freyr's ætt
1–8The inherited first eight, intact in shape though not in sound: the fourth letter has become o, which is what makes this a futhorc rather than a futhark.
ᚠ
1
Feoh
f /f/, /v/
wealth, cattle
Unchanged from Fehu. Old English feoh means both cattle and property outright, and gives modern English fee.
ᚢ
2
Ur
u /u/
the aurochs
England kept the animal where Scandinavia lost it. Its stanza is the only one of the three traditions still describing an ox.
ᚦ
3
Þorn
þ /θ/, /ð/
thorn
Renamed from the Germanic giant to a plant. This letter escaped the script: it was kept as þ in Latin-alphabet Old English and survived in print until continental type forced a y in its place.
ᚩ
4
Os
o /o/
mouth; a god
The rune that turns futhark into futhorc. Old English shifted the fourth letter from a to o, and the poem glosses the name as Latin os, a mouth, rather than as the god Ansuz.
ᚱ
5
Rad
r /r/
riding, a journey
Unchanged. Old English rad gives both road and raid, which began as one word: a ride, and a ride made against someone.
ᚳ
6
Cen
c /k/, /tʃ/
torch
Elder Futhark Kenaz with a stave added on the left. England alone reads it as a torch; the Scandinavian poems both call the same rune an ulcer.
ᚷ
7
Gyfu
g /ɡ/, /j/, /ɣ/
gift
Kept, where the Younger Futhark dropped it. Old English gyfu gives modern gift, and its stanza ends on what the gift means to an exile.
ᚹ
8
Wynn
w /w/
joy
Also kept, and also an escapee: wynn was used as ƿ for the w-sound in Latin-alphabet Old English until Norman scribes replaced it with a doubled u.
Hægl's ætt
9–16The inherited second eight, complete. England kept Eoh and Peorð where Scandinavia dropped both, which is why the Old English poem is the only surviving witness for several runes.
ᚻ
9
Hægl
h /h/, /x/
hail
England used the diagonal-bar form throughout. Old English hægl gives modern hail.
ᚾ
10
Nyd
n /n/
need, constraint
Unchanged. Its stanza is the only one in any tradition that offers a way out of the constraint, and only on condition it is heeded early.
ᛁ
11
Is
i /i/
ice
Unchanged. The Old English stanza is the only one of the three that spends most of its lines on how beautiful ice is.
ᛄ
12
Ger
j /j/
year, harvest
Redrawn into a single connected form from the Elder Futhark's two separated pieces. Old English ger is the direct ancestor of year.
ᛇ
13
Eoh
ï /eo/, /ç/
yew tree
Kept where the Younger Futhark dropped it, so this is the only stanza attached to the yew rune by unbroken descent rather than by a shared name.
ᛈ
14
Peorð
p /p/
unknown
The untranslatable rune. Old English peorð occurs nowhere else in the language, so its single stanza defines a word with no other context.
ᛉ
15
Eolhx
x /ks/
elk-sedge
England kept the upright form and the plant name. Its sound value drifted from the old final z to the cluster ks, doing very little work.
ᛋ
16
Sigel
s /s/
the sun
Old English sigel means sun, and is unrelated to sigor, victory. Twentieth-century occultists conflated the two, which is where the false victory reading comes from.
Tir's ætt
17–24The inherited third eight, also complete, and ending eþel then dæg — the Vadstena bracteate's ordering rather than the Kylver stone's.
ᛏ
17
Tir
t /t/
a star; the god Týr
Unchanged in shape, but the stanza describes a star that never leaves its course rather than a god. Another Christian-era softening, like Ansuz becoming a mouth.
ᛒ
18
Beorc
b /b/
birch
Unchanged. Its stanza is the longest of the three traditions and the only one that dwells on the paradox of a tree that bears shoots without seed.
ᛖ
19
Eh
e /e/
horse
Kept where the Younger Futhark dropped it. Old English eh is cognate with Latin equus; modern English horse comes from an entirely different root.
ᛗ
20
Mann
m /m/
a human being
Unchanged, keeping the Elder Futhark double stave that the Younger Futhark collapsed. Old English man means a person of either sex.
ᛚ
21
Lagu
l /l/
water, sea
Unchanged. Its stanza is about a landsman on a rolling ship rather than a sailor, and ends on a sea-steed that will not answer the bridle.
ᛝ
22
Ing
ŋ /ŋ/
the god Ing
Usually written in the stemmed form, the closed diamond raised on a stave. Its stanza is a fragment of a story about a god who went east over the wave, and the story is lost.
ᛟ
23
Eþel
œ /œ/
ancestral estate
Kept, and placed before dæg rather than after it, following the Vadstena bracteate's ordering rather than the Kylver stone's. Old English eþel means a homeland as much as a legal holding.
ᛞ
24
Dæg
d /d/
day
Unchanged. Its stanza is one of only two in the poem that explicitly say the thing described belongs to rich and poor alike.
The English additions
25–29Five new letters for sounds Old English had and Proto-Germanic did not, mostly products of i-mutation and of the Ingvaeonic split of Proto-Germanic /a/ into three. All five appear in the Old English Rune Poem, and with them the row reaches the twenty-eight- and twenty-nine-character forms that were in settled use.
ᚪ
25
Ac
a /ɑ/
oak
New. When Old English sound changes pushed the old a-rune to o, a fresh letter was needed for the surviving a. Its stanza is about the oak feeding swine and making ships.
ᚫ
26
Æsc
æ /æ/
ash tree
New, and built by adding a stroke to the old Ansuz shape. Ansuz effectively split into three Futhorc letters: os, ac and æsc.
ᚣ
27
Yr
y /y/
a bow; a tool
New, for the rounded front vowel produced by i-mutation. The name is usually read as a bow or a horn, and its stanza calls it a joy and an honour to nobles.
ᛡ
28
Ior
io /io/
an eel; a river-beast
New and rare. Its stanza describes a creature that dwells in the water and yet feeds on land, usually read as an eel or a beaver.
ᛠ
29
Ear
ea /æɑ/
the grave; earth
New, and the last stanza of the poem. It describes the earth as loathsome to every man when the flesh begins to cool and the body is committed to the ground.
Later and manuscript letters
30–34Late Northumbrian additions. Calc and Gar are genuinely carved, on the Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses, where they keep the hard velars distinct from their palatalised counterparts. Cweorð, Cealc and Stan are effectively manuscript-only, and R. I. Page argued that several of this group are antiquarian pseudo-runes. That disagreement is why published counts of the Futhorc range from 28 to 34.
ᚸ
30
Gar
g /ɡ/
spear
A later addition splitting hard /ɡ/ from Gyfu, which palatalisation had left covering several sounds. Not in the Rune Poem, but carved on the Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses.
ᛢ
31
Cweorð
q /kw/
unknown; a fire-drill?
A manuscript letter with no secure meaning and effectively no epigraphic use. Most likely a scribal invention giving the runic row an equivalent for Latin Q.
ᛣ
32
Calc
k /k/
chalice; chalk
A later addition for hard /k/, separating it from Cen for the same reason. Carved on the Ruthwell Cross and on Manx and Scottish inscriptions.
ᛤ
33
Cealc
kk /k/
chalk
A doubled variant of calc, appearing in manuscript rune-rows rather than in real inscriptions.
ᛥ
34
Stan
st /st/
stone
A ligature-like letter for the st cluster. Manuscript only, and the reason published counts of the Futhorc vary between 31 and 34.
Where we know it from
Stone crosses, a whalebone box, a sword in the Thames, and one manuscript that burned.
Old English Rune Poem
England
copied 10th century; text older
Twenty-nine stanzas, one per rune, each a riddle-like verse on the rune's name. It is the single most important document for reconstructing what any rune name meant, in any script. The manuscript, Cotton Otho B.x, burned in the Ashburnham House fire of 1731; the text survives only because Humfrey Wanley had transcribed it in 1705 for George Hickes's Thesaurus.
Franks Casket
Northumbria
early 8th century
A whalebone box carved with scenes from Germanic legend, Roman history and the Gospels, captioned in Old English runes and in Latin. One panel is written in a vowel cipher. The lid and three sides are in the British Museum; the right panel is in the Bargello in Florence.
Ruthwell Cross
Dumfriesshire, Scotland
8th century
An Anglo-Saxon stone cross carrying runic verses closely related to the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood. Smashed by order of the Church of Scotland in 1642 as idolatrous, and reassembled in the nineteenth century.
Bewcastle Cross
Cumbria, England
8th century
A companion monument to Ruthwell, still standing in its churchyard, with a runic memorial inscription now heavily weathered.
Seax of Beagnoth
River Thames, London
10th century
An iron single-edged knife inlaid with silver, copper and brass, carrying the complete twenty-eight-rune futhorc along one side and the name Beagnoth along the other. The only known complete Anglo-Saxon rune-row on an object rather than in a manuscript. The carver scrambled the order of the third ætt, which suggests even skilled artisans did not always have the expanded row by heart.
Spong Hill urns
Norfolk, England
5th century
Three cremation urns from an early Anglo-Saxon cemetery, stamped with the word alu in mirror-runes. Alu is the commonest charm word in the older Germanic corpus and its sense is still argued. These are among the earliest runic objects in England and they sit squarely in a pre-Christian burial context.
Galloway Hoard
Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland
buried c. 900
Five flattened silver arm-rings carrying scratched Anglo-Saxon runes, not Scandinavian ones. One names Ecgbeorht; the longest reads DIS IS ÆIGNA FEOH, this is the community's wealth. An inscription claiming buried silver for a monastic community undercuts the assumption that hoards of this date are Viking plunder.
Undley bracteate
Suffolk, England
c. 450–500
A gold pendant carrying one of the earliest Anglo-Frisian runic inscriptions, showing the she-wolf and twins of Roman iconography above a short runic text. Evidence for the script arriving with the earliest settlement rather than developing later.
Caistor-by-Norwich astragalus
Norfolk, England
c. 400
A roe-deer ankle bone from a cremation urn, inscribed raïhan, probably meaning roe. Arguably the oldest runic inscription found in England, and old enough to raise the question of whether it is Anglo-Saxon or imported.
St Cuthbert's coffin
Lindisfarne, Northumbria
698
An oak coffin incised with figures labelled in a mixture of runes and Latin letters, sometimes in the same word. Direct evidence that the two scripts were used side by side in a monastic context rather than in opposition.
Codex Vindobonensis 795
Salzburg
9th century
A manuscript from Alcuin's circle setting Gothic letter names beside their runic equivalents, alongside other alphabets. Part of a Carolingian scholarly interest in collecting scripts that preserved a good deal of Germanic material by accident.
Runic coinage
England
7th–9th century
Early sceattas and later pennies carrying moneyers' names in runes, sometimes mixed with Latin letters. Coins put runic literacy into everyday commercial circulation and date it closely.
Lindisfarne name-stones
Northumbria
8th–9th century
Small grave markers bearing personal names in runes and in Latin script, often both on the same stone. A quiet indication that the choice between the two was not always doctrinal.
Frisian finds
Netherlands and North Sea coast
5th–8th century
A small group of inscriptions on combs, coins and a yew wand showing the same expanded row in use across the North Sea. The script is properly Anglo-Frisian rather than purely English.
Cynewulf's runic signatures
England
9th century
Four religious poems — Juliana, Elene, Christ II and The Fates of the Apostles — whose epilogues spell the poet's name as a runic acrostic. Each rune works twice over, as a letter of the name and, through its rune-name, as a noun in the sentence. Reading the poem aloud speaks his name and asks the audience to pray for him.
Isruna and hahalruna
England and the Continent
9th century onward
Manuscript cipher systems that discard a rune's shape and encode its coordinates instead: which ætt it belongs to, and its position within that ætt, written as counted strokes or branches. They only work because the three-way division of the row was common knowledge.
The row that grew
The Anglo-Saxon Futhorc and the Younger Futhark are two answers to the same problem, and they are opposite answers.
Both scripts descend from the twenty-four-rune Elder Futhark. Both were used by people whose language was changing fast in the same centuries. In Scandinavia the row was cut to sixteen and the reader was left to work out the rest. In England and Frisia letters were added until the script could write what people actually said.
The growth happened in stages. The Ingvaeonic split took the row to twenty-six. Further additions settled it at twenty-eight for practical carving — the number inlaid on the Seax of Beagnoth, the only complete rune-row surviving on an object. The Old English Rune Poem gives a stanza to twenty-nine. Northumbrian manuscripts and monuments push it to thirty-three, occasionally thirty-four, depending on which letters are counted and on who is counting.
Why the name changed
The alphabet is not called a futhark here, and the reason sits in the fourth position.
In Proto-Germanic the fourth rune was ansuz, a god, and it carried the sound a. In the North Sea Germanic dialects that single vowel then fractured three ways depending on its environment — the Ingvaeonic split. Nasalised before a nasal consonant it rounded toward o; fronted it became æ; otherwise it stayed a back ɑ.
One letter could not record three sounds, so the ansuz shape was modified three times over: sloping branches gave ᚩ os, a second branch gave ᚫ æsc, and branches on both sides of the stem gave ᚪ ac. One Elder Futhark rune became three English ones.
Because the fourth letter was now o, the first six spell f-u-þ-o-r-c. The row is named for its own opening in exactly the way alphabet is, so a different opening means a different name.
The other additions follow the same logic. ᚣ yr covers the rounded front vowel produced by i-mutation. ᛠ ear and ᛡ ior cover diphthongs. None of these sounds existed in the language the original twenty-four were designed for.
Why this script matters more than its size suggests
Almost every rune meaning in circulation today comes through England, and most people using those meanings do not know it.
The reason is the Old English Rune Poem: twenty-nine stanzas, one per rune, each turning on the rune's name. It is the only extended source for the names of the runes that the Younger Futhark dropped. Gebo, Wunjo, Perthro, Ehwaz, Ingwaz, Dagaz and Othala have no Norwegian or Icelandic stanza at all, because those letters were gone from Scandinavia before the Norse poems were composed. What we know about them, we know from an English poem about a different alphabet.
That poem nearly did not survive. Its manuscript, Cotton Otho B.x, was destroyed in the Ashburnham House fire of 1731, which consumed or damaged a large part of the Cotton library. The text exists because Humfrey Wanley had transcribed it twenty-six years earlier, for George Hickes's Thesaurus.
The stanzas also show Christian handling of heathen material in progress. Ansuz has become a mouth. Tiwaz has become a star that never leaves its course. Neither god is named, while the fifteenth-century Icelandic poem names Óðinn and Týr without hesitation. Whether England had forgotten or was declining to say is an open argument.
Runes and Latin, side by side
The familiar story is that Christianity brought the Latin alphabet and runes retreated before it. The English evidence does not support a clean version of that.
St Cuthbert's coffin, made at Lindisfarne in 698, labels its figures in runes and Latin letters mixed within single words. The Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses are Christian monuments carrying runic verse. Lindisfarne grave markers carry names in both scripts, sometimes on the same stone. Moneyers put their names on coins in runes for centuries after conversion.
Two letters even changed sides. Þorn was taken into Latin-alphabet Old English as þ, because Latin had nothing for the th sound, and stayed in English writing for centuries; continental printers with no thorn type substituted y, which is the whole origin of mock-antique "Ye Olde". Wynn was used as ƿ for the w-sound until Norman scribes preferred a doubled u.
Runes went out of use in England in the eleventh century, later than the script's reputation suggests, and by attrition rather than by prohibition.
On reading these runes
Modern rune divination almost always uses the Elder Futhark's twenty-four, and where it uses names and meanings, those meanings are largely drawn from this poem.
That is worth stating plainly, because it produces an odd situation: a practice conducted with one alphabet, using a set of meanings recorded for another, in a Christian manuscript, some seven hundred years after the first alphabet went out of use. None of that makes the practice worthless. It does mean that anyone claiming direct access to what an Iron Age carver meant by a rune is overstating what the evidence can carry.
There is no attested Anglo-Saxon practice of drawing runes to answer a question. Bede describes litterae solutoriae, loosing-letters, said to be able to strike off fetters, which tells us what a Northumbrian churchman thought people believed about writing rather than what anyone actually did.
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