Norse Mythology

Symbols & Runes

Norse Runes: Elder and Younger Futhark Explained

A detailed guide to the Elder Futhark, Younger Futhark, and runic writing tradition, with rune meanings, rune poems, and how to read ancient inscriptions.

The runic tradition of the Germanic peoples is one of the most durable and widely misunderstood of the early medieval Northern European legacies. From the second century CE, when the first datable runic inscriptions appear in the form of a bone comb from Vimose, Denmark, and the lance-shaft from Kovel, Ukraine, the runes served as the writing system of the peoples who would later be called the Norse, the Anglo-Saxons, the Goths, the Franks, and the Alemanni. By the time the Viking Age opened in the late eighth century, the runes were already old. By the time the medieval Scandinavian states adopted the Latin alphabet in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the runes had been used for nearly a thousand years. Across that long history the runic script changed in shape, in sound-value, in regional use, and in symbolic meaning. This page covers the principal alphabets (the Elder Futhark, the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the Younger Futhark, and the medieval runic extensions), the principal rune-types (letters, ligatures, cipher runes, and cryptic runes), the principal uses (memorial, magical, ownership, and divinatory), and the principal modern methods of learning to read the runes.

For the broader context of the runic tradition and the larger symbolic vocabulary of the Norse inheritance, see Norse Symbols and Runes: A Complete Guide. For a more practical “how to read” guide, see How to Read Elder Futhark Runes.

The Oldest Layer: Elder Futhark

The oldest runic alphabet to be fully reconstructed is the Elder Futhark, so called because the first six runes of the alphabet spell out f-u-þ-a-r-k (compare Latin “alphabet” from a-b-e), the sequence of the first six letter-names. The Elder Futhark contains 24 runes, traditionally divided by convention into three groups of eight called ættir (“families” or “eighths”). Each rune has a name (some reconstructed, some preserved in Old English, Old Norse, or Continental Germanic sources), and each name carries a meaning that goes beyond the simple sound-value of the sign.

The Elder Futhark was in use from roughly 150 to 800 CE, with most surviving inscriptions dating to the period 200-700. The greatest single concentration of Elder Futhark inscriptions is in Scandinavia, with secondary concentrations in northern Germany, Poland, the former Soviet Union, and the British Isles. The principal material categories are stones (memorials and other large monuments), metalwork (fibulae, brooches, combs, weapons, bracteates, coins), and bone or antler (combs, gaming pieces, knife-handles, amulets).

The 24 runes of the Elder Futhark are conventionally listed as follows:

The First Ætt

  • ᚠ Fehu (f) — Wealth, livestock, mobile property. From Proto-Germanic fehu, “cattle” (cf. English “fee” and Latin pecunia, both originally “cattle-money”).
  • ᚢ Uruz (u) — The aurochs, the great extinct wild ox. From Proto-Germanic ūruz.
  • ᚦ Thurisaz (þ) — The giant (þurs), the thorn. A rune of sharp, sudden defensive force.
  • ᚨ Ansuz (a) — The Aesir, the gods, divine speech. A rune of Odin and of poetic inspiration.
  • ᚱ Raidō (r) — The ride, the wagon, the journey. From Old Norse reið.
  • ᚲ Kenaz (k) — The torch, the beacon, the controlled flame. A rune of knowledge as illumination.
  • ᚷ Gebo (g) — The gift, the X-shape of two hands clasping. From Old Norse gefi, “gift.”
  • ᚹ Wunjō (w) — Joy, fulfilled wish. The “flag” rune of harmony and the favorable wind.

The Second Ætt

  • ᚺ Hagalaz (h) — Hail, the falling pellet of ice. A rune of disruption and the unintended event.
  • ᚾ Naudiz (n) — Need, hardship, constraint, the friction-drill for fire.
  • ᛁ Isaz (i) — Ice. A rune of stillness and patience.
  • ᛃ Jera (j/y) — The year, the harvest, the cycle completed. A rune of recompense.
  • ᛇ Eihwaz (ï/e) — The yew, the long-lived poisonous tree. A rune of endurance and the bow.
  • ᛈ Perþ (p) — The fruit tree (pear or apple). A rune of hidden things, the secret sisterhood of fertility.
  • ᛉ Algiz (z) — The elk-sedge or the upraised arms. A rune of defense and the sanctuary.
  • ᛊ Sōwilō (s) — The sun. A rune of solar power and victory.

The Third Ætt

  • ᛏ Tīwaz (t) — The god Tyr, the sky-god of law and oath. A rune of justice and the warrior’s sword-arm.
  • ᛒ Berkanan (b) — The birch, the first tree to leaf in spring. A rune of purification and the mother.
  • ᛖ Ehwaz (e) — The horse, the team of plow-beasts. A rune of partnership and slow progress.
  • ᛗ Mannaz (m) — The human, mankind, the social being. A rune of hugr (mind).
  • ᛚ Laguz (l) — Water, the lake, the river. A rune of the unconscious and the dream-flow.
  • ᛜ Ingwaz (ng) — The god Ing, the fertility deity. A rune of internal growth and gestation.
  • ᛞ Dagaz (d) — The day, the dawn, the breakthrough. A rune of sudden illumination.
  • ᛟ Oþala (o) — The ancestral estate, the inherited field. A rune of the kin and the legal heir.

The sequence and the ættir structure of the Elder Futhark are remarkably uniform across the entire corpus. This uniformity is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for a real transmitted scribal tradition, in which runic knowledge was passed from master to apprentice in much the same way as other skilled trades.

The Anglo-Saxon Futhorc

When the Anglo-Saxons brought the runic script to Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries, they expanded the alphabet to meet the demands of Old English phonology. The result is the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, which grew to 28, 29, 30, or 33 runes depending on period and dialect. The new signs include:

  • ᚪ Ac (a) — The oak tree. A new rune for the “o” sound of Old English that did not exist in Proto-Germanic.
  • ᚫ Æsc (æ) — The ash tree. A rune for the long “æ” sound, named for the ash (æsc), the tree of the world-axis Yggdrasil.
  • ᚹ Wynn (w) — The “w” sound, an additional letter to distinguish w from v.
  • ᚦ Þorn (þ) — Already in the Elder Futhark as thurisaz, but expanded in the Futhorc to be a distinct letter for the “th” sound.
  • ᛠ Eð (ē) — An additional letter for the long “e” sound.
  • ᛇ Ior (ï/ēo) — A combined letter for the “io” or “eo” diphthong.
  • ᛤ Cweorð (cw/kw) — A combined letter for the “cw” or “qu” sound.
  • ᛚ Calc (k) — A combined letter for the “k” sound, used in northern dialect inscriptions.

The Anglo-Saxon Futhorc was used throughout England until the Christianization of the late seventh century, and the runic tradition continued to be used in the Danelaw (the Scandinavian-settled areas of England) into the eleventh century. The Codex Runicus tradition (preserved in the manuscript Cotton Otho B.xI, lost in the 1731 fire) and the rune poem tradition of the Old English Rune Poem (preserved in the same manuscript) are the principal literary sources.

The Younger Futhark

By the late seventh or early eighth century, the Elder Futhark was being replaced in Scandinavia by a shorter alphabet of only 16 signs, the Younger Futhark. The reduction was a long, gradual process in which scribes dropped letter distinctions they no longer needed, and in which several runes were reassigned to represent multiple sounds. The two principal variants are:

  • Long-branch (Danish) runes: tall vertical strokes with small diagonal twigs, used in Denmark and southern Sweden.
  • Short-twig (Swedish-Norwegian) runes: with their twigs running close to the stem, used in central Sweden and Norway.

The 16 runes of the Younger Futhark, with their Old Norse names, are:

  • ᚠ Fé (f) — Wealth
  • ᚢ Úr (u) — Aurochs
  • ᚦ Þurs (þ) — Giant
  • ᚬ Áss (a) — God
  • ᚱ Reið (r) — Ride
  • ᚴ Kaun (k) — Ulcer/boil
  • ᚼ Hagall (h) — Hail
  • ᚾ Nauðr (n) — Need
  • ᛁ Íss (i) — Ice
  • ᛅ Ár (a) — Harvest, year
  • ᛋ Sól (s) — Sun
  • ᛏ Týr (t) — The god Tyr
  • ᛒ Bjarkan (b) — Birch
  • ᛘ Maðr (m) — Man
  • ᛚ Lögr (l) — Water
  • ᛦ Ýr (y/ü) — Yew

The Younger Futhark is the runic alphabet of the Viking Age. The great runestones of Sweden and Denmark are written in this script, as are the rune-sticks of medieval Bergen, the ballad codices, and the runic amulets of the period. The system remained in use, with various modifications, into the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Medieval Runes and the Late Futhark

In the late medieval period the Younger Futhark was expanded again, into a system known as the medieval runes or the Latin-influenced Futhark. The expansion involved the addition of dots and diacritics to distinguish sounds that the 16-rune system had collapsed together, and the development of a fully cursive or crotched form (the korta or “knot” runes). The principal medieval Scandinavian runic manuscripts are:

  • The Codex Runicus (AM 28 8vo, 1328, Denmark), a manuscript of the Scandinavian Law of Scania written entirely in cursive runic.
  • The Codex Wormianus (AM 242 fol., c. 1350, Iceland), the second of the principal manuscripts of Snorri’s Prose Edda, containing the Icelandic Rune Poem.
  • The Rök Runestone (Östergötland, c. 800-900), the longest known runic inscription, in Younger Futhark.
  • The Karlevi Runestone (Öland, c. 1000), bearing a complete stanza of Old Norse skaldic verse in Younger Futhark.

The medieval period also saw the development of a new and parallel symbolic vocabulary: the galdrastafir (“magical staves”) of the late Icelandic grimoires. These staves are not strictly part of the runic alphabet, but they use runes as components. The most famous are the Vegvísir (“way-shower”), the Ægishjálmur (“helm of awe”), the Huld mark, and the Nábrókarstafur (“death-script” or “corpse-script”). For a fuller account, see Icelandic Magical Symbols: Vegvisir and More.

Runic Inscriptions by Type

Runic inscriptions in the Elder and Younger Futhark can be classified by their function. The principal categories are:

Memorial Inscriptions

The runestone is the principal memorial type, particularly in Sweden and Denmark. A typical memorial formula follows the pattern:

“X and Y raised this stone in memory of Z, their father. God help his soul.”

The earliest runestones date to the fifth century, and the tradition continued into the eleventh. The Swedish Rök stone (c. 800-900), the Jelling stones (c. 965), the Karlevi stone (c. 1000), the Gripsholm stone (c. 1050), the Tullstorp Runestone (c. 900-1000), and the Dynna stone (c. 1000-1050) are among the most important.

Ownership Inscriptions

Many small runic objects bear ownership tags (“X owns this comb / this knife / this cloak-pin”) or founder’s marks (“X made me”). The famous Mammen axe (c. 970) bears the inscription “Hove made me,” in an inlaid silver design. The Cammin pendant (c. 1000, Mecklenburg) bears the inscription “Mai og Åse” (May and Åse), the names of the two owners.

Cursing and Love Inscriptions

A small but fascinating sub-corpus is the love-charms and curses, often inscribed on a piece of bone or antler. The Källby stick (Västergötland, c. 1000-1100) is one of the most famous cursing inscriptions. The Brynild’s cross-amulet (Norway, c. 1000) is a love-charms. The Stora Ramsjö stone (Sweden, c. 1000-1100) bears a long and puzzling runic text whose interpretation is still debated.

Magical and Cryptic Inscriptions

A small but important sub-corpus is the cryptic and magical inscriptions, in which the runes are reversed, bound, or otherwise obscured. The most famous is the Lindholm amulet (Scania, c. 1000), which bears the ægishjálmur rune in an early form. The Sigtuna box (c. 1000) bears a runic inscription in a deliberately obscure cipher.

The Sound-Value of the Runes

The runes encode sounds, not letters, in the modern sense. Each rune represents a phoneme, and a rune inscribed in a particular environment may have to be read with a different phonemic value than in another environment. The most important sound-rules are:

  • Rune-position matters: in the Younger Futhark, the same rune can encode different vowel sounds depending on its position in the word. The ᚬ Áss rune, for example, encodes “a” in the initial position, “ã” (nasal) in the middle, and “a” in the final position.
  • Runes can be vocalized or consonantal: the ᚱ Reið rune encodes the “r” sound in the initial position (e.g., reið = “ride”), but the “r” in Ragnarok in the medieval manuscripts is often encoded as ᚱ ᚱ, two r-runes, for emphasis.
  • Runes are read in the direction of the staff: the vertical stafr of the rune is always read first, and the diagonal “twigs” are added in the order in which they appear on the staff.
  • Runes can be ligatured: two or more runes can share a single stafr, producing a “bind rune.” The number of bind runes in a given inscription is an important diagnostic of the regional and chronological origin of the inscription.
  • Dots can be added: in the medieval period, scribes added dots (and later diacritics) to runes to indicate specific sounds. The stung rune (a t-rune with a vertical line through the staff) is the medieval rune for the “d” sound.

A few common sound-rules of the Younger Futhark are particularly worth knowing:

  • Initial h is often dropped: Hagall becomes agall, Nauðr becomes auðr, Haugr (mound) becomes augr or aukr.
  • Final -r is often dropped: maðr becomes mað in some inscriptions.
  • The R rune can encode the “z” sound in some environments.
  • The R rune can encode the “r” sound in others.

These rules can be tricky for the beginning student, but they are essential to a proper understanding of the Younger Futhark.

The Inscription Corpus by Region

Although the runestone is the most visible type of runic inscription, the bulk of the runic corpus is on small portable objects. The Vimose (Funen, Denmark) finds of the second century CE are the oldest substantial corpus, with over 200 objects. The Illerup Ådal (Jutland, Denmark) finds of the fourth and fifth centuries are the most extensive, with over 600 objects. The Thorsberg (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany) finds of the fourth and fifth centuries are particularly important for the Nydam style of weapon-deposition. The Vendel (Uppland, Sweden) finds of the sixth and seventh centuries include several major boat-burials.

The principal collections are housed in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, the British Museum in London, the Upplandsmuseet in Uppsala, the Statens Historiska Museum in Stockholm, the Kulturhistorisk Museum in Oslo, the University Museum of National Antiquities in Oslo, the National Museum of Iceland in Reykjavik, and the Falköping Museum in Sweden. The Rundata database, maintained by the Department of Scandinavian Languages at Uppsala University, contains a comprehensive searchable index of all known runic inscriptions.

The Rune Poems

The most important literary sources for the meaning of the runes are the three surviving rune poems:

  • The Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem (ninth-tenth century, in the Cotton Otho B.xI manuscript, lost in 1731), with verses for the 29 runes of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc.
  • The Norwegian Rune Poem (thirteenth century, in a single manuscript), with verses for the 16 runes of the Younger Futhark.
  • The Icelandic Rune Poem (in the Codex Wormianus of the Prose Edda), with verses for the 16 runes of the Younger Futhark in an Old Norse poetic form.

The rune poems are not “translations” of the runes, but mnemonic-encyclopedic verses that give a few lines of alliterative, kennings-rich verse for each rune. They are a key source for the modern revival of runic divination, and they are the only contemporary Old English or Old Norse poetry that gives a verse treatment of the entire runic alphabet.

How to Read the Runes

To read a runic inscription, the modern student should learn the runes in the ættir order, in the same way a Latin student would learn the alphabet. The first step is to learn the 24 runes of the Elder Futhark and the principal bind runes. The second step is to learn the principal regional variations (long-branch, short-twig, Anglo-Saxon). The third step is to learn the principal conventions of runic spelling (most importantly, the use of a single rune for several sounds in the Younger Futhark, and the use of the same rune in different positions to indicate different sounds).

Several printed resources are available. The standard scholarly reference is Klaus Düwel’s Runenkunde (2001, 4th edition, with English translation 2012). The standard practical guide is Michael Barnes’s Runes: A Handbook (2012). The standard Old Norse grammar is Gordon and Tull’s Introduction to Old Norse (1957), with a new edition by Tull, Sherman, and Dodds in 2012. The standard Old English reference is Page’s An Introduction to English Runes (1973, 2nd edition 1999).

For a practical “how to read” approach, the recommended sequence is:

  1. Learn the Elder Futhark in the ættir order. Use flashcards. Memorize the names as well as the sound-values.
  2. Practice writing the runes on a flat surface, with a stick or a pencil. The vertical stafr is the key: every rune has one (except Gebo, which is the only one without a vertical stem).
  3. Memorize the principal bind runes of the Elder Futhark.
  4. Learn the Younger Futhark as a 16-rune system, in the standard long-branch and short-twig variants.
  5. Study a few real inscriptions in facsimile. The most accessible are the Jelling stones, the Rök stone (in facsimile), and the Lönngripan stone (a famous runestone of the 11th century, with a long and easily-memorable inscription).
  6. Move to the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc if you are interested in Old English.

Runes in Modern Practice

The modern use of runes is principally two-fold: as a decorative or identity symbol (in the form of jewelry, tattoos, and other items), and as a divinatory tool (in the form of a set of rune-tiles drawn from a bag). The principal figures in the modern revival are the German occultist Rudolf John Gorsleben, the American Ralph Blum (whose Book of Runes of 1982 was a major commercial success), the British Stephen Flowers (a.k.a. Edred Thorsson), and the Norwegian-American Karl Hans Welz. The International Rune Society (founded 2000) is the principal modern organization.

A more academic account of the modern runic revival is in Mindy MacLeod and Bernard Mees, Runic Amulets and Magic Objects (2006) and Stephen Flowers, Runes and Magic (1997). For a modern reconstructionist approach, the Heathen and Ásatrú movements have produced a wide range of materials, most prominently the Fyrnsidufélagið and the Rune Gild.