Ætt 3 · Pos. 1

Name

Cattle, and so movable wealth: what can be driven, paid or given away, as opposed to land.

Meaning

Wealth that moves passes from hand to hand, and the poems follow it on the way. In the Nordic poems it sets kin against kin. Behind the line is most likely the hoard Sigurðr won from the dragon Fáfnir, who killed his own father for it. The Icelandic stanza calls wealth the serpent’s path, Fáfnir’s trail to that gold. The English poem says it has to be given away to win a good name. Hávamál holds both: “Cattle die, kin die … one thing never dies: the word on each of the dead.”

The poems

English Rune Poem

Wealth is a comfort
to everyone;
yet each must
give it out freely,
if he wants to win
a good name before the lord.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Wealth is strife among kin,
and fire of the flood,
and the serpent’s path.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Wealth causes strife among kin;
the wolf is raised in the forest.

Swedish Rune Poem

Wealth is peace among kin.

Ætt 3 · Pos. 2

Name

An aurochs, the great wild ox, in the English poem. In the Nordic poems úr is fine rain, drizzle, or the spray of sparks from hot iron.

Meaning

A force that doesn’t let up. The aurochs was the wild ox, larger than any cattle, and it could not be tamed; the English poem has it fighting with its horns across the moors. The Nordic poems give the same relentless force to the weather: fine rain that keeps on falling, the clouds’ weeping that ruins the hay and that the herdsman hates, and sparks spraying from iron under the hammer. None of it can be owned or stopped. It can only be met, or endured.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Aurochs is proud
and great-horned,
a fierce beast,
it fights with its horns,
a famous roamer of the moors:
that is a bold creature.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Sparks come from bad iron;
often the reindeer runs
over the frozen snow.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Drizzle is the weeping of clouds,
and the ruin of the hay,
and the herdsman’s hate.

Swedish Rune Poem

Drizzle is in the west wind.

Ætt 3 · Pos. 3

Name

A thurs, one of the oldest kind of jotun. A thorn in the English poem.

Meaning

The poems know the thurs by the harm it does: it afflicts women, it dwells inside rock and hill, and it brings torment. The torment seems to belong to the female body: the monthly bleeding, the pains of labour and the danger of childbirth. In Skírnismál it reaches into desire as well, when Skírnir threatens Gerðr with a curse: “A thurs I carve for you, and three staves: lust, madness and unrest.” Healing charms name the same thurs as the cause of sickness, and drive it out: “Thurs of the wound-fever, flee now, you are found.”

The Poems

English Rune Poem

Thorn is very sharp;
for every warrior
grasping it is bad,
cruel beyond measure
to anyone
who lies down among them.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Thurs is torment of women,
and cliff-dweller,
and husband of Varðrún.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Thurs causes women’s sickness;
few are cheerful from misfortune.

Swedish Rune Poem

Thurs is women’s torment.

Ætt 3 · Pos. 4

Name

An áss, one of the Æsir, the gods. The Norwegian and Swedish poems hear it as óss, a river mouth; the English poem lets it sound like the Latin for mouth.

Meaning

The Icelandic stanza names the áss: ancient Gautr, prince of Ásgarðr, lord of Valhöll. That is Óðinn. The English poem calls the rune the source of all speech, a support of wisdom and a comfort to the wise, and that is Óðinn’s work. In Hávamál, once he has drunk the mead, word leads him on to word. The Norwegian poem hears another óss, the mouth where a river meets the sea. Speech and water both come out through a mouth.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Áss/mouth is the source
of all speech,
a support of wisdom
and a comfort to the wise,
and for every noble
a blessing and a hope.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Áss is the ancient Gautr,
and prince of Ásgarðr,
and lord of Valhöll.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Mouth is the way
of most journeys;
a sheath is the way of swords.

Swedish Rune Poem

Mouth is in every river.

Ætt 3 · Pos. 5

Name

A ride, a journey on horseback. Some take the oldest sense to be a wagon.

Meaning

A ride is a journey, and the poems see it from both sides. In the English poem it is light talk in the hall and hard work in the saddle; the Nordic poems weigh the rider’s joy against the horse’s toil. Someone carries, someone is carried. A journey passes thresholds and can reach further than any road. Every day, in Grímnismál, the Æsir ride to the tree to sit in judgement, and in Baldrs draumar Óðinn rides Sleipnir down to Hel to wake a dead seeress. Riding carries the Æsir between the realms of the world.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Ride is, in the hall,
easy for every warrior,
and very hard
for the one who sits
on a mighty horse
over the long miles.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Ride is the joy
of the one who sits,
and a swift journey,
and the horse’s toil.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Ride they say,
is worst for horses;
Reginn forged the best sword.

Swedish Rune Poem

Ride is a horse at full gallop.

Ætt 3 · Pos. 6

Name

A sore, an ulcer, the kind that festers. In the English poem the rune is cēn, a torch of pinewood.

Meaning

In the Nordic poems the sore is a festering sickness that strikes the young and drains the life from a body. The English poem turns it into a torch, a clear flame burning in the hall. A fever and a flame both burn from inside. The old charms knew where such sickness could come from. An Old English charm against sudden, stabbing pain blames it on elves shooting arrows into the body. The charm orders them back out: “Out, little spear, if you are in here.”

The poems

English Rune Poem

Torch is to every living one
known by its fire,
pale and bright;
it burns most often
where the nobles
rest within.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Sore is children’s misfortune,
and scourge,
and house of rotting flesh.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Sore is the bane of children;
misfortune makes a corpse pale.

Swedish Rune Poem

Sore is worst in the flesh.

Ætt 3 · Pos. 7

Name

A gift, and the giving of it.

Meaning

A gift is never only given. In the English poem a gift raises the giver’s standing and sustains the one who has nothing. Hávamál adds that every gift expects one in return, and that friendships last longest where gifts go both ways. Giving makes a bond, and the bond is the point. It holds everything together: friends and kin, leaders and followers, and people and the powers they offer to. In Rúnatál a sacrifice to the Æsir follows the same rule. Life itself began as a gift. In Völuspá, the Norns give the shape of a person’s life, and the Æsir give the ability to act within it.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Gift is, for people,
an honour and praise,
a support and worth;
and for every outcast
help and a living,
when he has nothing else.

Ætt 3 · Pos. 8

Name

Joy, the settled kind: having enough, with little sorrow.

Meaning

The joy in the English poem is a settled one: little sorrow, plenty around you and a safe place to live. The word grows from a root of wanting and winning, and its Norse kin vin, still heard in Björgvin, the old name of Bergen, means a meadow. Joy is the good place reached and held. In Beowulf the rune’s Old English name, wynn, is joined to ēþel, the Old English name of ōþila, the inherited land: eþelwyn, the joy of home. In the story, the men who abandoned their lord to the dragon are told that they and all their kin will lose it.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Joy he has
who knows little of woe,
of pain and sorrow,
and has himself
prosperity and bliss,
and a safe home enough.

Ætt 2 · Pos. 1

Name

Hail, the frozen grain that falls from the sky.

Meaning

Every poem sees hail as grain, sown from the sky, though nothing grows from it. It falls hard, ruins what it hits, then melts away as if it had never been. The Icelandic stanza ties it to winter, when the snakes lie still. Hail is among the oldest forces in the world. In Vafþrúðnismál the first jotun grew from drops of venom that sprang out of Élivágar, the storm waves, and the él in that name is most likely a squall of hail or snow.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Hail is the whitest
of grains;
it whirls down
from heaven’s height,
squalls of wind toss it,
then it turns to water.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Hail is cold grain,
and a shower of sleet,
and the sickness of snakes.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Hail is the coldest of grains;
Christ made the world of old.

Swedish Rune Poem

Hail is best at home.

Ætt 2 · Pos. 2

Name

Need, necessity: hardship, constraint, what you are forced into.

Meaning

Need is what corners you: pressure that tightens the chest, a life of hardship, work that wears you down, no choice left. The Icelandic stanza gives it to the bondwoman, who had no say over her own life. Yet the English poem turns it: need, faced before it overwhelms you, can become help and healing. The tradition used it that way. In Sigrdrífumál, among the runes for the drinking horn, the valkyrie tells Sigurðr to mark the need rune on his fingernail, so the drink cannot be turned against him.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Need is tight
on the chest;
yet it often becomes
for the sons of men
a help and a healing,
if they heed it in time.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Need is the bondwoman’s grief,
and a hard lot,
and toilsome work.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Need leaves little choice;
a naked man freezes in the frost.

Swedish Rune Poem

Need is the only choice.

Ætt 2 · Pos. 3

Name

Ice, frozen water: the sheet laid over lake and river.

Meaning

The poems see ice as something built: a floor laid over the water, a bridge across it, a hard skin on the rivers. It shines like glass and jewels, and it gives no grip at all. In the Viking Age the waters were the roads: people and goods moved by boat. Ice turns that over. What was a way for keels becomes ground for feet and sledges, while the water still moves underneath. It holds until it doesn’t. Hávamál keeps the caution: praise ice only once you are across. Ice is winter itself, the time when the world stands still.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Ice is very cold,
slippery beyond measure;
it glistens clear as glass,
most like to gems,
a floor wrought by frost,
fair to look upon.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Ice is the bark of rivers,
and the roof of the wave,
and danger to doomed men.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Ice we call the broad bridge;
the blind must be led.

Swedish Rune Poem

Ice is the broadest bridge.

Ætt 2 · Pos. 4

Name

Year, and above all the good year: the harvest it brings in.

Meaning

In all the poems the rune stands for a good year, an abundant harvest that people long for and all share in. The Icelandic stanza adds summer and ripe fields, and the English poem has the earth feed rich and poor alike. The year is the reward of the turning seasons, never taken for granted. The Norwegian poem names Fróði, the Danish king whose reign was one long peace, while two jotun women ground gold and plenty from his mill Grotti. On the Stentoften stone a single rune is enough to say it: Haþwulf gave a good year.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Year is the hope of men,
when God,
holy king of heaven,
lets the earth give
bright fruits
to the noble and the needy.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Year is the good of men,
and a good summer,
and a field grown full.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Year is the good of men;
I say that Fróði was generous.

Swedish Rune Poem

Year is the widest leafing.

Ætt 2 · Pos. 5

Name

A yew tree, the dark evergreen that lives for centuries.

Meaning

The poems see the yew as a tree that endures: hard on the outside, held fast by its roots, good for keeping a fire, green through winter, and strong enough to bend into a bow. Green when everything else is bare and alive for centuries, the yew has long stood between death and what outlasts it. It is the tree of churchyards, often older than the church beside it, perhaps marking ground that was sacred before. Some read the evergreen tree over Urðr’s well in Völuspá as a yew.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Yew is on the outside
a rough tree,
hard, fast in the earth,
keeper of fire,
propped up by its roots,
a joy on the estate.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Yew is a bent bow,
and brittle iron,
and the arrow’s jotun.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Yew is the greenest
of trees in winter;
it is wont to crackle
when it burns.

Ætt 2 · Pos. 6

Name

Unknown. Guesses run from a pear tree to a dice cup; the English poem says it is play.

Meaning

We do not know what this rune meant. Only the English poem keeps it, and all it gives is a scene: warriors laughing and playing together in the hall. Most read it as a game, dice or pieces on a board, but that reading mostly comes from the poem itself. The tradition knows such a game. In Völuspá the Æsir play at tafl in the meadow, cheerful and lacking nothing, until three jotun women arrive and the world is set on its course toward Ragnarök. After the end, their golden game pieces are found again in the grass.

The poems

English Rune Poem

? is always
play and laughter
for the proud …
where warriors sit
in the beer-hall
glad together.

Ætt 2 · Pos. 7

Name

Uncertain. The usual reconstruction is elk, built on the Old English name eolhx; the poem makes it eolh-secg, elk-sedge, a sharp marsh grass.

Meaning

The only poem to keep this rune calls it elk-sedge: a grass that lives in the fen, grows in the water, and cuts anyone who grabs it, leaving their hand bloody. It grows where land and water meet, in ground that is neither, and it guards that edge: reach in, and you bleed. The fens were where offerings were sent across, weapons and whole boats sunk for good, and many of the oldest runic objects come from them.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Elk-sedge lives
most often in the fen,
it grows in the water,
it wounds grimly,
burns with blood
every man
who makes
any grab at it.

Ætt 2 · Pos. 8

Name

The sun.

Meaning

In the English poem the sun guides sailors safe to land. The Nordic poems make it the light over the land, a bright wheel among the clouds, the warmth that breaks the ice. In Völuspá the Æsir set it and the moon on their courses, so the years can be counted. In Alvíssmál humans, Æsir, jotnar, elves and dwarves each have their own name for it: one light running through every layer of the tree’s axis, holding the world in order. In Sigrdrífumál runes are carved on the shield before it and on the horses that draw it.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Sun is to seafarers
always a hope,
when they journey
over the fishes’ bath,
until the sea-steed
brings them to land.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Sun is the shield of the clouds,
and a shining wheel,
and the bane of ice.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Sun is the light of the lands;
I bow to the holy judgement.

Swedish Rune Poem

Sun is highest in the heavens.

Ætt 1 · Pos. 1

Name

Týr, one of the Æsir. The English poem names it glory.

Meaning

The Nordic poems agree on who this is: Týr, the áss who lost a hand to the wolf. The English poem makes it a guiding star that can always be trusted. Faith is the heart of Týr’s story. The Æsir bound Fenrir, the wolf born of Loki and a jotun woman, and Týr lost his right hand to him. In the later telling, the wolf let the fetter on only because Týr’s hand was in his mouth as a pledge. The binding broke faith with the jotnar once more, and it holds only until the end. Then the fetter snaps, and the wolf runs.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Glory is a sign,
it keeps faith well
with nobles;
it is always on course
over the mists of night,
it never fails.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Týr is the one-handed áss,
and the wolf’s leavings,
and the ruler of temples.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Týr is the one-handed
among the Æsir;
often the smith must blow.

Swedish Rune Poem

Týr is the most hateful of spirits.

Ætt 1 · Pos. 2

Name

A birch tree.

Meaning

The poems all see the birch at its freshest, in new green leaf. The English poem adds a riddle: the birch bears no fruit, yet new shoots grow from it without any seed. The answer may lie in how the birch grows: cut it down, and it sprouts again from the stump and the roots. Birch is the first tree to leaf in spring and the first to take bare ground, and when the ice withdrew after the last ice age, birch led the first forests of the North. After the wolf runs and the world ends, Völuspá sees the earth come up a second time out of the sea, green again.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Birch is without fruit,
yet it bears all the same
shoots without seed;
it is lovely in its branches,
high in its crown,
fairly adorned,
laden with leaves,
reaching to the sky.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Birch is a leafy branch,
and a little tree,
and young wood.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Birch is the greenest-leaved
of branches;
Loki brought the time of deceit.

Swedish Rune Poem

Birch is greenest grove.

Ætt 1 · Pos. 3

Name

A horse, above all a fine riding horse.

Meaning

Only the English poem keeps this rune, and it sees the horse as a mark of standing: something the nobles take pride in and talk about, and a steady help to anyone who cannot stay still. Horses were wealth and rank, and more than that. They were laid in graves to carry the dead and sunk in the fens as offerings. In the sagas, horses are given to Freyr, and no one may ride them. A late, mocking tale even has a farm household pass round a stallion’s member, kept in linen and leeks, and pray over it.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Horse is, before warriors,
the joy of nobles,
a steed proud on its hooves,
where heroes about it,
wealthy on horseback,
trade words;
and it is to the restless
always a comfort.

Ætt 1 · Pos. 4

Name

A human.

Meaning

The poems see a person through others. In the English poem a person is loved by their kin and glad among them; in the Icelandic, people are each other’s joy. Hávamál knows it from the road: alone, a traveller goes astray, and meeting another feels like wealth. Kin was made as much as born, through fostering, marriage and oath, and it outlasts death. The English poem knows that all are parted at last, when the body goes back to the earth, and the Nordic poems call people the earth’s own growth. The dead stay with the land, and with their kin.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Human is in gladness
dear to his kin;
yet each one
must fail the other,
because the lord wills,
by his judgement,
that wretched flesh
be given to the earth.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Human is the joy of humans,
and the increase of the earth,
and the adorner of ships.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Human is the increase
of the earth;
great is the hawk’s grip.

Swedish Rune Poem

Human is field of earth.

Ætt 1 · Pos. 5

Name

A body of water: lake, sea, water on the move.

Meaning

The poems give water its full range: the sea that seems to have no end to anyone out on it, water that bubbles up from the ground and pools, and the force that pours down from the mountains. Water moves and will not be held, and in the tradition it is where the powers of fate are found. The Norns come from the lake under the tree to lay down fate. Frigg sits in Fensalir, the fen-halls, and Sága drinks with Óðinn in Sökkvabekkr, the sinking stream, under cool waves. In Völundarkviða the valkyries are found on a lakeshore, spinning linen.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Water seems to people
endlessly long,
if they must venture
on an unsteady ship,
and the sea-waves
frighten them hard,
and the sea-steed
won’t heed its bridle.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Water is a welling stream,
and a wide kettle,
and the land of fish.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Water is what falls
from the mountain as a force;
but treasures are of gold.

Swedish Rune Poem

Water is the land’s honour.

Ætt 1 · Pos. 6

Name

Ing, a name. In the Nordic sources it is Yngvi, one of Freyr’s names.

Meaning

In the English poem Ing comes to the Danes and leaves by sea, his wagon behind him. A power that arrives and leaves by wagon belongs to the Vanir: Tacitus tells of Nerthus carried among the people in a wagon, then washed in a hidden lake. Her name is the same as Njörðr’s, and Freyr was born to Njörðr and his sister, so she may well be Freyr’s mother. Ing is Freyr, whom Nordic sources call Yngvi-Freyr. In Grímnismál the Æsir give him Álfheimr, home of the elves, as a tooth-gift.

English Rune Poem

Ing was first
among the East-Danes
seen by men,
until he later went east
over the waves;
his wagon ran after;
so the Heardings
named the hero.

Ætt 1 · Pos. 7

Name

Day, the daylight.

Meaning

Daylight makes no distinction between people: rich or poor, everyone gets their share. It is also the measure of a life. When the Æsir set the sun and moon on their courses, they named morning, midday and evening so the years could be counted, and the English poem calls the giver of day metod, the Measurer, a word that first meant fate. Day belongs with Verðandi’s gift, the lived life that unfolds one day at a time, and with Hœnir’s, óðr, the stirred mind that wakes to each new day.

English Rune Poem

Day is the lord’s messenger,
dear to people,
the Measurer’s glorious light,
mirth and hope
to the fortunate and the poor,
of use to all.

Ætt 1 · Pos. 8

Name

Inherited land: the home and farm that pass down through a family.

Meaning

The English poem holds home dearer than anything, as long as a person can live there rightly and prosper under their own roof. Inherited land was more than property. It could not be sold out of the family without the kin agreeing, and Norwegian law let a family prove its claim by tracing its kin back to the mound and the heathen time. The dead lay in mounds on the farm and stayed kin: remembered, given gifts, asked for help, with elves and dísir watching over the land.

English Rune Poem

Home is very dear
to every man,
if there he may,
in what is right and fitting,
enjoy in his house
prosperity most often.