The rune poems
Three medieval poems describe the runes one by one, a stanza to a sign. Every meaning on this site walks back to them. Each poem stands here with its century, its manuscript and its opening stanza, and the full text is one step away.
All three poems walk the row the futhark sets, and all three open with wealth: feoh, fé — the same word in different tongues. One row of runes, three centuries of readers.
The Old English Rune Poem
The fullest of the three poems, and the only source for seven runes. Cotton MS Otho B.x burned. Only the printed page of 1705 remains.
Feoh byþ frofur fira gehwylcum;
sceal ðeah manna gehwylc miclun hyt dælan
gif he wile for drihtne domes hleotan.
Wealth comforts everyone alive.
Still, each man has to hand it out freely
if he wants a good name before the Lord.
The poem never names the rune. Each stanza is a riddle whose answer is the name, and the name printed above it in every edition was put there by a later hand.
The full text, stanza by stanza →
The Norwegian Rune Poem
Short rhymed couplets for sixteen runes. Worm's print of 1636 and two seventeenth-century copies.
Fé vældr frænda róge;
føðesk ulfr í skóge.
Wealth sets kinsmen against each other.
The wolf feeds itself out in the forest.
The Norwegian poem is written in rhyming couplets. The second line rhymes with the first, and often that is the strongest thing connecting them.
The full text, stanza by stanza →
The Icelandic Rune Poem
Each rune described in a few short images. Four manuscripts in the Arnamagnaean Library, Copenhagen.
Fé er frænda róg
ok flæðar viti
ok grafseiðs gata.
Wealth: discord among kinsmen,
beacon of the flood-tide,
path of the serpent.
Each Icelandic stanza ends with two words the poem does not need. One is a Latin equivalent of the rune name, the other an Old Norse word for king beginning with the same letter. The manuscript is running a glossary and an alphabetical king-list through the poem at the same time.
The full text, stanza by stanza →
Abecedarium Nordmannicum
One of the earliest records of the runic row. It helps with the history of the runes, not with their meanings. Codex Sangallensis 878, fol. 321. The manuscript survives.
Feu forman,
Ûr after,
Thuris thritten stabu,
Os ist himo oboro,
Rat endost ritan
Chaon thanne cliuôt.
Hagal, Naut habet
Is, Ar endi Sol,
Tíu, Brica endi Man midi
Lago the leohto,
Yr al bihabet.
Feu first,
Ûr after,
Thuris the third stave,
Os stands above it,
Rat written at the end,
Chaon then cleaves to them.
Hagal and Naut hold
Is, Ar and Sol,
Tíu, Brica and Man in the middle,
Lago the bright,
Yr closes them all.
Where the poems lead
The meaning of every rune, one page each How a reading is built