Gebo
gift•exchange•bond
In the poems the rune is called: gyfu (Old English) sound «g» ᚷ
Gebo comes when something wants to pass between you and another.
The meaning
Gebo is the gift: two lines crossing, the mark of what moves between people and ties them together. In the old world a gift always asked for a gift in return, because every real exchange makes a bond. It is about giving and receiving, and the balance between them. A gift given to buy someone is not a gift. A gift that empties you is not generosity, it is fear wearing a kind face. Gebo asks whether your giving and your taking are honest: whether you keep nothing back, and also keep enough of yourself.
A modern reading, grounded in the poems below.
Reversed readings are a modern practice. As this site draws it, the rune is the same in both positions, so a reversed one does not exist for it.
For you
What do you give, and what do you allow yourself to receive?
The poems
Gyfu gumena byþ gleng and herenys,
wraþu and wyrþscype and wræcna gehwam
ar and ætwist, ðe byþ oþra leas.
Giving brings men grace and honour,
support and worth, and to every outcast
it is mercy and sustenance, when he has nothing else.
why the poem never names it
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 Norwegian and Icelandic poems say nothing about this rune. By the Viking Age the alphabet had shrunk from twenty-four letters to sixteen, and g was one of the letters it dropped. The English kept it, so the only old poem that speaks about giving is the English one.
where these texts come from
Text after Dickins 1915. Checked against Halsall 1981. Translated here from the originals.
Where it comes from
The old wisdom-poem of the North says plainly: a gift always looks for a gift in return. Friendship there was not a feeling but a practice, woven from open-handed trading of tools, food, oaths and time. To give was to reach across the cold and say, we are bound now. The crossed strokes of Gebo have outlived all of it. You still draw them without thinking every time you sign a letter with a kiss.