Where the meanings of the runes come from
The meanings on this site rest on three medieval rune poems. They preserved the names of the runes and the images attached to them. Modern readings are ours, and they are marked as ours.
How we read the sources
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The old text
What the rune poem literally says.
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The rune name
What its name meant.
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The modern reading
How we read that rune today.
Our sources
- The Old English Rune Poem The fullest of the three poems, and the only source for seven runes. 9th c. or earlier · 29 stanzas About the text →
- The Norwegian Rune Poem Short rhymed couplets for sixteen runes. 13th c. · 16 couplets About the text →
- The Icelandic Rune Poem Each rune described in a few short images. 15th c. · 16 stanzas About the text →
- Abecedarium Nordmannicum One of the earliest records of the runic row. It helps with the history of the runes, not with their meanings. 9th c. About the text →
Two poems survive only in copies
The original manuscripts of the Old English and Norwegian poems were lost in fires. We know them through copies and printings made earlier.
What came later
- Casting lots Tacitus describes Germanic lot-casting with marked pieces of wood. He does not call those marks runes. about AD 98 How the lots were cast →
- Odin and the runes The story of how Odin won the runes comes from Hávamál, five centuries after the oldest poem here. Hávamál · 13th c. Read the story →
- Modern rune reading Most of the rune-reading systems familiar today took shape much later than the poems themselves. 20th c. The ways and their ages →
And the modern meanings?
We take the old texts as the ground and write a modern meaning for each rune in plain words. The historical source and our own reading are always shown apart.