The Runes
Symbol · The Runes
Kaunan
Torch or Sore
The k-rune, whose name is disputed: an ulcer in both Norse poems, a torch in the Old English one.
What it meansThe English poem gives a torch burning pale and bright where princes sit. The Norwegian and Icelandic give an ulcer — a sore, the bane of children. The same rune is light in the hall and infection in the body, and the traditions never reconciled it.
Symbol · The Runes
Thurisaz
Sharp, and Evil to Grasp
The th-rune, named for the thurs or giant, and renamed thorn by the Anglo-Saxons, who called it evil to touch.
What it meansThe English poem gives a thorn: exceedingly sharp, evil to grasp, harsh to anyone sitting among them. The Norse poems give a giant, and the Icelandic calls it torment of women. Both readings agree on the essential point — a thing that injures whoever handles it carelessly.
Symbol · The Runes
Hagalaz
Whitest of Grains
In the English poem, ruin that does not last: what falls hard and white is grain, and water in an hour.
What it meansHail is the whitest of grains — a beautiful thing to call a destroyer of crops. It is whirled from heaven, driven by wind, and then it melts into water. The poem's reading is that the calamity has a short life and turns into the thing the field needed.
- AlgizThe Sedge in the FenNorse
- AnsuzMouth, Estuary, GodNorse
- BerkananThe Tree Without SeedNorse
- DagazJoy to Rich and PoorNorse
- EhwazThe Comfort of the RestlessNorse
- EihwazGuardian of FlameNorse
- FehuCattle, and the QuarrelNorse
- GeboCredit and HonourNorse
- HagalazWhitest of GrainsNorse
- IngwazThe God Who Went EastNorse
- IsazThe Broad BridgeNorse
- JeraThe Good SeasonNorse
- KaunanTorch or SoreNorse
- LaguzThe Sea Without EndNorse
- MannazAugmentation of the DustNorse
- NaudizNarrow on the BreastNorse
- OthalaThe Inherited GroundNorse
- PerthA Meaning Not RecoveredNorse
- RaidoEasy IndoorsNorse
- SowiloHope of SeafarersNorse
- ThurisazSharp, and Evil to GraspNorse
- TiwazThe One-Handed GodNorse
- UruzOne Rune, Three GlossesNorse
- WunjoTrouble Absent, and EnoughNorse
