Elder & Younger Futhark

How the runes changed from the early centuries to the Viking Age

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Between the 600s and the 800s, Scandinavians cut their rune-row from 24 runes to 16. The Viking Age wrote in this shorter row, the Younger Futhark. Fewer runes meant that most of them had to stand for several sounds, so the rune for Týr was also simply the letter for d. Some names survived with new meanings, some runes took new shapes, and eight were dropped altogether.

Elder to Younger, rune by rune

Elder Futhark		Younger Futhark		Meaning	Sounds	What changed
ᚠ	Fehu	ᚠ	fé	wealth	f	Unchanged in name and meaning.
ᚢ	Uruz	ᚢ	úr	drizzle; slag	u, v, w, y, o, ø	The name survives, but the aurochs is gone: the Norwegian poem reads slag, the Icelandic drizzling rain.
ᚦ	Thurisaz	ᚦ	þurs	giant	þ, ð	The Norse name was always the giant.
ᚨ	Ansuz	ᚬ	áss	a god (Óðinn)	ą, o, æ	New shape, and a new sound; its old a-sound passed to ár.
ᚱ	Raidho	ᚱ	reið	riding	r	Unchanged.
ᚲ	Kenaz	ᚴ	kaun	ulcer, sore	k, g, ng	New shape. It also writes g and ng, since those runes were dropped.
ᚺ	Hagalaz	ᚼ	hagall	hail	h	New shape; same meaning.
ᚾ	Naudiz	ᚾ	nauðr	need, constraint	n	Unchanged.
ᛁ	Isaz	ᛁ	íss	ice	i, e	Also writes e, since the e-rune was dropped.
ᛃ	Jera	ᛅ	ár	plenty, good year	a, æ, e	New shape and a new sound, but the meaning holds: the harvest year.
ᛊ	Sowilo	ᛋ	sól	sun	s	Same meaning.
ᛏ	Tiwaz	ᛏ	Týr	the god Týr	t, d	Also writes d, since the d-rune was dropped.
ᛒ	Berkano	ᛒ	bjarkan	birch	b, p	Also writes p, since the p-rune was dropped.
ᛗ	Mannaz	ᛘ	maðr	man, human	m	Same name, but a new shape: the one the Elder Futhark used for its z-rune.
ᛚ	Laguz	ᛚ	lǫgr	water, sea	l	Unchanged.
ᛉ	Algiz	ᛦ	ýr	yew; bow	final R	The Elder z-rune turned upside down. It took the name of the yew from a rune that was dropped.

Younger Futhark shapes are shown in their long-branch (Danish) form. Swedish and Norwegian carvers also used simpler short-twig forms for several of them.

Dropped from the Viking-Age row

These eight Elder runes have no Younger descendant, so no Norse rune poem describes them. Everything the medieval poems tell us about them comes from the Old English poem.

ᚷ Gebo ᚹ Wunjo ᛇ Eihwaz ᛈ Perthro ᛖ Ehwaz ᛜ Ingwaz ᛞ Dagaz ᛟ Othala

A timeline

c. 98 CE Attested The Roman historian Tacitus describes Germanic lot-casting with marked slips of wood. He does not mention runes.
c. 150 CE Attested The oldest securely dated runic object: a comb from Vimose, Denmark, carved with the name harja.
c. 400 Attested The Kylver stone, Gotland: the first complete rune-row, carved inside a grave.
5th century Attested A gold pendant from Vindelev, Denmark, carries the oldest known mention of Óðinn: "he is Óðinn’s man".
6th century Attested The Vadstena pendant, Sweden, splits the rune-row into three groups of eight: the ættir.
7th century Attested Stones at Björketorp and Stentoften, Sweden, curse anyone who breaks them. At Stentoften one rune stands for its own name: "good year".
725 to 760 Attested A skull fragment from Ribe, Denmark, names Óðinn in a charm against pain. Its runes belong to the new, shorter row.
800s Attested The 16-rune Younger Futhark is standard across Scandinavia. Frankish scholars record it as the "alphabet of the Northmen".
c. 965 Attested King Harald Bluetooth raises the great Jelling stone in Denmark.
1000s Attested Dotted runes appear, to tell g from k and e from i. Healing amulets from Sigtuna, and a charm written in an English manuscript, drive out the "lord of the giants" of wound-fever.
1150 to 1400 Attested At Bryggen in Bergen, runes are an everyday script: trade notes, letters, love messages, jokes, and Christian prayers.
1200s to 1400s Later tradition The Norwegian and Icelandic rune poems are written down, along with the Eddic poems about Óðinn winning the runes.
1600s and 1700s Later tradition Antiquarians rescue the rune poems in print, just before the manuscripts burn.
Early 1900s Modern German occult rune systems (the Armanen tradition) invent new meanings and practices.
1980s Modern Modern rune divination becomes popular, with rune stones drawn from a bag and read in spreads.

Sources for this page

Rune names and poems: Dickins, Runic and Heroic Poems (1915)
Inscriptions: RuneS database (Göttingen Academy); Rundata (Scandinavian Runic-text Database), including the Sigtuna amulet (U Fv1933;134)
The Vindelev bracteates: Imer and Vasshus, "Lost in transition" (NOWELE, 2023)
Scholarship: R. I. Page, Runes (1987); Sven B. F. Jansson, Runes in Sweden (1987)

— Evander Blackwood