Runic Alphabet Table
| Rune | Name | Translit. | Sound | Group |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ᚠ | fehu | f | f | ætt 1 |
| ᚢ | uruz | u | u | ætt 1 |
| ᚦ | thurisaz | þ⟩ | θ or ð | ætt 1 |
| ᚨ | ansuz | a | ɑ | ætt 1 |
| ᚱ | raido | r | r | ætt 1 |
| ᚲ | kauna | k | k | ætt 1 |
| ᚷ | gebo | g | g | ætt 1 |
| ᚹ | wunjo | w | w | ætt 1 |
| ᚺ | haglaz | h | h | ætt 2 |
| ᚾ | naudiz | n | n | ætt 2 |
| ᛁ | isaz | i | i | ætt 2 |
| ᛃ | jeran | j | j | ætt 2 |
| ᛇ | iwaz | ï⟩ or æ | ɪ or æ | ætt 2 |
| ᛈ | pertho | p | p | ætt 2 |
| ᛉ | algiz | z or ʀ | /z/ or /r₂/ | ætt 2 |
| ᛊ | sowilo | s | s | ætt 2 |
| ᛏ | tiwaz | t | t | ætt 3 |
| ᛒ | berkanan | b | b | ætt 3 |
| ᛖ | ehwaz | e | e | ætt 3 |
| ᛗ | mannaz | m | m | ætt 3 |
| ᛚ | laukaz | l | l | ætt 3 |
| ᛜ | ingwaz | ŋ | ŋ | ætt 3 |
| ᛞ | dagaz | d | d | ætt 3 |
| ᛟ | othalan | o | o | ætt 3 |
The Elder Futhark is the oldest full runic alphabet: 24 letters, carved into wood, metal and stone from around 150 AD, arranged in three groups of eight called aettir ('lineages'). Its name is a piece of self-description - take the first sound of the first six runes (fehu, uruz, thurisaz, ansuz, raido, kaunan) and you spell f-u-th-a-r-k, the same acrophonic trick that named the Greek alphabet after alpha and beta. Each rune has a name that is a common noun - cattle, hail, ice, sun, day - and those names are not decoration: they are how the alphabet was memorized, taught in alliterative verse, and passed down for six centuries before anyone thought to write a grammar.
The table above is the standard reconstruction, and it carries one built-in easter egg: we cross-checked it against the Kylver Stone of Gotland (c. 400 AD), the oldest known complete rune row. The stone's engraver swapped two adjacent runes - ihwaz and pertho, positions 12 and 13 - and that slip has been copied and studied ever since. It is a reminder that rune rows are not sacred immutable sequences but human lists, transmitted by hand, with hands that err. The alphabet was eventually streamlined to 16 letters in the Viking Age (the Younger Futhark), and its cousin scripts spread across England (Futhorc) and, centuries later, its initials would be fused into the logo of a wireless standard named after a Danish king.
How to use
- Read the table in aett order, not alphabetically: each group of eight was taught as a unit, and the alliterative rune poems assume it. The first aett opens with wealth, wild ox, giant, god, ride, ulcer/blank, gift, joy - a sweep of the things an early Germanic world found worth naming. The second aett turns to weather and hardship: hail, need, ice, year/harvest, yew, (the mysterious) perthro, elk/protection, sun. The third closes with the divine and the daily: Tyr, birch, horse, man, water/leek, the god Ing, day, ancestral property.
- Use the transliteration column to read inscriptions, and the sound column to pronounce them. Transliteration is convention, not pronunciation: th (the thorn rune) covers both the th of 'thin' and 'this', the ng rune covers the final sound of 'ring', and z in the 15th position was likely a rhotic or grooved r, not an English z. When a rune's sound column shows two values separated by 'or', scholarship is genuinely split - the Elder Futhark was carved for early Germanic dialects that differed, and the same letter served slightly different sounds in different regions.
- Pick a rune and trace its afterlife. Fehu (cattle) survives in English 'fee'; os (god) is the first letter of the word 'Oslo'... which is named for something else entirely - but the rune-names live on in days of the week: Tyr gives Tuesday, Odin (Wodan) Wednesday, Thor Thursday, Frigg Friday. The bind-rune of the ninth-century king Harald Bluetooth - the Younger Futhark H and B bound together - is now the logo on your phone's Bluetooth menu. The alphabet itself never fully died: it slid into marginal use for calendars, Ownership marks and rural carved dates in Scandinavia into the 19th and even 20th century.
Frequently asked questions
Why is it called the Futhark?
Acrophony, same as the Greek alphabet. The first six rune names are fehu, uruz, thurisaz, ansuz, raido, kaunan; their initial sounds are f, u, th, a, r, k - 'futhark'. Greek did the same with alpha-beta and Phoenician with its own sequence; naming an alphabet after its first letters is the ancient equivalent of calling the alphabet 'the ABCs'. The Younger Futhark (Viking Age) and Anglo-Saxon Futhorc are named the same way - Futhorc because its fourth and sixth letters had changed sounds to o and c.
What is the Kylver Stone mistake?
The oldest complete rune row we have - carved around 400 AD on a stone slab used as a grave cover in Gotland, Sweden - lists all 24 runes, but in positions 12 and 13 the engraver carved pertho before ihwaz, reversing the standard order (ihwaz before pertho). Whether it was a slip of the chisel or a local variant is genuinely debated; what is not debated is that the two runes sit swapped on the stone. Our table follows the standard order and flags the swap, because most charts silently normalize the stone without telling you the oldest witness disagrees.
What is the difference between Elder Futhark, Younger Futhark and Anglo-Saxon Futhorc?
Three stages of the same alphabet. The Elder Futhark (24 runes, c. 150-800 AD) is the ancestor. The Younger Futhark (16 runes, c. 800-1100) is the Viking Age compression: six letters were dropped, which made several runes do double duty - one rune for both k and g, one for both p and b - so the same inscription can be read multiple ways. The Anglo-Saxon Futhorc (up to 33 runes) went the other way, adding letters for English sounds the old alphabet lacked. If you see runes on Viking ship merchandise, you are almost always looking at Younger Futhark; if you see them on a fantasy map or a metal album, it could be either, or a modern invention.
Did runes have magical meanings?
Names, yes; magic, less than pop culture claims. Each rune's name was a common noun - fehu 'cattle/wealth', uruz 'aurochs' or 'water' depending on the poem, sowilo 'sun', dagaz 'day' - and memorizing the alphabet through meaningful words was standard ancient practice (the same trick the Hebrew and Greek letter names use). The rune poems that survive from Iceland, Norway and Anglo-Saxon England use these names to teach the letters in verse. Individual inscriptions do sometimes invoke curses, protection or ownership ('X carved these runes'), and a few bear formulae scholars read as magical - but the alphabet itself is a writing system first; every surviving runic inscription is readable text, not a spell sheet.
Is the Bluetooth logo really a rune?
Two of them, fused. The standard is named after Harald 'Bluetooth' Gormsson, the 10th-century Danish king who united Denmark and Norway - the tech equivalent of uniting PC and phone. Its logo is a bind-rune: his initials H and B written in Younger Futhark runes (the H-rune's branch shape and the B-rune) joined into one glyph. It was designed in 1997 by Jim Kardach of Intel, who had been reading a novel about Viking-age Sweden; the placeholder stuck. Look at the logo on any paired device and you are reading the first rune of Hagal's aett and a descendant of the old futhark's b - a 1,500-year writing tradition sitting in your status bar.