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Norse runes elder futhark words4/12/2024 ![]() The Norse and other Germanic peoples wrote with runes since at least the first century. So, we see from this story how the Vikings thought of runes not merely as letters but as having potent virtues within themselves of a metaphysical or even magical nature. Odin made his sacrifice at great anguish and risk to himself because he knew that the runes conveyed deep meaning, and if he could understand their meaning he would gain profound wisdom and power. The second word on the horns was thus interpreted as holtingaz rather than holtijaz.In Norse lore, the god, Odin, impaled his heart with his own spear and hung on the world tree, Yggdrasil, for nine days and nights all to perceive the meaning of the runes. The runes were symbols that sprang from the Well of Urd – the source of fate. Therefore, the interpretation of the golden horns of Gallehus was slightly wrong before 1903, as it was believed this rune form could be an early form of the Ingwaz rune. The development of the Jēran rune from the earliest open form was not known before the discovery of the Kylver Stone in 1903, which has an entire elder futhark inscription on it. Since a simpler form of the rune was taken by the /a/ phoneme, the older cross form of the rune now came to be used for the /h/ phoneme. ![]() When the n-rune had stabilized in its form during the 6th and 7th centuries, its vertical stroke slanted towards the right ( ), which made it possible to simplify the jēra-rune by having only one vertical stroke that slanted towards the left, giving the ᛅ ár-rune of the classic Younger Futhark (note however, that the earliest YF inscriptions, such as the Ribe skull fragment, still retain the earlier X-shape). As the form of the rune had changed considerably, an older 7th century form of the rune ( ) was assumed by the s-rune. The rune was then written as a vertical staff with a horizontal stroke in the centre, usually transliterated as A, with majuscule, to distinguish it from the ansuz rune, a.ĭuring the last phase of the Elder Futhark, the jēra-rune came to be written as a vertical staff with two slanting strokes in the form of an X in its centre ( ). ![]() Younger Futhark ĭuring the 6th and 7th centuries, the initial j in * jāra was lost in Proto-Norse, which also changed the sound value of the rune from /j/ to an /a/ phoneme. Manuscripts also record an ior rune with the shape of ᛡ, but its authenticity is questionable. The rune in the futhorc is continued as gēr, with its epigraphical variant ᛡ, and its manuscript variant ᛄ (which does appear at least once epigraphically, on the Brandon Pin). This is an exception, shared with urus, due to the fact that neither the Latin nor the Greek alphabets at the time of the introduction of the Gothic one had graphemes corresponding to the distinction of j and w from i and u. The corresponding Gothic letter is □ ( j), named jēr, which is also based on the shape of the Elder Futhark rune. In the later period of the Elder Futhark, during the 5th to 6th centuries, connected variants appear, and these are the ones that give rise to the derivations in Anglo-Saxon (as ᛄ ger and ᛡ ior) and Scandinavian (as ᛅ ár) traditions. The letter in any case appears from the very earliest runic inscriptions, figuring on the Vimose comb inscription, harja.Īs the only rune of the Elder Futhark which was not connected, its evolution was the most thorough transformation of all runes, and it was to have numerous graphical variants. ![]() The derivation of the rune is uncertain some scholars see it as a modification of Latin G (" C ( ᚲ) with stroke") while others consider it a Germanic innovation. The Germanic word is cognate with Greek ὧρος ( horos) "year" (and ὥρα ( hora) "season", whence hour), Old East Slavic ꙗра (jara) "spring" and with the -or- in Latin hōrnus "of this year" (from *hōjōrō), as well as Avestan □□□□ ( yārə) "year", all from a PIE stem *yer-o. In contrast to the modern word, it had a meaning of "season" and specifically "harvest", and hence "plenty, prosperity". The reconstructed Common Germanic name * jēran is the origin of English year (Old English ġēar). Look up Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/jērą in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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