ELDER FUTHARK · TYR'S AETT · RUNE 19 OF 24
Ehwaz ᛖ
“Horse” · the sound e
IN A READING
Trust, partnership, movement.
REVERSED
Mistrust, restlessness, a broken partnership.
IN MAGIC
Cooperation, safe travel, swift progress.
In the rune poems
Three medieval poems give a short verse to each rune's name, the oldest record of what the names meant. What they stress for Ehwaz: the horse is a joy to its rider, proud in its hooves.
THE OLD ENGLISH RUNE POEM · ᛖ EH
Eh byþ for eorlumæþelinga wyn,hors hofum wlanc,ðær him hæleþ ymb[e]welege on wicgumwrixlaþ spræceand biþ unstyllumæfre frofur.
Known only from George Hickes's printing of 1705; the manuscript burned in the Cotton library fire of 1731.
The Icelandic and Norwegian poems have no verse for Ehwaz: they follow the sixteen-rune Younger Futhark, which gave it up.
The verses are given in their own languages, Old English from Bruce Dickins's edition (1915) as transcribed on Wikisource, Old Icelandic as normalised in Wikipedia's article on the rune poems. Square brackets mark words the editors restored.
In the later rows
Anglo-Saxon futhorc
ᛖEh
Younger Futhark
Given up when the row was cut to sixteen, about 800.
Tyr's aett
The futhark falls into three rows of eight, the aettir. Ehwaz is number 3 of Tyr's aett:
Learn more in the lessons
- The Elder Futhark Runes · 15 min
- Runes in Magic · 15 min
- The Younger Futhark and the Runestones · 18 min