ELDER FUTHARK · FREYR'S AETT · RUNE 7 OF 24
Gebo ᚷ
“Gift” · the sound g
IN A READING
Exchange, partnership, generosity.
REVERSED
Gebo looks the same either way up, so it has no reversed reading.
IN MAGIC
Partnerships, contracts, balanced exchange.
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 Gebo: giving brings honour and support to those who have nothing.
THE OLD ENGLISH RUNE POEM · ᚷ GYFU
Gyfu gumena byþgleng and herenys,wraþu and wyrþscypeand wræcna gehwamar and ætwist,ðe byþ oþra leas.
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 Gebo: 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
ᚷGyfu
Younger Futhark
Given up when the row was cut to sixteen, about 800.
Freyr's aett
The futhark falls into three rows of eight, the aettir. Gebo is number 7 of Freyr'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