ELDER FUTHARK · HAGAL'S AETT · RUNE 9 OF 24
Hagalaz ᚺ
“Hail” · the sound h
IN A READING
Disruption from outside, necessary upheaval.
REVERSED
Hagalaz looks the same either way up, so it has no reversed reading.
IN MAGIC
Breaking patterns; protection from sudden harm.
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 Hagalaz: hail is the whitest of grains — yet it melts into water.
THE OLD ENGLISH RUNE POEM · ᚻ HÆGL
Hægl byþ hwitust corna;hwyrft hit of heofones lyfte,wealcaþ hit windes scura;weorþeþ hit to wætere syððan.
Known only from George Hickes's printing of 1705; the manuscript burned in the Cotton library fire of 1731.
THE OLD ICELANDIC RUNE POEM · ᚼ HAGALL
Hagall er kaldakornok krapadrífaok snáka sótt.
For the sixteen runes of the Younger Futhark, in manuscripts from about 1500.
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
ᚻHægl
Younger Futhark
ᚼHagall
Hagal's aett
The futhark falls into three rows of eight, the aettir. Hagalaz is number 1 of Hagal'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