ELDER FUTHARK · HAGAL'S AETT · RUNE 11 OF 24
Isa ᛁ
“Ice” · the sound i
IN A READING
Stillness, pause, concentration.
REVERSED
Isa looks the same either way up, so it has no reversed reading.
IN MAGIC
Freezing a situation; focus and stillness in meditation.
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 Isa: ice is cold and slippery, glittering like glass.
THE OLD ENGLISH RUNE POEM · ᛁ IS
Is byþ ofereald,ungemetum slidor,glisnaþ glæshlutturgimmum gelicust,flor forste geworuht,fæger ansyne.
Known only from George Hickes's printing of 1705; the manuscript burned in the Cotton library fire of 1731.
THE OLD ICELANDIC RUNE POEM · ᛁ ÍSA
Íss er árbörkrok unnar þakok feigra manna fár.
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
ᛁIs
Younger Futhark
ᛁÍsa
Hagal's aett
The futhark falls into three rows of eight, the aettir. Isa is number 3 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