ELDER FUTHARK · TYR'S AETT · RUNE 24 OF 24
Othala ᛟ
“Ancestral land” · the sound o
IN A READING
Heritage, home, inheritance.
REVERSED
Loss of home, prejudice, clinging to the past.
IN MAGIC
Protecting the home; ancestral connection; inheritance.
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 Othala: the homeland is dear to everyone who prospers there.
THE OLD ENGLISH RUNE POEM · ᛟ EÐEL
Eþel byþ oferleofæghwylcum men,gif he mot ðær rihtesand gerysena onbrucan on boldebleadum oftast.
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 Othala: 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
ᛟEðel
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. Othala is number 8 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