Old letters. Enduring stories. Meanings you can make your own.
Runes began as letters in Germanic writing systems. This guide uses the 24-letter Elder Futhark, with familiar modern spellings of names that scholars reconstruct from later evidence. Names, sounds, and shapes have varied across time and place.
The name meanings describe historical language evidence. The modern meanings, intention groups, and stories are our original symbolic interpretations for everyday life, love, and personal practice. They express intentions without promising an outcome.
Open a rune to read its story and discover the designs it inspires.
Reciprocity, freely chosen bonds, and generous love.
g · Gift.
Our interpretationTwo lines meet and both remain whole. Gebo gives us an image for a gift offered freely and a bond tended by two people: room to give, room to receive, room to be yourself.
Discover Guardian Wall Tapestry Discover Kindred Desk Mat Discover First Light Print Historical name reference ↗Belonging, shared happiness, and affection made visible.
w · Joy; delight.
Our interpretationThere is a particular joy in being expected: a place kept beside someone, a familiar voice at the door. Wunjo holds that warmth in a small sign for the people and places you cherish.
Historical name reference ↗Trust, cooperation, and moving forward together.
e · Horse.
Our interpretationHorse and rider find a shared rhythm through attention and trust. Our Ehwaz carries that feeling into partnership: listen, make room for one another, and discover how far you can travel together.
Historical name reference ↗Self-knowledge, mutual support, and belonging among others.
m · Human being; person.
Our interpretationA person is a whole world, and still needs other people. Mannaz holds both truths together, offering a sign for knowing yourself and meeting those around you with the same depth of care.
Historical name reference ↗A transliteration identifies a letter; it is not an English translation or a guide to spelling every modern word. Here þ represents the th-sound, j is the scholarly letter convention, ŋ represents ng, and ï labels the eihwaz rune's uncertain vowel sound.
Our bindrunes combine selected letters into original intention-led designs. Any link we make between a rune, a lunar phase, and a planetary theme is a modern creative choice, rather than a fixed correspondence for all 24 runes inherited from antiquity.
Runic characters and encoded names; historical letterforms can vary.
Expert-authored account of the 24-letter alphabet, reconstructed names, name meanings, and uncertain sound values.
A later Old English naming and poetic tradition; the torch image for cen is distinguished from the disputed earlier k-rune name. No modern translation is reproduced here.
Runes were letters used to write early Germanic languages. Elder Futhark had 24 signs and takes its name from the sounds of its first six letters. It was in use centuries before the Viking Age, when a shorter 16-sign alphabet became common in Scandinavia.
On the back of a silver brooch found at Gårdlösa in Sweden, someone carved two words: ek unwodz, meaning “I, Unwodz.” The inscription faced the wearer. It preserves a name in a place that most people would never see.