Did the Vikings use the Elder Futhark?

No. The changeover ran through the 8th century and was complete by around AD 800, so by the time the Viking Age opened Scandinavians had moved to the 16-rune Younger Futhark. The 24-rune Elder Futhark shown on most "Viking rune" charts was already obsolete.

How many runes are there?

It depends which alphabet. The Elder Futhark has 24, the Younger Futhark 16, and the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc 29 extended to 33 or more. The medieval Scandinavian system has no fixed count: it extends the sixteen Younger Futhark runes with dotted and borrowed characters that varied by region, scribe and century, and our reference chart lists 27 of them.

Are rune meanings historically real?

The rune names are, for the Younger Futhark and the futhorc; the rune poems record them. The detailed divinatory meanings in circulation today are twentieth-century developments, and this site labels them as such on every page.

Can I write my name in runes?

You can spell it in runes, which is what most people want. You cannot translate it into Old Norse, because most modern names have no Old Norse equivalent. Our transliterator explains every letter substitution it makes.

74 rune entries across 3 alphabets · medieval chart · 47 sources

Look up a rune. See what is actually known.

A reference for the runic alphabets that separates what the historical record shows from what modern interpretation added. Every entry labels which is which and cites sources you can check.

Browse the dictionary Write text in runes

The Elder Futhark: click any rune

ᚠ ᚢ ᚦ ᚨ ᚱ ᚲ ᚷ ᚹ

ᚺ ᚾ ᛁ ᛃ ᛇ ᛈ ᛉ ᛊ

ᛏ ᛒ ᛖ ᛗ ᛚ ᛜ ᛞ ᛟ

Every claim is labelled

The four labels used throughout the site. The data model will not accept a claim without one.

Attested

Directly supported by surviving inscriptions, medieval manuscripts or the rune poems.

Reconstructed

Widely argued by runologists or historical linguists, but not recorded in a surviving source.

Contested

Specialists disagree, or the surviving evidence supports more than one reading.

Modern

A contemporary interpretation (divination, neopagan practice, tattoo symbolism or popular culture), not a historical attestation.

The reasons for the labels, and how they are checked at build time, are set out in our methodology.

Start with the right alphabet

There is no single runic alphabet. Choosing the wrong one is the commonest mistake in this subject.

Elder Futharkc. AD 150 – 800The oldest runic alphabet: 24 characters used across the Germanic-speaking world from roughly the 2nd to the 8th century AD.Younger Futharkc. AD 800 – 1100The 16-character alphabet used in the Viking Age, written in long-branch, short-twig and staveless forms.Anglo-Saxon Futhorcc. AD 400 – 1100The English and Frisian branch, which expanded the Elder Futhark to 29 and later 33 or more characters.Medieval runesc. AD 1100 – 1500The dotted, Latin-influenced runes of medieval Scandinavia: the most-used runic system of all, and the least written about.

Most looked-up runes

The eight people search for most, and what the evidence says about each.

Which alphabet the Vikings used

The Vikings did not use the Elder Futhark. By AD 800 they had moved to the 16-rune Younger Futhark, which merges /k/ with /g/, /t/ with /d/ and /b/ with /p/, and has no separate o, e, y or w. Almost every “Viking rune” chart online shows the wrong alphabet by several centuries; see the comparison.

Work out which is which

Elder Futhark vs Younger FutharkThe runic alphabet shrank from 24 characters to 16 just as the Viking Age began, and almost everything people get wrong about runes follows from not knowing that.Younger Futhark vs Anglo-Saxon FuthorcTwo branches of the same alphabet, developing at the same time, in opposite directions. Scandinavia cut its runes down to 16; England expanded to 29 and beyond.Elder Futhark vs Anglo-Saxon FuthorcThe futhorc is the Elder Futhark plus five centuries of English sound change. Comparing them shows exactly how a writing system adapts to a language moving under it.Long-branch vs short-twig runesThese are not two alphabets. They are two ways of writing the same sixteen Younger Futhark runes: roughly the difference between a formal hand and a quick one.All runic alphabets comparedThirteen centuries of runic writing in one table: which alphabet, when, where, how many runes, and what each one could and could not write.

Tools

Everything runs in your browser; what you type stays on your device.

Rune translatorFive runic systems, with every letter choice explained.Your name in runesPlus 147 common names, pre-rendered in three alphabets.Bind rune generatorStack runes on one stave, as a carver did to save space.Rune keyboardClick to build runic text, then copy it anywhere.Unicode runic chartAll 89 codepoints, generated from the Unicode database.

Norse symbols

Not runes, and frequently not as old as advertised. Each entry gives the earliest date we can point to.

ValknutThree interlocking triangles found on Viking-Age picture stones and grave goods, usually in scenes involving death. The symbol is old, but every name we have for it is modern.VegvísirAn eight-armed Icelandic magical stave. It is marketed everywhere as "the Viking compass", but its earliest known appearance is in an Icelandic manuscript from 1860.ÆgishjálmurAn eight-armed Icelandic stave of protection and terror. The word is Old Norse; the design that people tattoo is early modern.MjölnirThor’s hammer, worn as a pendant across the Viking world. Around a thousand examples survive, and one is even labelled in runes: this is the best-attested Norse symbol there is.

All 8 symbols →

Runes today

What people do with runes now, and how much of it is old. The guides keep the two apart from start to finish.

Rune meaningsEvery rune has a name, and those names are real words. The step from "this rune is called hail" to "this rune means sudden disruption in your life" is where the evidence stops and interpretation begins.Rune divinationModern rune reading is a real practice with a real history. That history is about a hundred years long, not a thousand.Rune tattoosFour questions to answer before a permanent runic design: which alphabet, spelled how, which runes, and what those runes signal to other people.Reversed runesThe idea that a rune landing upside down inverts its meaning is twentieth-century. It also cannot apply to a third of the alphabet, though not to the third most guides name.

All 7 modern topics →

Common questions

Did the Vikings use the Elder Futhark?: No. The changeover ran through the 8th century and was complete by around AD 800, so by the time the Viking Age opened Scandinavians had moved to the 16-rune Younger Futhark. The 24-rune Elder Futhark shown on most "Viking rune" charts was already obsolete.
How many runes are there?: It depends which alphabet. The Elder Futhark has 24, the Younger Futhark 16, and the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc 29 extended to 33 or more. The medieval Scandinavian system has no fixed count: it extends the sixteen Younger Futhark runes with dotted and borrowed characters that varied by region, scribe and century, and our reference chart lists 27 of them.
Are rune meanings historically real?: The rune names are, for the Younger Futhark and the futhorc; the rune poems record them. The detailed divinatory meanings in circulation today are twentieth-century developments, and this site labels them as such on every page.
Can I write my name in runes?: You can spell it in runes, which is what most people want. You cannot translate it into Old Norse, because most modern names have no Old Norse equivalent. Our transliterator explains every letter substitution it makes.