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NorseRunes
Modern uses

Reversed runes

The 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.

In most modern rune-reading systems, a rune drawn or landing upside down carries an inverted, weakened or shadow meaning. The convention is often given the Old Norse-looking name "merkstave".

Where it comes from

Modern

Reversed readings are a twentieth-century import into rune practice, borrowed from the tarot convention of reversed cards. No medieval or Viking-Age source describes reading a rune differently according to its orientation.

The word "merkstave" merits a moment. It is presented as Old Norse and it is not: it appears to be a modern coinage assembled from Norse-looking elements. You will not find it in a dictionary of Old Norse.

The symmetry problem

There is a structural difficulty that many rune-reading guides skate over. Reversing a rune means turning it through half a circle, and several runes come out of that turn unchanged. They have no reversed form to read.

RuneNameWhy it cannot reverse
ᚷGeboAn X shape, identical rotated
ᚺHagalazTwo staves joined by a bar through the centre; the half-turn swaps the staves and maps the bar onto itself, whether it is drawn level or slanting
ᚾNaudizA stave crossed at its centre; the diagonal maps onto itself
ᛁIsazA single vertical stroke
ᛃJeraTwo hooks set diagonally, each turning into the other
ᛇEihwazA stave hooked at opposite corners
ᛜIngwazA diamond, identical rotated
ᛞDagazA full-height bowtie between two staves
Eight of the twenty-four Elder Futhark runes have no distinct reversed form. Most systems still assign a reversed reading to naudiz, which is an admission that the mechanism is applied by convention rather than by geometry.

The runes that get miscounted

Three runes are routinely filed on the wrong side of this line, and all three errors come from applying the wrong test. Othala ᛟ is often called non-reversible because it is symmetrical left-to-right, but turn it through half a circle and the legs end up at the top, a visibly different shape. Mannaz ᛗ and sowilo ᛊ go the other way: both are commonly listed as having no reversed form, and both do have one. Mannaz hangs its inner strokes from the tops of the two staves and brings them together in the upper half, leaving the lower half of each stave bare, so a half-turn moves the join to the bottom and gives a visibly different shape. That holds whether the strokes are drawn as a V or as a crossing. The rune it is being confused with is dagaz ᛞ, whose bowtie really does span the full height, which is exactly why dagaz survives the turn unchanged and mannaz does not. Sowilo is symmetrical in its three- and five-stroke forms but not in the four-stroke one, which is the shape most fonts and most rune sets use. The only rune that belongs on this list and is usually left off it is naudiz.

What orientation did mean historically

Runes do appear reversed, mirrored and upside down in historical inscriptions. The reasons are practical rather than semantic: the text runs right to left, or boustrophedon, or the carver was working around an awkward surface, or made an error.

There is one significant exception. The ýr rune of the Younger Futhark is the algiz shape inverted, but it is a separate character with its own name and sound, not a reversed algiz with an inverted meaning. Confusing the two is common and produces nonsense.

If you use reversed readings

That is entirely reasonable within a modern practice, and this page is not arguing otherwise. Just know that you are using a twentieth-century convention borrowed from tarot, so that you do not repeat the claim that Vikings did it.

Questions this guide answers

Is merkstave a real Old Norse word?
No. It appears to be a modern coinage built from Norse-looking components. It does not appear in Old Norse sources or dictionaries.
Which runes cannot be reversed?
Eight of the Elder Futhark twenty-four: gebo, hagalaz, naudiz, isaz, jera, eihwaz, ingwaz and dagaz. Turning any of them through half a circle produces the same shape. Three runes are commonly miscounted: othala is added to the list although it does change when rotated, and mannaz and sowilo are put on it although they change too.
Did Vikings read reversed runes differently?
There is no evidence that they did. Runes appear reversed in inscriptions for practical reasons (writing direction, awkward surfaces, mistakes), not to signal an inverted meaning.

Sources

Blum 1982; Barnes 2012; Page 1987

Full references on the sources page. Our methodology explains the evidence labels used throughout.