Beorc
The eighteenth futhorc rune, transliterated b. Its name means "birch", though the poem’s description of a tree that bears no fruit has led some editors to argue for poplar.
At a glance
- Rune
- ᛒU+16D2
- Unicode name
- RUNIC LETTER BERKANAN BEORC BJARKAN B
- Alphabet
- Anglo-Saxon Futhorc
- In use
- c. AD 400 – 1100 (Early medieval England and Frisia)
- Position
- 18, ætt 3
- Transliteration
- b
- Sound value
- /b/
- Name
- beorc: birch, or possibly poplarAttested
Names
How the rune is called in each tradition, and how securely each name is recorded.
| Form | Language | Meaning | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| beorc | Old English | birch, or possibly poplar | Attested |
An asterisk marks a reconstructed form: a word linguists have worked backwards to, not one that appears in any surviving source.
Etymology
Continues *berkanan. The English stanza is botanically odd: it says the tree bears no fruit yet produces shoots without seed, which has led some editors to argue the poet meant poplar rather than birch.
Sound value
A /b/. English kept a separate p-rune, so this one did not have to cover both.
Historical use
Common. The stanza is one of the poem’s most purely descriptive: a tree lovely in its branches, high in its crown, laden with leaves, reaching towards the sky, with no moral attached.
Rune-poem evidence
The medieval verse that records this rune's name. Original text plus our own translation.
Beorc byþ bleda leas, bereþ efne swa ðeah tanas butan tudder, biþ on telgum wlitig, heah on helme hrysted fægere, geloden leafum, lyfte getenge.The birch bears no fruit; even so it produces shoots without seed; it is lovely in its branches, high in its crown, finely adorned, laden with leaves, reaching towards the sky.(our translation)
Attested in
Objects and monuments where this rune can actually be seen.
- Franks CasketNorthumbria · early 8th century
Appears throughout the casket’s captions.
Signatures follow the Scandinavian Runic-text Database so you can look each inscription up directly. Each name links to the object's own entry.
Modern meaning
Why this entry has none.
None is given here. Modern rune divination is built almost entirely on the Elder Futhark, and no established modern tradition reads the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc separately. Inventing a reading for Beorc to fill the space would be exactly the kind of fabrication this site exists to flag, so the field is left empty rather than filled. Its Elder Futhark ancestor is linked further down and does carry a modern reading, labelled as modern. How modern rune meanings were arrived at is a separate discussion.
The same rune in other alphabets
Runes descended from the same original character, so you can follow it through time.
The rest of ætt 3
Sources for this entry
Full references are on the sources page. If you think something here is wrong, our corrections policy explains how to say so.