Ur
The second futhorc rune, transliterated u. The Old English Rune Poem is the only surviving source that still remembers its name means "aurochs".
At a glance
- Rune
- ᚢU+16A2
- Unicode name
- RUNIC LETTER URUZ UR U
- Alphabet
- Anglo-Saxon Futhorc
- In use
- c. AD 400 – 1100 (Early medieval England and Frisia)
- Position
- 2, ætt 1
- Transliteration
- u
- Sound value
- /u/ , /uː/
- Name
- ur: aurochs, wild oxAttested
Names
How the rune is called in each tradition, and how securely each name is recorded.
| Form | Language | Meaning | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| ur | Old English | aurochs, wild ox | Attested |
An asterisk marks a reconstructed form: a word linguists have worked backwards to, not one that appears in any surviving source.
Etymology
The English tradition is the only one that still remembers the aurochs: the Old English stanza describes a fierce, huge-horned moor-stalker, which is unmistakably the animal. Both Norse poems had already substituted other meanings.
Sound value
Short and long /u/. The futhorc kept this rune narrowly for u, unlike the Younger Futhark.
Historical use
Rune-poem evidence
The medieval verse that records this rune's name. Original text plus our own translation.
Ur byþ anmod ond oferhyrned, felafrecne deor, feohteþ mid hornum mære morstapa; þæt is modig wuht.The aurochs is fierce and huge-horned, a very savage beast; it fights with its horns, a famous moor-stalker: that is a bold creature.(our translation)
Attested in
Objects and monuments where this rune can actually be seen.
- Thames scramasaxRiver Thames, London; now British Museum · 10th century
A single-edged knife inlaid with a 28-rune futhorc row plus its owner’s name, Beagnoth: the fullest row surviving in an inscription rather than a manuscript. It is the best inscriptional evidence for the alphabet’s order in England, and a flawed witness to it: its runes 20–24 run in a sequence found nowhere else, and the smith made outright layout errors, squeezing in a missed s at the sixteenth position. Page suggests whoever designed the inscription was not comfortable with runic writing. The 28 runes themselves are a complete row; the one the poem has and this does not is ior, which no inscription uses.
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 Ur 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 1
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.