Wynn

The eighth futhorc rune, transliterated w. Its name means "joy", and like thorn it was borrowed into the Latin alphabet, as the Old English letter wynn.

U+16B9transliterated w/w/ætt 1c. AD 400 – 1100

At a glance

Rune: ᚹU+16B9
Unicode name: RUNIC LETTER WUNJO WYNN W
Alphabet: Anglo-Saxon Futhorc
In use: c. AD 400 – 1100 (Early medieval England and Frisia)
Position: 8, ætt 1
Transliteration: w
Sound value: /w/
Name: wynn: joy, delightAttested

Names

How the rune is called in each tradition, and how securely each name is recorded.

Form	Language	Meaning	Evidence
wynn	Old English	joy, delight	Attested

An asterisk marks a reconstructed form: a word linguists have worked backwards to, not one that appears in any surviving source.

Etymology

Continues *wunjō. Old English wynn means joy or delight, the same root as "winsome", and related to German Wonne.

AttestedPage 1999; Barnes 2012

Sound value

A /w/. Like thorn, this rune was adopted into Latin-script Old English, as the letter wynn (ƿ), before scribes replaced it with "uu" and eventually "w".

Historical use

The second of the two runes borrowed into the Latin alphabet for English. Modern editions of Old English texts usually silently replace ƿ with w, because it is too easily confused with þ and p.

AttestedPage 1999

Rune-poem evidence

The medieval verse that records this rune's name. Original text plus our own translation.

The Old English Rune PoemWenne · Old English · Anglo-Saxon Futhorc

Wenne bruceþ, ðe can weana lyt sares and sorge and him sylfa hæfþ blæd and blysse and eac byrga geniht.

Joy is enjoyed by the one who knows few troubles, pain or sorrow, and who has for themselves prosperity and happiness, and the plenty of a stronghold besides.(our translation)

The verse has wenne, not the nominative wynn: brūcan governs the genitive, so the name stands here in an oblique case, with e for y. Same word inflected, not a different name.

Attested in

Objects and monuments where this rune can actually be seen.

Ruthwell CrossDumfriesshire, Scotland · 8th century
Uses the full range of English runes including those the Elder Futhark had and Scandinavia lost.

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 Wynn 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.