Naudiz
The tenth Elder Futhark rune, transliterated n. Its name means "need" in the old sense of hardship or compulsion, and all three rune poems agree on it.
At a glance
- Rune
- ᚾU+16BE
- Unicode name
- RUNIC LETTER NAUDIZ NYD NAUD N
- Alphabet
- Elder Futhark
- In use
- c. AD 150 – 800 (Roman Iron Age to the beginning of the Viking Age)
- Position
- 10, ætt 2
- Transliteration
- n
- Sound value
- /n/
- Name
- *naudiz: need, distress, constraintReconstructed
Names
How the rune is called in each tradition, and how securely each name is recorded.
| Form | Language | Meaning | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| *naudiz | Proto-Germanic | need, distress, constraint | Reconstructed |
| nyd | Old English | need, hardship | Attested |
| nauðr | Old Norse | need, constraint | Attested |
An asterisk marks a reconstructed form: a word linguists have worked backwards to, not one that appears in any surviving source.
Etymology
All three traditions agree on "need" in the strong old sense of compulsion or hardship, not the modern weak sense of wanting something.
Sound value
A plain /n/. The rune survives unchanged in every later alphabet, and in the Younger Futhark it acquired a simplified short-twig form with a much shorter side-stroke.
Variant forms
Alternative shapes for the same rune across regions and periods.
Younger Futhark short-twig naud
U+16BF
The simplified Viking-Age form, with a short side-stroke.
Historical use
Old Norse literary sources associate nauð-runes with binding and with harm; Egils saga contains the best-known episode in which badly carved runes cause illness and correctly carved ones cure it. That is a 13th-century saga, not a contemporary record.
Rune-poem evidence
The medieval verse that records this rune's name. Original text plus our own translation.
Nyd byþ nearu on breostan; weorþeþ hi þeah oft niþa bearnum to helpe and to hæle gehwæþre, gif hi his hlystaþ æror.Need is constricting on the chest; yet for the children of men it often becomes both a help and a healing, if they heed it in time.(our translation)
Nauðr gerer næppa koste; nøktan kælr í froste.Need leaves little choice; the naked freeze in the frost.(our translation)
Nauð er Þýjar þrá ok þungr kostr ok vássamlig verk.Constraint is the grief of the bondwoman and a hard condition and toilsome work.(our translation)
Manuscript tags: opera ("toil") and niflungr ("prince").
Attested in
Objects and monuments where this rune can actually be seen.
Tenth position in the futhark row.
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
How this rune is read in contemporary divination, which is a separate question from what it meant historically.
Upright
Read as an unavoidable constraint that teaches something: hardship with a purpose. The Old English poem's "it often becomes a help" is usually quoted in support.
Where this comes from: The "hardship that teaches" framing is modern, but it does track the Old English stanza fairly closely, which is more than can be said for several other runes. Many systems also give naudiz a reversed reading, although the glyph is unchanged by a half-turn and so has no reversed form to read.
The same rune in other alphabets
Runes descended from the same original character, so you can follow it through time.
The rest of ætt 2
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.