Bjarkan
The thirteenth Younger Futhark rune, transliterated b. Its name means "birch", and it writes both /b/ and /p/; the alphabet has no separate p-rune.
At a glance
- Rune
- ᛒU+16D2
- Unicode name
- RUNIC LETTER BERKANAN BEORC BJARKAN B
- Alphabet
- Younger Futhark
- In use
- c. AD 800 – 1100 (The Viking Age)
- Position
- 13, ætt 3
- Transliteration
- b
- Sound value
- /b/ , /p/
- Name
- bjarkan: birchAttested
Names
How the rune is called in each tradition, and how securely each name is recorded.
| Form | Language | Meaning | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| bjarkan | Old Norse | birch | Attested |
An asterisk marks a reconstructed form: a word linguists have worked backwards to, not one that appears in any surviving source.
Etymology
Continues Elder Futhark *berkanan. All three poems describe the tree, and the Icelandic poem is unusually plain about it: a leafy branch, a little tree, youthful wood.
Sound value
Writes both /b/ and /p/, since the Younger Futhark dropped the Elder Futhark p-rune. Medieval scribes restored the distinction with a dot.
Variant forms
Alternative shapes for the same rune across regions and periods.
Short-twig bjarkan
U+16D3
The short-twig form.
Medieval dotted bjarkan
U+16D4
From about 1100, a dot separated /p/ from /b/.
Historical use
Common. The Bergen rune-sticks show it constantly in ordinary medieval use, cut into pine and bone, which are the materials that actually carried everyday runic writing in Scandinavia, rather than into the tree the rune is named for.
Rune-poem evidence
The medieval verse that records this rune's name. Original text plus our own translation.
Bjarkan er laufgrønstr líma; Loki bar flærða tíma.The birch is the greenest-leaved of branches; Loki brought the fortune of deceit.(our translation)
Bjarkan er laufgat lim ok lítit tré ok ungsamligr viðr.The birch is a leafy branch and a little tree and youthful wood.(our translation)
Manuscript tags: abies ("fir") and buðlungr ("prince").
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.
Wooden sticks carrying everyday messages: the largest runic corpus of all.
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 Younger Futhark separately. Inventing a reading for Bjarkan 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.