Fé
The first rune of the Younger Futhark, transliterated f. Its name fé means livestock, property and money at once, a single word for wealth in all its forms.
At a glance
- Rune
- ᚠU+16A0
- Unicode name
- RUNIC LETTER FEHU FEOH FE F
- Alphabet
- Younger Futhark
- In use
- c. AD 800 – 1100 (The Viking Age)
- Position
- 1, ætt 1
- Transliteration
- f
- Sound value
- /f/ , /v/
- Name
- fé: livestock, money, wealthAttested
Names
How the rune is called in each tradition, and how securely each name is recorded.
| Form | Language | Meaning | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| fé | Old Norse | livestock, money, wealth | Attested |
An asterisk marks a reconstructed form: a word linguists have worked backwards to, not one that appears in any surviving source.
Etymology
Directly continues the Elder Futhark *fehu. The Old Norse word fé covers livestock, movable property and money together: the distinction English draws between "cattle" and "capital" simply was not there.
Sound value
Writes both /f/ and /v/, which were positional variants of one sound in Old Norse. Medieval scribes later added a dot to separate them.
Historical use
Opens the futhark and is among the commonest runes on Viking-Age memorial stones, where formulaic texts about inheritance and property recur constantly. The shape is unchanged from the Elder Futhark.
Rune-poem evidence
The medieval verse that records this rune's name. Original text plus our own translation.
Fé vældr frænda róge; føðesk ulfr í skóge.Wealth causes strife among kinsmen; the wolf is reared in the forest.(our translation)
Fé er frænda róg ok flæðar viti ok grafseiðs gata.Wealth is strife among kinsmen and the fire of the flood-tide and the path of the serpent.(our translation)
Followed in the manuscripts by the tags aurum ("gold") and fylkir ("leader"). Both of the last two phrases are standard kennings for gold.
Feoh byþ frofur fira gehwylcum; sceal ðeah manna gehwylc miclun hyt dælan gif he wile for drihtne domes hleotan.Wealth is a comfort to everyone; yet every person must share it out freely, if they wish to be granted glory before the Lord.(our translation)
The moralising second half is characteristic: the poem repeatedly turns a rune name into a Christian lesson.
Attested in
Objects and monuments where this rune can actually be seen.
Raised by Harald Bluetooth, recording his conquest of Denmark and Norway and the conversion of the Danes. Often called Denmark’s birth certificate.
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 Fé 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.