Hagall
The seventh Younger Futhark rune, transliterated h, and the first of the second ætt. It is the anchor of the cipher systems used for cryptic runes.
At a glance
- Rune
- ᚼU+16BC
- Unicode name
- RUNIC LETTER LONG-BRANCH-HAGALL H
- Alphabet
- Younger Futhark
- In use
- c. AD 800 – 1100 (The Viking Age)
- Position
- 7, ætt 2
- Transliteration
- h
- Sound value
- /h/
- Name
- hagall: hailAttested
Names
How the rune is called in each tradition, and how securely each name is recorded.
| Form | Language | Meaning | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| hagall | Old Norse | hail | 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 *haglaz. All three rune poems call hail a kind of grain, an image so consistent across the traditions that it must be inherited rather than independently invented.
Sound value
An /h/. The long-branch and short-twig forms differ more sharply here than for almost any other rune, which makes this a useful character for telling the two traditions apart.
Variant forms
Alternative shapes for the same rune across regions and periods.
Short-twig hagall
U+16BD
The short-twig form: a plain stave carrying a small mark at mid-height. It is the long-branch ᚼ above, not this one, that looks like an asterisk.
Historical use
Opens the second ætt, and its shape is what the cryptic rune systems borrow. Because the futhark divides into groups of six, five and five, a rune can be encoded as a pair of counts (which ætt, which position), and those counts are drawn as twigs on a stave. Nordby’s work identified the systems across dozens of inscriptions.
Rune-poem evidence
The medieval verse that records this rune's name. Original text plus our own translation.
Hagall er kaldastr korna; Kristr skóp hæimenn forna.Hail is the coldest of grains; Christ shaped the world of old.(our translation)
A plain reminder that the rune poems are Christian-era texts, not pagan survivals.
Hagall er kaldakorn ok krapadrífa ok snáka sótt.Hail is cold grain and a driving sleet and the sickness of snakes.(our translation)
Manuscript tags: grando ("hail") and hildingr ("chieftain").
Hægl byþ hwitust corna; hwyrft hit of heofones lyfte, wealcaþ hit windes scura; weorþeþ hit to wætere syððan.Hail is the whitest of grains; it whirls down out of the sky, gusts of wind toss it about, and afterwards it turns to water.(our translation)
All three rune poems call hail a "grain". The image is shared inheritance rather than coincidence.
Attested in
Objects and monuments where this rune can actually be seen.
Writes this rune with the old Elder Futhark shape ᚺ rather than the Viking-Age ᚼ, in a text otherwise already in a younger futhark: the reduction caught partway through.
Uses several cipher systems built on the ætt-and-position principle, alongside ordinary runes.
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 Hagall 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.
Common misconceptions
Claims about this rune that circulate widely and do not hold up.
The Younger Futhark ættir contain six, five and five runes, not three groups of eight. The eight-rune grouping belongs to the Elder Futhark.
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.