Eolh-secg

The fifteenth futhorc rune, transliterated x. Modern practice calls this shape "algiz" and reads it as protection; Old English called it "elk-sedge" and described a plant that cuts you.

U+16C9transliterated x/ks/ætt 2c. AD 400 – 1100

At a glance

Rune: ᛉU+16C9
Unicode name: RUNIC LETTER ALGIZ EOLHX
Alphabet: Anglo-Saxon Futhorc
In use: c. AD 400 – 1100 (Early medieval England and Frisia)
Position: 15, ætt 2
Transliteration: x
Sound value: /ks/
Name: eolh-secg: elk-sedge, a marsh plant with cutting leavesAttested

Names

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

Form	Language	Meaning	Evidence
eolh-secg	Old English	elk-sedge, a marsh plant with cutting leaves	Attested

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

Etymology

The English name means a marsh sedge, and the stanza describes a plant that grows in water and wounds anyone who grasps it. Whether eolh-secg has anything to do with the reconstructed Elder Futhark name *algiz, "elk", is disputed and probably unresolvable.

ContestedPage 1999; Barnes 2012

Sound value

By the futhorc period this rune had been repurposed to write the sound cluster /ks/, having lost the original ʀ sound entirely. Conventionally transliterated x.

Historical use

Rare, since /ks/ is an uncommon sound in Old English. The rune survived mainly because the alphabet sequence was traditional, not because scribes had much use for it.

AttestedPage 1999

Rune-poem evidence

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

The Old English Rune PoemEolh-secg · Old English · Anglo-Saxon Futhorc

Eolh-secg eard hæfþ oftust on fenne wexeð on wature, wundaþ grimme, blode breneð beorna gehwylcne ðe him ænigne onfeng gedeþ.

Elk-sedge most often has its home in the fen; it grows in the water and wounds grimly, burning with blood every person who makes any grab at it.(our translation)

The Old English name refers to a sedge or reed, not to the elk itself, despite the compound. The relationship between eolh-secg and the reconstructed Elder Futhark name *algiz is disputed.

Attested in

Objects and monuments where this rune can actually be seen.

Thames scramasaxRiver Thames, London · 10th century
Present in the row in its expected position.

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 Eolh-secg 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.

This is the rune modern practice calls "algiz" and reads as protection. The Old English tradition gives it neither that name nor that sense: it describes a plant that cuts you.
AttestedPage 1999