Yr
The twenty-seventh futhorc rune, transliterated y. The poem describes it as war-gear and a joy to nobles but never says what it is; a bow is the usual guess.
At a glance
- Rune
- ᚣU+16A3
- Unicode name
- RUNIC LETTER YR
- Alphabet
- Anglo-Saxon Futhorc
- In use
- c. AD 400 – 1100 (Early medieval England and Frisia)
- Position
- 27
- Transliteration
- y
- Sound value
- /y/
- Name
- yr: unclear; perhaps a bow, or a tool for making oneContested
Names
How the rune is called in each tradition, and how securely each name is recorded.
| Form | Language | Meaning | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| yr | Old English | unclear; perhaps a bow, or a tool for making one | Contested |
An asterisk marks a reconstructed form: a word linguists have worked backwards to, not one that appears in any surviving source.
Etymology
The stanza never names the object. It says yr is a joy and an honour to princes and nobles, looks well on a horse, is reliable on a journey, and is a piece of war-gear. A bow is the usual guess, and it fits the war-gear line, but the identification is not secure.
Sound value
The rounded front vowel /y/, another sound Old English developed and needed a rune for.
Historical use
Reasonably common in English inscriptions. Note that the Younger Futhark also has a rune called ýr, meaning "yew", which is an entirely different character with a different shape and sound: the shared name is a coincidence of the traditions, not a relationship.
Rune-poem evidence
The medieval verse that records this rune's name. Original text plus our own translation.
Yr byþ æþelinga and eorla gehwæs wyn and wyrþmynd, byþ on wicge fæger, fæstlic on færelde, fyrdgeatewa sum.Yr is, to every prince and noble, a joy and an honour; it looks well on a horse, is reliable on a journey, and is a piece of war-gear.(our translation)
The object is never named. A bow, or a tool for making one, is the usual guess.
Attested in
Objects and monuments where this rune can actually be seen.
- Thames scramasaxRiver Thames, London · 10th century
Present among the English additions in the inlaid 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
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 Yr 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. 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 English yr and the Younger Futhark ýr are different runes that happen to share a name. They have different shapes, different sounds and different origins.
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.