Īhwaz / *eihwaz
The thirteenth Elder Futhark rune, conventionally transliterated ï. Its name means "yew", but its sound value was already unstable in antiquity and it is one of the rarest runes in the corpus.
At a glance
- Rune
- ᛇU+16C7
- Unicode name
- RUNIC LETTER IWAZ EOH
- Alphabet
- Elder Futhark
- In use
- c. AD 150 – 800 (Roman Iron Age to the beginning of the Viking Age)
- Position
- 13, ætt 2
- Transliteration
- ï
- Sound value
- /æː/ , /i/ , /e/
- Name
- *īhwaz / *eihwaz: yew treeReconstructed
Names
How the rune is called in each tradition, and how securely each name is recorded.
| Form | Language | Meaning | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| *īhwaz / *eihwaz | Proto-Germanic | yew tree | Reconstructed |
| eoh | Old English | yew | Attested |
An asterisk marks a reconstructed form: a word linguists have worked backwards to, not one that appears in any surviving source.
Etymology
The yew reading rests on the Old English poem and on the related futhorc rune yr. The reconstruction of the Proto-Germanic form is complicated by the fact that the word itself was irregular.
Sound value
Genuinely uncertain. Conventionally transliterated ï or æ, this rune writes a sound that had already become unstable by the time of our earliest inscriptions. It is rare, and disappears from both later alphabets.
Historical use
One of the rarest runes in the corpus. Its scarcity is itself the main evidence about it: the sound it wrote was disappearing, so scribes had little use for it.
Rune-poem evidence
The medieval verse that records this rune's name. Original text plus our own translation.
Eoh byþ utan unsmeþe treow, heard hrusan fæst, hyrde fyres, wyrtrumun underwreþyd, wyn on eþle.The yew is a tree rough on the outside, hard and fixed in the ground, a keeper of fire, supported by its roots, a pleasure on the estate.(our translation)
"Keeper of fire" probably refers to yew being used for fuel or charcoal, though the phrase has attracted a great deal of speculative interpretation.
Attested in
Objects and monuments where this rune can actually be seen.
Fourteenth position on Kylver, which puts perthro ahead of this rune: the reverse of the order used here and in most modern charts. Kylver is alone in that: the Vadstena–Mariedamm die, the Grumpan bracteate, the Breza column and the Charnay fibula all put this rune first.
- The other early futhark rowsSweden, Bosnia and Burgundy · c. AD 500–600
The Mariedamm and Grumpan bracteates, the Breza column and the Charnay fibula all put this rune ahead of perthro, as does Vadstena, which shares Mariedamm’s die. That is the majority modern charts follow against Kylver.
- Caistor-by-Norwich astragalusCaistor St Edmund, Norfolk, England · 5th century
raïhan, "roe deer", cut on a roe-deer ankle bone: one of the very few places this rune is securely attested inside an actual word rather than in a futhark 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
How this rune is read in contemporary divination, which is a separate question from what it meant historically.
Upright
Modern practice associates the yew with longevity, with the boundary between life and death, and often with Yggdrasil.
Where this comes from: The Yggdrasil connection is modern. Old Norse sources describe the world tree as an ash (askr), not a yew, though some scholars have argued for a yew tradition behind it.
Common misconceptions
Claims about this rune that circulate widely and do not hold up.
This rune is often presented as "the Yggdrasil rune". No historical source connects it to the world tree.
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.