Rune Poems

The Rune Poems are poems that list the letters of runic alphabets while providing an explanatory poetic stanza for the name of each letter. There are three such poems. The Anglo-Saxon rune poem, dated to the 8th or 9th century, has stanzas on 29 Anglo-Saxon runes. The Norwegian and the Icelandic poem are younger, and give stanzas on the 16 runes of the Younger Futhark. A list of the Younger Futhark rune names is also recorded in the Abecedarium Nordmannicum, written in the 9th century, but this does not give a full stanza on each rune but is rather a concise mnemonic aid to remember the name and sequence of the runes.

The three poems are medieval records of the Geramnic tradition of gnomic poetry. They are a main source of the historical rune names, and the agreement between the Anglo-Saxon tradition on one hand and the Scandinavian (Icelandic and Norwegian) on the other is remarkable. Out of sixteen names for the Younger Futhark runes, the three poems agree on fourteen. The exceptions are the þ rune, which is called þorn in Old English, but þurs in Scandinavian poems, and the difficult case of the "Algiz" (eolh, yr) rune. Of the fourteen names recorded in agreement, some are given differing interpretations. Thus, the three poems agree that the u rune is called Ur, but they give three different interpretations of this name.

f ᚠ

u ᚢ

þ ᚦ

o/ą ᚩᚬ

r ᚱ

c/k ᚳᚴ

h ᚻᚼ

n ᚾ

i ᛁ

j/a ᛄᛅ

s ᛋ

t ᛏ

b ᛒ

m ᛗᛘ

l ᛚ

x/ʀ ᛉᛦ

Anglo-Saxon

Feoh "wealth"

Ur "aurochs"

Þorn "thorn"

Os "mouth"

Rad "riding"

Cen "torch"

Hægl "hail"

Nyd "need"

Is "ice"

Ger "harvest"

Sigel "sun"

Tir "glory"

Beorc "birch"

Mann "man"

Lagu "sea"

Eolhx (see Algiz

Norwegian

Fé "wealth"

Úr "dross"

Þurs "giant"

Óss "estuary"

Ræið "riding"

Kaun "ulcer"

Hagall "hail"

Nauð(r) "need"

Ís(s) "ice"

Ár "plenty"

Sól "sun"

Týr

Bjarkan "birch"

Maðr "man"

Lǫgr "waterfall"

Ýr "yew"

Icelandic

Úr "rain"

Óss "Odin"

Lögr "water"

Abecedarium Nordmannicum

Feu

Ur

Thuris

Os

Rat

Chaon

Hagal

Naut

Is

Ar

Sol

[Tiu]

Brica

Man

Lagu

Yr

Anglo-Saxon

Reproduction of the 1705 copy of the poem by George Hickes.

The Old English rune poem as recorded was likely composed in the 8th or 9th century. It was preserved in the 10th-century manuscript Cotton Otho B.x, fol. 165a – 165b, housed at the Cotton library in London. In 1731, the manuscript was lost with numerous other manuscripts in the fire at the Cotton library. However, the poem had been copied by George Hickes in 1705 and his copy has formed the basis of all later editions of the poems.

George Hickes' record of the poem may deviate from the original manuscript. Hickes recorded the poem in prose, divided the prose into 29 stanzas, and placed a copper plate engraved with runic characters on the left margin so that each rune stands immediately in front of the stanza where it belongs. For five of the runes (wen, hægl, nyd, eoh, and ing) Hickes gives variant forms, and two more runes are given at the foot of the column: cweorð and an unnamed rune (calc), which are not handled in the poem itself. A second copper plate appears across the foot of the page and contains two more runes: stan and gar.

Van Kirk Dobbie states that this apparatus is not likely to have been present in the original text of the Cotton manuscript and states that it's possible that the original Anglo-Saxon rune poem manuscript would have appeared similar in arrangement of runes and texts to that of the Norwegian and Icelandic rune poems.

The good agreement between the Anglo-Saxon and the Scandinavian poems instils confidence that the names recorded in the Anglo-Saxon poem for the eight runes of the Elder Futhark which have been discontinued in the Younger Futhark also reflect their historical names.

ᚷ	ᚹ	ᛇ	ᛈ	ᛖ	ᛝ	ᛟ	ᛞ
Gyfu "generosity"	Wynn "bliss"	Eoh "yew"	Peorð (?)	Eh "horse"	Ing (a hero)	Eþel "estate"	Dæg "day"

Furthermore, the Anglo-Saxon poem gives the names of five runes which are Anglo-Saxon innovations and have no counterpart in Scandinavian or continental tradition.

ᚪ	ᚫ	ᚣ	ᛡ	ᛠ
Ac "oak"	Æsc "ash"	Yr (?)	Ior "eel"(?)	Ear "grave(?)"

Younger Futhark

Abecedarium Nordmannicum

Main article: Abecedarium Nordmannicum

Recorded in the 9th century, the Abecedarium Nordmannicum is the earliest known catalog of Norse rune names (though it does not contain definitions), is partly in Continental Germanic, and also contains some distinctive Anglo-Saxon rune types. The text is recorded in Codex Sangallensis 878, kept in the St. Gallen abbey, and may originate from Fulda, Germany.

Norwegian poem

The Norwegian Rune Poem was preserved in a 17th-century copy of a destroyed 13th-century manuscript. The Norwegian Rune Poem is preserved in skaldic metre, with the first line exhibiting a "(rune name)(copula) X" pattern, followed by a second, rhyming line providing information relating to its subject.

Icelandic poem

The Icelandic Rune Poem is recorded in four Arnamagnæan manuscripts, the oldest of the four dating from the late 15th century. The Icelandic Rune Poem has been called the most systematic of the rune poems (including the Abecedarium Nordmannicum) and has been compared to the ljóðaháttr verse form.

See also

• Briatharogaim
• Gothic alphabet
• Solomon and Saturn
• Runic magic

References

• Acker, Paul (1998). Revising Oral Theory: Formulaic Composition in Old English and Old Icelandic Verse. Routledge. ISBN 0-8153-3102-9
• Lapidge, Michael (Editor) (2007). Anglo-Saxon England. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-03843-X
• Page, Raymond Ian (1999). An Introduction to English Runes. Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-946-X
• Van Kirk Dobbie, Elliott (1942). The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems. Columbia University Press ISBN 0-231-08770-5
• The Rune Poem (Old English), ed. and tr. T.A. Shippey, Poems of Wisdom and Learning in Old English. Cambridge, 1976: 80–5.
• F. G. Jones, The Old English Rune Poem, An Edition, University of Florida (1967)[1]

External links

• Rune Poems from "Runic and Heroic Poems" by Bruce Dickins