Most people meet the runes through the 24-letter Elder Futhark and assume that is the whole story. It is not. When Germanic settlers carried their runes across the North Sea into early medieval England, the alphabet grew. The Anglo-Saxon runes, usually called the Futhorc, are that expanded English and Frisian branch of the runic tradition, and they hold some of the richest surviving runic writing we have.
If you want the parent system first, start with our guide to the Elder Futhark. For the wider family of runic scripts across the Norse and Germanic world, see types of runes. This page stays with the Futhorc: where it came from, why it grew, and what its carved and written words still say to us.
What Are the Anglo-Saxon Runes?
The Anglo-Saxon runes are the runic alphabet used in early medieval England and, in a closely related form, in Frisia along the North Sea coast. Scholars date their use roughly from the 5th to the 11th centuries CE, with a few traces lingering later.
They belong to the same family as the older Germanic runes, but they are their own thing. Where the Elder Futhark held 24 characters, the Futhorc carried more, because the languages it wrote had grown more sounds to spell.
Something else sets this branch apart. Runes are usually a script of stone, bone, and metal, scratched onto objects rather than written on pages. The Anglo-Saxons broke that habit. They kept carving runes on brooches, weapons, and crosses, and they also wrote them in ink, inside Christian manuscripts, sitting beside Latin letters. That crossover is unusual, and it gives the Futhorc a paper trail almost no other runic system enjoys.
How the Futhorc Grew from the Elder Futhark
Runes traveled with the people who spoke Germanic tongues. As Old English and Old Frisian took shape on their own, the sounds of those languages drifted away from what the 24 Elder Futhark runes could comfortably spell. New vowels appeared, especially at the front of the mouth, and the alphabet answered by adding letters.
The name itself records the change. Read the first six runes of the Elder Futhark and you get f-u-th-a-r-k, the “Futhark.” Read the first six English runes and the fourth sound has shifted from an “a” to an “o,” giving f-u-th-o-r-c, the “Futhorc.” A single vowel tells you the family moved.
The count grew in stages:
- The Elder Futhark held 24 runes.
- The early Anglo-Frisian Futhorc expanded to around 28 runes.
- Later Northumbrian usage in northern England pushed the total up to 33 or so.
Most of the growth went toward vowels. The old single “a” rune split into three distinct letters, because Old English now needed to tell those sounds apart in writing. A living language reshaped its alphabet to fit, which is exactly what you would hope an alphabet would do.
The Futhorc Rune Rows and Their Extra Letters
The Futhorc keeps the familiar Elder Futhark runes and then adds its own. The additions are where the English character of the script really shows. Below are the key extra runes, with the sounds and names recorded for them.
| Rune | Name | Sound | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| ᚪ | Ac | a | “Oak”; one of the three vowels that grew from the old single “a” |
| ᚫ | Æsc | æ | “Ash”; the front vowel in a word like “cat” |
| ᚩ | Os | o | “Mouth” or “god”; the reworked fourth rune behind the name Futhorc |
| ᚣ | Yr | y | A rounded front vowel Old English needed to spell |
| ᛠ | Ear | ea | A diphthong, two vowel sounds gliding together |
A few rarer runes appear mostly in the later Northumbrian rows and in manuscript lists rather than on everyday objects. These include Ior, a water-creature rune; Cweorð and Calc, whose exact values are debated; Stan, meaning “stone”; and Gar, meaning “spear.” You will not find all of them on brooches and rings, but the scribes who catalogued the alphabet made sure they were written down.
Notice the pattern in the names. Ac is oak, Æsc is ash, Os is mouth, Stan is stone. Each rune carries a plain word from daily life, and those words are the seed of what people now call rune meanings. The letter and its name traveled together.
The Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem
We do not have to guess at those names, because a poem preserved them. The Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem is an Old English text that walks through the Futhorc one rune at a time, giving each character a short verse. It survives thanks to later copies of a manuscript, and it is one of the main reasons we know the traditional English rune names at all.
Each stanza pairs a rune with its name and then says something about the thing that name points to. The verse for wealth talks about riches and how people share them. The verse for the oak praises the tree that feeds the pig and builds the ship. The tone is practical and a little proverbial, closer to folk wisdom than to grand myth.
For a reader today, the Rune Poem is a gift. It shows that these runes were never only sounds on a page. Each one anchored an image, a small piece of the Anglo-Saxon world, and that is the layer many modern practitioners still reach for when they sit with a rune.
Famous Anglo-Saxon Runic Inscriptions
Two objects tower over the rest, and both come from the 7th to 8th centuries.
The Franks Casket is a small box carved from whale bone, covered in scenes and framed by runic text in Old English. Its inscriptions mix Germanic legend with Roman and Christian material, and the runes themselves even puzzle over the whale whose bone became the box. It is one of the fullest examples of the Futhorc doing real narrative work, not just labeling an owner or a maker.
The Ruthwell Cross is a tall stone cross in what is now southwestern Scotland, once Northumbrian territory. Along its edges runs runic verse connected to the Old English poem known as The Dream of the Rood, in which the cross itself speaks about the crucifixion. Here the runes carry Christian devotion carved in stone, which shows how far the script had traveled from its earliest use.
Set beside the hundreds of smaller finds, brooches, rings, coins, and weapon fittings, these two monuments prove the range of the Futhorc. It could name a person, tell a story, or preach a sermon.
Writing in Anglo-Saxon Runes
Curious how your own words look in this alphabet? You can try it directly with our Anglo-Saxon runes translator, which converts modern letters into Futhorc characters so you can see the shapes for yourself. If you want to compare scripts side by side, our full rune alphabet reference lays out the different rows together.
A word of honest caution. Old English is not modern English, and the Futhorc was built for the sounds of a language spoken more than a thousand years ago. A letter-by-letter transliteration will give you handsome, historically grounded characters, and that is a fine and respectful place to start. Just remember you are borrowing an old alphabet to spell a new tongue, so treat the result as a tribute rather than a perfect period text.
When you are ready to move from spelling to meaning, our guide to rune meanings covers how each name and image feeds reflection and reading. The Futhorc rewards that slower approach. Learn the letters, then learn the words behind them.
Anglo-Saxon Runes FAQ
What are the Anglo-Saxon runes?
The Anglo-Saxon runes, or Futhorc, are the runic alphabet used in early medieval England and Frisia, roughly from the 5th to the 11th centuries CE. They grew out of the older Elder Futhark and added new letters to spell the sounds of Old English and Old Frisian. Unusually for runes, they appear both carved on objects and written in ink inside manuscripts.
How many runes are in the Futhorc?
The Futhorc expanded beyond the Elder Futhark’s 24 runes to about 28 in its earlier form. Later Northumbrian usage in northern England raised the total to roughly 33. The exact number depends on the period and the source, since some of the rarest runes show up mainly in manuscript lists.
How is the Futhorc different from the Elder Futhark?
The Elder Futhark has 24 runes and served the wider Germanic world. The Futhorc is the English and Frisian branch that added letters, mostly vowels, to fit Old English. The name even records a sound shift, since the fourth rune moved from an “a” to an “o,” turning Futhark into Futhorc.
What is the Franks Casket?
The Franks Casket is a small 7th to 8th century box carved from whale bone and covered with runic inscriptions in Old English. Its scenes blend Germanic legend with Roman and Christian stories, and it remains one of the finest surviving examples of the Anglo-Saxon runes used for real storytelling rather than a simple label.