You have seen them carved into a pendant, printed on an oracle deck, or scratched onto a stone at the bottom of a cloth bag. Angular little marks, all sharp lines and no soft curves, each one carrying a name and a weight. The rune symbols and meanings you are trying to place almost always belong to one family: the Elder Futhark, the oldest runic alphabet of the Germanic and Norse peoples.
This page is about the symbols themselves. What each glyph looks like, what it is called, and the single idea it holds. If you want the full divination meanings, upright and reversed, head over to our rune meanings guide. If you want to actually write with them or spell a name, the rune alphabet page covers that. Here, we stay with the shapes and how to identify one when it lands in front of you. We also sort out the wider tangle of Norse and Viking symbols that people lump in with runes, some of which are not runes at all.
What Are Rune Symbols?
A rune is not just a picture. Each of the 24 symbols in the Elder Futhark is three things at once: a letter with a sound, a name that is a real Germanic word, and a meaning drawn from that word.
Take Fehu. Its sound is “f,” its name means “cattle,” and because cattle were movable wealth in the old Norse world, its meaning circles around wealth and what you own. The symbol, the sound, and the sense all travel together. That is what makes runes different from a plain alphabet. Every letter is also a small idea you can read.
The word Futhark comes from the sounds of its first six runes, F-U-Th-A-R-K, the same way “alphabet” comes from alpha and beta. The 24 runes split into three groups of eight called aettir (a single group is an aett), and each aett is named for a god. For symbol-spotting you do not need the aettir, but you will meet the term often, so it helps to know it means “a family of eight runes.”
The 24 Rune Symbols and Their Meanings
Here is the full Elder Futhark at a glance. Each name links to its own page, where the upright and reversed meanings are unpacked in full. Keep the one-line meaning here as a memory hook, not the whole story.
| Symbol | Name | Meaning (one line) |
|---|---|---|
| ᚠ | Fehu | Wealth, cattle, what you own and tend |
| ᚢ | Uruz | Strength, wild vitality, raw health |
| ᚦ | Thurisaz | Protection through force, conflict, the thorn |
| ᚨ | Ansuz | Messages, wisdom, the voice of a god |
| ᚱ | Raidho | Journey, movement, riding with right timing |
| ᚲ | Kenaz | Knowledge, the torch, insight that lights the way |
| ᚷ | Gebo | Gift, partnership, an exchange between equals |
| ᚹ | Wunjo | Joy, harmony, belonging |
| ᚺ | Hagalaz | Disruption, hail, sudden change from outside |
| ᚾ | Nauthiz | Need, constraint, the friction that teaches |
| ᛁ | Isa | Stillness, ice, a pause that holds everything in place |
| ᛃ | Jera | Harvest, the turning year, reward for patient work |
| ᛇ | Eihwaz | Transformation, the yew tree, life through death |
| ᛈ | Perthro | Mystery, fate, the dice cup and the unknown |
| ᛉ | Algiz | Protection, the raised hand, a shield around you |
| ᛋ | Sowilo | The sun, success, wholeness and vital force |
| ᛏ | Tiwaz | Justice, honor, the sacrifice of the god Tyr |
| ᛒ | Berkano | Growth, birth, the birch and new beginnings |
| ᛖ | Ehwaz | Partnership, the horse, trust and steady progress |
| ᛗ | Mannaz | The self, humanity, your place among others |
| ᛚ | Laguz | Water, intuition, the flow of the unconscious |
| ᛜ | Ingwaz | Fertility, potential, energy stored and ready |
| ᛞ | Dagaz | Dawn, breakthrough, a shift from dark to light |
| ᛟ | Othala | Heritage, home, what you inherit and pass on |
For the deeper reading of any of these, including how each one behaves reversed, follow the name to its page or start at the rune meanings hub.
How to Identify a Rune Symbol
Runes were made to be carved into wood, bone, and stone. That practical origin shows in their shape, and it gives you a quick way to identify a true rune.
Look for three things. Every rune is built from straight lines and angles, with no curves and no horizontal strokes. Horizontal lines were avoided because they would run along the grain of the wood and split or disappear. So a symbol full of diagonals and verticals, with a clean angular look, is very likely a rune. A symbol with circles, spirals, or flowing curves is not.
A few glyphs are easy to name on sight. The rune that looks like an “F” tilted with its arms angled upward is Ansuz ᚨ. The one shaped like the letter “R” is Raidho ᚱ, the journey rune. A simple vertical stroke, a single “I,” is Isa ᛁ, ice and stillness. The mark like a “less than” arrow or an angular “C” is Kenaz ᚲ, the torch. The upward-branching shape like a three-fingered hand or a bird’s foot is Algiz ᛉ, protection. And the sun rune Sowilo ᛋ is the lightning-bolt zigzag that later, in a doubled and distorted form, was misused by the Nazis. On its own it simply means the sun.
One caution. Because runes had regional variants and were later revived by modern practitioners, the same sound can appear with slightly different strokes. When you are matching a symbol, compare it against a full chart like the one above rather than trusting a single stylized version on a piece of jewelry.
Bind Runes: Symbols Made from Runes
Sometimes a symbol looks like a rune but carries more than one. That is a bind rune: two or more runes merged onto a shared stave (the central vertical line) to form a single mark.
The idea is old. Bind runes appear on real Viking-age and earlier objects, often to compress a name or a short word into a compact monogram, a bit like intertwined initials. A carver might join Gebo and Fehu, for instance, to bundle “a gift of wealth” into one glyph.
Modern rune workers use bind runes intentionally, choosing two or three runes whose meanings support a single aim and overlapping them into a personal sigil. The practice is genuine, but be honest with yourself about the line between tradition and invention. Historical bind runes usually saved space in writing. A bind rune designed today to hold an intention is a modern creative act built on an old technique, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as you know which is which.
If you want to build one, start with the meanings of your chosen runes, sketch them sharing one vertical line, and keep the count small so the result stays readable.
Norse and Viking Symbols Beyond the Runes
Search for “rune symbols” and you will quickly hit images that are not runes. Some are magical staves from later Iceland. Some are amulets. A few are modern designs given an old-looking coat of paint. Sorting them honestly is part of respecting the tradition.
Valknut. Three interlocked triangles, strongly linked to Odin and the slain warriors he gathered. It appears on Viking-age picture stones and carvings, so it is genuinely old, though its exact meaning was never written down and is reconstructed by scholars.
Vegvisir. The eight-armed “way-finder,” said to keep the bearer from losing their way in rough weather. It is a real Icelandic magical stave, but an early-modern one. It shows up in a 19th-century Icelandic manuscript, not in the Viking Age, so calling it a “Viking compass” is a stretch. See our guide to Icelandic magic staves for the full picture.
Aegishjalmur, the Helm of Awe. A radiating protective stave with eight arms tipped in forks, worn or drawn for defense and courage. Like the Vegvisir, it belongs to the later Icelandic grimoire tradition rather than the Viking Age, and you will find it covered on the same staves page.
Mjolnir. Thor’s hammer, worn as a pendant across the Norse world as a sign of faith and protection. It is an amulet, an object, not a rune or a written stave.
Web of Wyrd. A grid of nine short staves said to represent the threads of fate woven by the Norns. It is a striking image and a useful meditation tool, but it is modern. There is no evidence for it in the historical record, so treat it as contemporary symbolism rather than ancient lore.
Yggdrasil. The great world tree that holds the nine realms in Norse cosmology. It is central to the myths, though as a drawn symbol its familiar tree shape is a modern illustration of an old idea.
The word “alu” (ᚨᛚᚢ). Not a single symbol but three runes, Ansuz, Laguz, Uruz, spelling a word that appears on many bracteates and other early objects. Scholars connect it to protection, magic, and ritual power. It is one of the most genuinely ancient examples of runes used for more than plain writing.
Rune Symbols FAQ
What do the rune symbols mean?
Each of the 24 Elder Futhark runes carries one core idea tied to its name, from Fehu (wealth) to Othala (heritage). The chart above gives every symbol a one-line meaning, and each name links to a full page covering how that rune reads upright and reversed.
How many rune symbols are there?
The Elder Futhark, the system used in most rune reading, has 24 symbols. Later runic alphabets differ: the Younger Futhark used in the Viking Age has 16, and the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc expanded to around 29 or more. When people say “the runes” for divination, they almost always mean the 24 Elder Futhark runes.
What is the rune symbol for protection, strength, or love?
Protection is Algiz ᛉ, the upward-branching rune often described as a raised hand or shield. Strength is Uruz ᚢ, the rune of the wild ox and raw vitality. There is no single “love” rune, but Gebo ᚷ (gift and partnership) and Wunjo ᚹ (joy) are the two most often read for connection and relationships.
What is the Valknut?
The Valknut is three interlocking triangles associated with Odin and with warriors slain in battle. It appears on genuine Viking-age carvings, which makes it authentically old, though no surviving text spells out exactly what it meant. It is a symbol, not a rune.
How do I find out what a rune symbol means?
Match the glyph against a full Elder Futhark chart to name it, then read that rune’s page for the meaning. Start with the chart above, note that true runes use only straight angular lines, and follow any name link or the rune meanings hub for the complete interpretation.