The etymology of rune

Bernard Mees (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology)

Abstract

The etymology of the term rune is assessed in light of recent developments in

comparative linguistic study. Several proposals for the etymology of rune are not
consistent with recent comparative understandings. Rather than magico-religious
expressions, runes are better seen primarily as instruments of communication. The term
rune has clear cognates in Celtic and Baltic which indicate an underlying meaning
‘counsel’.

Recent assessments of the etymology of ON rún, OE rūn ‘rune, runic character’ have
tended to leave more questions unanswered than resolved (Morris 1985, Pierce 2003,
Liberman 2009, pp. 251-259), a matter which is reflected in the quite different
assessments of the matter which appear in the recent runic handbooks of Düwel (2008,
pp. 1-2) and Barnes (2012, pp. 1-2). Yet two of the etymologies proposed in the past for
rune have been undermined by recent work at the comparative level, a development that
would appear to allow a more categorical statement of the term’s etymology.
The traditional etymology associates ON rún with Goth. rūna ‘secret, mystery,
plan, counsel’, ON rún ‘secret, mystery’, OE rūn ‘mystery, counsel, discussion, word’,
OS rūna ‘counsel, confidential advice’, OHG rūna ‘whisper, secret’, Latv. runa ‘speech,
speaking, talking’ and the Finnish loanword runo ‘song’ (Grimm 1821, p. 69, Feist 1939,
p. 401, Wilbur 1957, De Vries 1962, p. 453, Fell 1991, Pierce 2003, Orel 2003, p. 310,
Düwel 2008, pp. 1-2, Oberlin 2010).1 Morris (1985), however, disputes this linkage,
preferring to associate the orthographic term with OCS ryti ‘dig’ and Lith. ruõbti
‘scratch’, citing Pokorny’s (1959, pp. 868-70) Indo-European entry *reu- (1) ‘aufreißen,
graben, aufwühlen’ and the tendency for orthographic terminology to originate in similar
meanings (e.g. Lat. scrībō ‘scratch, incise, write’ and Gk γράφω ‘scratch, draw, write’).
Although favoured by Seebold (in Kluge 1995, p. 696) and Barnes (2012, pp. 1-2), this
etymology faces the problem that no cognates of OCS ryti with the meaning ‘dig’ are
clearly recorded in Germanic and that Lith. ruõbti seems to be cognate not with *reu-
(i.e. laryngealised *reuH-) but instead with Goth. raupjan, OHG roufen ‘pluck’ and the
phonologically more regular forms ON rjúfa ‘break, rip up’, OE rēofan ‘break, rend’,
Lat. rumpō ‘break’, Lith. rùmpu, rùpti ‘become rough, uneven’, Skt rúpyati ‘suffer
racking pain’ < IE *reup- ‘tear, peal’ (Urbutis 1997, p. 23, De Vaan 2000, pp. 170-171).
Morris further conflates rune with agricultural terms such as ON ryðja and OHG riuten
‘to clear land’ < IE *reudh- ‘id.’ (Rix 2001, p. 509) as well as a host of modern dialectal
descriptions which are not clearly related. Nonetheless as Kümmel (in Rix 2001, p. 510)
has shown, OCS ryti ‘dig’ is most closely related to ON rýja ‘pluck the wool off sheep’ <
1
A connection with Finnish runo ‘song’ is rejected by Krause (1969) on account of the short medial
vocalism, but as Loikala (1984) shows similar shortening is paralleled in other loans from Germanic into
the Finnic languages. Cf., however, Nilsson (1996, p. 50) who argues for a Finnish loan from Latvian.
 2

IE *ruH-i̯é- (cf. Lith. ráuti ‘pull (up)’, ON rögg ‘tuft, shagginess (of the fur of a cloak)’ <
*raww- < *rouH-) and looks itself to represent (only) a dialectal development of OCS
rьvo ‘tear up, weed out’ < *reuH-. Indo-European *reuH- is instead glossed by Kümmel
as ‘aufreißen’ (and not ‘graben’ as per Pokorny); cf. Skt rav- ‘smash, shatter’, Toch. rwā-
‘pull out’, Lat. ruō (2) ‘cast up, turn up, throw up, rake up’, rūtabulum ‘oven rake, fire
shovel’, rūtrum ‘shovel, trowel’ and the frozen legal phrase rūta (et) caesa ‘everything
dug up and cut down’. Morris has relied upon semantic developments of *reuH- found
independently in Latin (where the meaning ‘dig’ is restricted to a legal merism) and
Slavic (where the semantic ‘dig’ is also clearly of secondary origin) that are more
properly to be associated with IE *h3reuk- ‘dig (up), pluck’ (which Pokorny conflated
with *reuH-, *reup- and *reudh- in his dictionary) -- cf. Skt luñc ‘pluck’, Lat. runcō
‘weed out’ and Gk. ὀρύσσω ‘dig, dig up’, ὀρυκτός ‘dug (out)’ (Rix 2001, p. 307).
Weber (1940/41) had similarly connected rune with German Raune ‘gelding’ (i.e. as
something neutered or ‘cut off’) which may represent a medieval development of Lat.
rūna ‘a kind of javelin or dart’ (cf. MLG rūne, MDu. ruun, ruyn ‘gelding’, MW rhôn
‘spear, lance, pike’), with the Latin term itself presumably a derivation of *reuH- and
representing some kind of ‘ripper’ or ‘tearer’ etymologically. The agricultural derivation
for rune favoured by Morris (following Weber), however, relies on what appear to
represent only quite isolated semantic developments of *reuH- which have no clear direct
reflection (otherwise) in Germanic. Such evidence scarcely seems a suitable foundation
upon which to base an etymology for rune.
Another relatively common type of etymology for such an orthographic term is
usually accepted to be reflected in Goth. bōkōs, OE bōc, ON bók, OS bōk, OHG buoh
‘book’. The usual etymology promoted for book relates it to beech, a derivation which
seems semantically reasonable (linking books with the matter that writing tablets may
originally have been made of; cf. Lat. caudex, cōdex ‘tree trunk, book’), but one that
nonetheless is morphologically problematic; PG *bōk- ‘book’ seems to have been a root
stem, *bōkō ‘beech’ a (derivationally younger) thematised formation (Kluge 1890, Hoops
1911-13, Ebbinghaus 1982, 1991, Peeters 1982, Mees 2006, pp. 215-217, Pierce 2006).
The alternative etymology (Sievers 1891, pp. 241-242, Seebold 1981, pp. 289-292 and in
Kluge 1995, p. 141) links book with a verb meaning ‘divide’ or ‘apportion’ (IE *bhāg̑-),
much as if book originally had some sort of magico-religious (cf. Skt bhāgá- ‘lot, fate,
share’) or representational meaning (cf., esp., given Goth. bōka ‘letter of the alphabet’,
Gk στίχος ‘line of soldiers, line of poetry, chapter of a book’ and στοιχεῖον ‘element,
speech sound, letter of the alphabet, fundamental principle, atom’). Nonetheless as
Kuryłowicz (1945-49 = 1960, p. 79) explained in his fourth law of analogy: “Quand à la
suite d’une transformation morphologique une forme subit la différenciation, la forme
nouvelle correspond à sa fonction primaire (de foundation), la forme ancienne est
réservée pour la fonction secondaire (fondée)”. The forme nouvelle in the beech
etymology of book is the linguistically younger form beech and the forme ancienne with
the fonction secondaire is book. Deriving book from the name of a tree is the most
plausible way of explaining the rise of the term used in Germanic to indicate Roman
letter-learning.
 3

The traditional etymology of rune is not so clearly founded on an association with

physical orthographic activity as is the case with scrībō or book. What Morris’s
etymology for rune represents rather more clearly, however, is a needless projection of
the magic-abjuring approach to runology of his doctoral supervisor Antonsen onto this
most fundamental of runic vocabulary items. Antonsen spent much of his career
bemoaning the propensity for magical explanations to appear in runic historiography that
he saw as undermining the standing of runology as a subject suitable for linguistic study
(cf. esp. Antonsen 1975, pp. vii-viii and 1978). The earliest runic texts largely seem to
feature little more than names accompanied by fabricant verbs, much as if the earliest
inscriptions reflect a form of what Havelock (1963, pp. 38-41) characterised as “craft
literacy” -- i.e. texts which indicate little more than indications of the names of the
craftsmen who manufactured the items the inscriptions bear (cf. Ong 1982, p. 93, Graff
1987, p. 21, Imer 2004, 2007, 2010). Morris (1985, pp. 350-351; and cf. Antonsen 2002,
p. 40) also argued that the early Nordic forms rūnō (sg.) and rūnōz (pl.) indicate
‘inscription, message’ not ‘runic character(s)’ even though the late Latin author
Venantius Fortunatus clearly uses the term rūna to refer to runic orthography in his letter
Ad Flavium (ed. Leo 1881, p. 173). Nonetheless as Krause (1971, p. 157) notes rūnō is
found in two early Nordic inscriptions (on the Einang and Noleby stones) expressed in
the singular in a manner which suggests that the term (in the singular at least) could be
used in a collective sense (Krause and Jankuhn 1966, nos 63 and 67). Where Gothic bōka
indicates a single letter of the Gothic alphabet, its plural form bōkōs indicates ‘epistle,
book, the Scriptures’ (mirroring the use of Lat. littera sg. ‘letter (of the alphabet)’,
litterae pl. ‘letter, epistle’; Rosenfeld 1952). Quite the opposite behaviour seems apparent
in early runic epigraphy where the singular of rune appears to indicate the collective
sense ‘a collection of runes, a runic message’, the plural a sequence of runic characters.
This feature in itself suggests that the orthographic terminology rūnō developed
metonymically from a meaning ‘(written) message’ < ‘(verbal) counsel’ and that the
traditional etymological connection with Goth. rūna ‘secret, mystery, plan, counsel’ first
made by Wilhelm Grimm (1821, p. 69) is correct. Much of the available evidence is not
consistent with Morris’s contention that the two terms *rūnō ‘secret, mystery, counsel’
and rūnō ‘runic message, runic character’ represent etymologically unrelated
homophones (cf. Liberman 2009, pp. 251-259).
Yet it is clear that Germanic *rūnō ‘secret, (confidential) counsel’ has a precise
cognate in the Celtic languages; cf. OIr. rún ‘hidden, occult, mystery, secret, thoughts,
wishes, intention, purpose, knowledge’, MW rhin ‘secret, mystery, privacy, intimacy,
enchantment, charm, virtue, attribute, nature’ and derivatives such as OIr. rúine ‘mystery,
mysteriousness’, rúinech ‘mysteriousness’, MW rhiniog ‘secret, mysterious’ and
rhinwedd ‘virtue, power, sacrament, religious mystery, occult power (of gemstones)’.
Thus Marstrander (1928, pp. 175-177) argues that *rūn- represents a Celtic loaning into
Germanic, Wilbur (1957, p. 16) the reverse situation. More reservedly, however,
Hyllested (2010, p. 110) includes *rūn- in a common Celto-Germanic vocabulary for
which there seems to be no phonological or morphological evidence such as would
indicate clearly whether they are constructions of Indo-European antiquity or if they
 4

represent loanwords (either from Germanic into Celtic or Celtic into Germanic). The
Celtic cognates of Germanic *rūnō seem to be etymologically isolated otherwise in
Goidelic and Brythonic, and Matasovic (2009, pp. 316-317) even suggests that (Celtic)
*rūn- may represent a substratum term. Nonetheless rune has long been held to have
clear onomastic reflections in Continental Celtic.
A connection of the Gaulish names Cobruna, Cobrunus, Cobrunius, Cobronia and
Covrunus to OIr. comrún, cobrún ‘joint secret, confidence’ and MW cyfrin ‘(person who
is) privy to a secret or mystery’ is advanced by Schmidt (1957, pp. 96-97). And further
Continental Celtic cognates have been suggested to include the theonym Trebaruna (also
Trebaronna) of Lusitanian experience (Olivares Pedreño 2002, pp. 245-247), the Gallo-
Roman gentilicium Sacruna (CIL vol. XIII, nos 2028, 3641, 5562 and 5840) and even the
Italian Celtic anthroponym Runelos from Giubasco (Morandi 2004, no. 10). Other similar
onomastic forms such as Runa and Runatis (CIL vol. XIII, nos 3183.8-9, 7604 and 7077)
are attested in continental epigraphic sources, further suggesting that the use of the term
rūn- ‘secret’ was widespread in early Celtic (Delamarre 2001, pp. 122-23). Some of these
names may not be related -- Stüber (2005, p. 92), for example, compares Sacruna to
Sacrilla and Sacrina (CIL vol. XIII, nos 830, 996, 1596, 4166, 4227 and 4607) and Motta
(2000, p. 212) has read the Giubasco graffito as Rupelos. Yet *rūn- ‘secret, (confidential)
counsel’ is not only quite productive in forming new nouns and verbs in Germanic, the
Indo-European root for this form cited by Pokorny (1959, p. 867) has a clear verbal
development in Germanic.
Derivations of *rūn- in Germanic include collectives such as Goth. garūni ‘counsel,
consultation’, OE gerȳne ‘secret, mystery, sacrament, symbol’, OS, OHG girūni
‘mystery’, agentive forms including ON rúni ‘intimate friend’, OE garūna ‘confidant’,
compounds like Goth. haliurunnae (Jordanes) ‘witch’, OE hellerūne ‘witch’, OHG
hellirūna ‘necromancy’ and the denominative verbs OE rūnian ‘whisper’, ON rýna ‘talk
(secretly), converse (with friends)’, OS rūnōn ‘whisper’, OHG rūnēn ‘whisper, mumble’
and OHG rūnizzen, rūnizzōn ‘talk, whisper, grumble’. Yet the verbal root *reu- (i.e. a
laryngealised *h3reuH-) that Pokorny (1959, p. 867) gives as the ultimate etymon for
*rūn- means ‘bellow, howl’ in Indo-European and there is no suggestion of a meaning
‘whisper’ for the root *h3reuH- at the Indo-European level reflected in Kümmel’s entry in
Rix (2001, p. 306). Greek ὠρύω ‘howl’ and Skt ru- ‘roar’ are semantically mirrored quite
clearly in their most obvious Germanic cognates OE rȳn ‘roar’ (< *ruhjan), OHG rohon,
ruhen ‘roar’, ON rymja ‘roar, cry out with a hoarse voice’ and rýta ‘squeal (of a pig)’;
hence the objections of Wilbur (1957, pp. 14-16), De Vries (1962, p. 453) and Matasovic
(2009, pp. 316-317) to a connection of rune with *h3reuH- ‘bellow, howl’.
Pokorny’s secondary semantic ‘murmur, whisper’ for *reu- is not predicated
entirely on Germanic *rūn-, however. Latin rūmor has a primary meaning ‘common talk,
hearsay, rumour’, presumably a development of a literal ‘the talk of many’ < ‘the noise
made by a crowd’; cf. Lat. raucus ‘hoarse, rough sounding’ and rudo ‘bray, roar’. Yet
Latin rūmor could also mean ‘popular opinion’ and hence ‘reputation, fame’ -- and it
could similarly also be used to refer to the murmuring (or chattering) of a stream, clearly
in a development comparable to that assumed in the onomatopoeic etymology for *rūn-
 5

‘secret, (confidential) counsel’. Hence Karulis (1992, vol. II, p. 137) follows Endzelīn (in
Mühlenbach 1923-31, vol. III, p. 560) in similarly connecting Latv. runa ‘speech,
speaking, talking’ with *reu- ‘bellow, howl’ (as well as rune). Nonetheless the main
strength of Pokorny’s etymology is that a similar development is attested in Germanic for
*reu- other than that posited to have occurred in *rūn-.
A similar development to the meaning ‘murmur’ attested for rūmor in Latin is that
evidenced by OE rēonian ‘whisper, mutter, conspire’, a denominative verb to OE rēon
‘mourning, lament’ (cf. OE rēonig ‘mournful, sad, gloomy’, MHG rienen ‘wail, lament’).
Yet given the meaning attested for OE rēonian, the nominal form rēon (< *reu-n-) looks
as if it once (also) meant ‘a whisper, a mutter’; cf. OE rēonung ‘a whispering, a
muttering’. And *rūnō ‘secret, (confidential) counsel’ (which is usually held to continue
an IE *ruH-n-) is clearly only a zero-grade variation of *reuH-n- ‘a whisper, a mutter, a
mourning, a lament’ -- i.e. morphologically OE rēon seems to represent an apophonic
variation of rūn, a development which suggests that the two Old English forms are
merely different realisations of an older ablauting nominal *réun- ~ rūn-´. Pokorny’s
citation of OE rēonian is not enough evidence to show that the meaning ‘whisper’ is to be
reconstructed as of Indo-European antiquity, however -- Latin rūmor ‘murmur (of a
stream)’ aside, the meaning ‘whisper, mutter’ instead seems restricted only to Germanic
*réun- ~ rūn-´. The semantic evolution of *rūn- in Baltic is rather more evidently a
generalization of ‘(verbal) counsel’ to ‘(any kind of) speaking’, the shortening of the
medial vowel in runa a typical development of Latvian (Endzelīn 1923, p. 98). Yet
Watkins (2011, pp. 74-75) separates rune from IE *reu- (Kümmel’s *h3reuH-) ‘bellow,
howl’ and (instead) proposes a separate root *reuH- which he glosses as ‘to intone or
mumble’, in spite of the development of Lat. rūmor to indicate the ‘murmuring’ of
streams, OE rēon to indicate ‘mourning, lament’ and MHG rienen ‘wail, lament’.
Pierce (2003, p. 29), however, follows Feist (1939, p. 401) in suggesting that rune
is related to Gk ἐρέω, ἐρέοµαι ‘ask, enquire, question’ (and cf. ἔρευνα ‘enquiry, search’
and the denominative verb ἐρευνάω ‘enquire, search’), a judgment not in accord with the
assessment of Pokorny’s (1959, p. 337) root *ereu- ‘fragen’ that appears in Rix’s (2001)
comparative dictionary of Indo-European verbs. Kümmel (in Rix 2001, p. 251) has called
into question whether there ever was an Indo-European root *ereu- (laryngealised
*h1reu-), maintaining that there is no clear evidence that the Greek cognates cited by
Pokorny continue a form with a (lost) labial glide. Kümmel instead reconstructs the Indo-
European root of ἐρέω as *h1reh1- ‘fragen’; cf. Matasovic (2009, pp. 316-317). If it is to
be accepted, Kümmel’s reassessment of Pokorny’s entry *ereu- would seem to rule out
an etymology for rune based on an Indo-European root meaning ‘ask, enquire’.
Yet Feist’s (1939, p. 401) comparison of rune to ἔρευνα and ἐρευνάω has been
supported more recently by Bader (1997, p. 44, n. 97) and Markey (1998, p. 195). And
Rasmussen (1987, pp. 153-156 = 1999, pp. 309-311) similarly argues that an IE *(h1)reu-
h3- ‘ask, enquire’ underlies both Greek ἐρωτάω ‘ask, pray’ (another derivative of ἐρέω,
ἐρέοµαι ‘ask, enquire, question’) and *rūnō ‘secret’, reconstructing a former
instrumental derivative *(h1)ruh3-n-óh1 as underlying the Celto-Germanic form.
Rasmussen proposes that rune originally designated an ‘enquiry into the mysteries of
 6

traditional lore which are not for everyone to understand’ in a use reminiscent of Pindar’s
(Paean 21) θεῶν βουλέµατ’ ἐρευνάσει ‘search out the gods’ plans’ (Race 1997, frag.
61). Vine (2002) criticises both the analyses of Kümmel and Rasmussen (including the
latter’s connection of ἐρωτάω with rune), however, arguing that Pokorny’s *ereu-
(laryngealised *h1reu-) ‘ask’ should be maintained, deriving ἐρέω, ἐρέοµαι < *h1reu-
e/o- and ἐρόµαι < *h1ru-e/o- ‘ask, enquire’, and characterising the lengthening seen in
the second syllable of ἐρωτάω as comparable to that found in Latin adjectival suffixes
such as -ōtus, -ūtus, -ītus and -īnus (rather than a reflection of Kümmel’s *-h1- or
Rasmussen’s *-h3-). Pokorny (1959, p. 337) also recognised ON raun ‘trial, experiment,
experience’ and reyna ‘experience, examine, search, enquire into, prove’ (and cf. early
Nordic raunijaz, ON reynir ‘tester, prober’) as o-grade cognates of ἔρευνα, ἐρευνάω (<
*h1reu-n-). But Vine rejects Rasmussen’s (1990/91, p. 131 = 1999, p. 447) suggestion
that the lack of clear evidence for a suffixal laryngeal otherwise in Greek ἐρέω, ἐρέοµαι
(which seems to be required by the long vowel in Celto-Germanic *rūn-) might be due to
the “Saussure effect” (i.e. along the lines of τόλµος ‘hardiness’ vs. τελαµὼν ‘broad
strap’ < *telh2- etc.; Saussure 1905, p. 551, n. 2, Nussbaum 1997). Bader (1997, p. 44, n.
97) contends that the long vowel in *rūn- might (instead) be explained by laryngeal
metathesis (i.e. of *h1ru- > *ruh1-) and Germanic features forms such as OE, OS hlūd and
OHG hlūt ‘loud’ whose vocalic length is (similarly) unexpected, Indo-European cognates
such as Latin inclutus ‘celebrated’ and Greek κλυτὸς ‘renowned’ showing no sign of
being influenced by a reconstructed laryngeal (Rix 2001, p. 334, Watkins 2011, pp. 43-
44). But Vine sees the Greek evidence as not being reconcilable with a connection of
ἔρευνα to *rūn-, conflating Watkins’s two separate roots *reu- ‘bellow’ and *reuH-
‘intone, mumble’ (i.e. with Pokorny) into a single *h3reuH- ‘intone, mumble, roar’.
Instead of a meaning ‘scratch’, then, formal comparative analysis of the etymology
of rune points to a derivation from a meaning ‘counsel’ -- i.e. a sense of communication
(purpose) rather than concrete fabrication. Latin nota ‘mark, sign, note, written character’
has long been suggested to have a similar origin, the Indo-European root it is usually
connected with, *g̑ enh3- ‘know’, having a meaning comparable to ‘counsel’ (Pokorny
1959, pp. 376-78, although contrast De Vaan 2008, p. 414 who notes that Schrijver 1991,
pp. 197-199 suggests a connection with Lat. sentiō ‘notice, sense’). And the divination
ceremony recorded by Tacitus in his Germania (10) features the use of what are
described as notae which with Grimm (1821, pp. 296-320) have often been thought to
represent runes (Lund 1988, p. 140, Mees 2006, pp. 208-223). Yet despite the Celtic
evidence which suggests an earlier mantic employment, there is no need to overly stress
the sense of secrecy connoted by *rūn- after it had come to be used to apply to
orthographic characters.
Vendryes (LEIA R-53) may well have been right to remark “Il s’agit d’une
communauté germano-celtique de vocabulaire religieux”, but the Latvian cognate of rune
shows no sign of having belonged to a comparable semantic sphere. And the earliest
runic inscriptions typically also represent little more than manufacturer’s marks, much as
Lat. nota was most commonly used in classical times to apply to a range of quite
mundane indications. Morris’s attempt to find a more concrete etymology for the key
 7

runological term is inadequately founded at the Indo-European level, however -- instead

Germanic rune may be more regularly be taken as representing an inherited formation
attested in three different dialects from the Indo-European Northwest. The underlying
meaning of rune is best understood to be ‘counsel’, a semantic which is most regularly to
be explained as a reflection of IE *h3reuH- ‘bellow, roar’ via a development comparable
to that seen in OE rēon ‘mourning, lament’, MHG rienen ‘wail, lament’ and OE rēonian
‘whisper, mutter, conspire’, not as a term whose etymology connotes a more concrete
physical aspect of orthographic activity.

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