Wyrdseidr

ᛗ *mannaz

Elder Futhark · position 20 (ætt 3) · man, human being

Name
*mannaz
Meaning
man, human being
Name known from
Old English mann (rune poem), Old Norse maðr (Scandinavian poems); Gothic letter name manna in Codex Vindobonensis 795
Transliteration
m
Sound
/m/
Unicode
U+16D7 runic letter mannaz man m

Line of descent

ᛗ*mannazElder Futhark →ᛘmaðrYounger Futharkᛗmann (man, mon)Anglo-Saxon Futhorc

History

m is two staves joined by crossing diagonals that meet at the top, like the e rune with a fuller cross. Handbooks usually accept a derivation from Latin M. The two runes are easily confused on worn surfaces.

The name *mannaz "man, human being" is secure. The Old English, Old Norse and Gothic names all agree. The poems use the rune to talk about mortality. The Old English poem says each man must fail the other, because the Lord will commit "that wretched flesh to the earth". The Norwegian and Icelandic poems both call man "an increase of the dust", a phrase Dickins traced to a Psalm.

Elder Futhark examples include muha, a name or word on the Kragehul spear-shaft, and the sequence muttt on the Lindholm bone piece. The Björketorp stone has hAeramAlAusz in its curse formula.

The Scandinavian descendant changed shape. The Younger Futhark maðr rune is ᛘ, a stave with two rising branches. That makes it look like the Elder z rune (algiz), and the overlap has caused confusion in modern popular books. In the Old Icelandic poetic manuscripts the rune is sometimes used as a shorthand for the word maðr. In England the rune kept the Elder shape as mann.

In the rune poems

The Old English Rune Poem, stanza 20
Man byþ on myrgþe his magan leof:
sceal þeah anra gehwylc oðrum swican,
forðam drihten wyle dome sine
þæt earme flæsc eorþan betæcan.
Man in his mirth is dear to his kinsman;
yet each one must fail the other,
because the Lord by his decree wishes
to commit that wretched flesh to the earth.
Hickes wrote deg above man (and mann above dæg, stanza 24), a sign that the names in his copy were not original to the poem.
The Old Norwegian Rune Poem, stanza 14
Maðr er moldar auki;
mikil er græip á hauki.
Man is an increase of the dust;
great is the grip of the hawk.
The Old Icelandic Rune Poem, stanza 14 · Latin gloss homo · chieftain word mildingr
Maðr er manns gaman
ok moldar auki
ok skipa skreytir.
Man is the delight of man
and an increase of the dust
and the adorner of ships.
Maðr er manns gaman also occurs in Hávamál (stanza 47).

Original text from the public-domain editions named on each poem's page; translations are our own.

Where it is found

  • Kragehul spear-shaft (DR 196): muha
  • Lindholm bone piece (DR 261): muttt
  • Björketorp stone (DR 360): hAeramAlAusz

On inscriptions described on this site

Kylver stone

Sources

  • Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata), signa DR 196, DR 261, DR 360
  • Dickins (1915), notes to Norwegian poem st. 1 and 14
  • Wikipedia, 'Medieval runes' (checked 2026-10-26), for the maðr rune as an abbreviation in manuscripts
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