- Name
- *þurisaz
- Meaning
- giant (Scandinavian tradition); 'thorn' in English
- Name known from
- Old Norse þurs 'giant' (Norwegian and Icelandic poems; thuris in the 9th-century Abecedarium Nordmannicum); Old English þorn 'thorn' (rune poem); the Proto-Germanic name is uncertain
- Transliteration
- þ
- Sound
- /θ/ (as in English thin), with [ð] (as in this)
- Unicode
U+16A6runic letter thurisaz thurs thorn
Line of descent
History
The þ rune is a stave with a pointed bulge on one side. Its origin is disputed. One view derives it from Latin D, another from a Θ-like letter in the North Italic alphabets. It wrote the dental fricative heard in English thin and, in some positions, this. Latin had no letter for that sound, and later scribes borrowed this rune for exactly that reason (see below).
The name is one of the uncertain ones. The Scandinavian sources agree on þurs, "giant", a word used for the hostile giants of Norse myth. The 9th-century Abecedarium Nordmannicum already gives thuris. The English poem calls the rune þorn, "thorn". Scholars disagree about which is older. *þurisaz is the usual handbook form because the Scandinavian tradition is continuous, but it should be read as a reconstruction from one branch of the evidence.
Early attestations include the Thorsberg chape from Schleswig, of about 200, with owlþuþewaz. The Tune stone has þrijoz dohtriz "three daughters". The rune stands third in both the Kylver and Vadstena rows.
It is the only rune with a direct descendant in the Latin alphabet. English scribes took the futhorc rune into their book-hand as the letter þ (thorn). Icelandic scribes adopted it from English practice, and Icelandic still writes it today. In the Younger Futhark it wrote both þ and ð.
In the rune poems
anfeng ys yfyl, ungemetum reþe
manna gehwelcum, ðe him mid resteð.
taking hold of it is bad, beyond measure cruel
to every man who lies down among it.
kátr værðr fár af illu.
few are made cheerful by misfortune.
ok kletta búi
ok varðrúnar verr.
and dweller in the cliffs
and husband of Varðrún.
Original text from the public-domain editions named on each poem's page; translations are our own.
Where it is found
- Thorsberg chape (DR 7): owlþuþewaz
- Tune stone (N KJ72): þrijoz dohtriz
- Kylver stone (G 88), position 3
On inscriptions described on this site
Sources
- Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata), signa DR 7, N KJ72, G 88
- Dickins (1915), note to the Norwegian rune poem st. 3 (thuris in the Abecedarium Nordmannicum)
- Wikipedia, 'Elder Futhark' and 'Thurisaz' (checked 2026-10-26), for Odenstedt's D-derivation and the Raetic alternative