ᚫ æsc

Line of descent

History

Æsc is the elder a rune under a new name. In the Anglo-Frisian dialects most short a sounds were fronted to æ, the vowel of modern English cat. As Dickins put it, the old shape stayed with the sound that most old a*s had become. Because the old name *ansuz no longer began with that sound, the rune needed a new name beginning with *æ, and æsc "ash" was chosen. The old name, in its English form os, went with the new o rune. Unicode's glyph for æsc has two branches like the elder form. In inscriptions the shape varies.

The Undley bracteate, with gægogæ mægæ medu, is the earliest text to set æ against o. That contrast is the defining feature of the futhorc. On the front of the Franks Casket æ appears in þær and hronæs, and the Ruthwell Cross has wæs and hweþræ.

The rune poem describes a tall ash, "firm on its base", that "holds its place rightly though many men fight against it". The fighting makes most sense if æsc is also read as a spear, its common meaning in Old English poetry. On the right side of the Franks Casket a cryptic æ is used, encoded in Unicode as ᛸ.

In the rune poems

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

Where it is found

• Undley bracteate (5th century): gægogæ mægæ
• Seax of Beagnoth, position 26
• Franks Casket, front panel: þær, hronæs
• Ruthwell Cross: wæs

On inscriptions described on this site

Sources

• Dickins (1915), pp. 22–23 and note to v. 81.
• Wikipedia, 'Anglo-Saxon runes' and 'Undley bracteate', checked 2026-10.