ᚠ feoh

Line of descent

History

f is the one rune whose shape, sound and name come through every runic tradition unchanged. The English rune keeps the elder form, an upright with two branches rising to the right. Its name, feoh, is the Old English form of the word that is fé in Old Norse and faihu in Gothic. It meant livestock first, and then wealth in general, since cattle were the commonest measure of wealth. Modern English fee comes from the same word.

The rune poem treats feoh as money, a comfort that a man must still give away freely "if he wishes to win glory before the Lord". The Norwegian and Icelandic poems take a darker view, calling wealth a cause of strife among kinsmen. Because both traditions use the same name and the same idea of wealth, the name is among the most secure in the row (see *fehu).

Like Old English f written in the Latin alphabet, the rune stood for one sound with two pronunciations: [f] at the start and end of words and [v] between vowels. Old English had no separate letter for v.

The rune opens the row on the Seax of Beagnoth and the word fisc "fish" on the front of the Franks Casket.

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

• Seax of Beagnoth (Thames scramasax), position 1 of the 28-rune row
• Franks Casket, front panel: fisc 'fish', flodu 'flood'
• Ruthwell Cross: fusæ 'eager ones', fearran 'from afar'

On inscriptions described on this site

Sources

• Dickins, B. (1915). Runic and Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic Peoples. Cambridge, pp. 12–13.
• Wikipedia, 'Franks Casket' (runic text after Page 1999) and 'Ruthwell Cross', checked 2026-10.
• Wikipedia, 'Seax of Beagnoth', checked 2026-10.