ᚷ gyfu (geofu)

Line of descent

History

The g rune is the elder cross-shaped rune, unchanged. Its name gyfu, also spelled geofu (Codex Vindobonensis 795), means "gift". The rune poem makes it a virtue: giving is "an ornament and a praise" for men and the only support of the outcast. The name is not recorded in Scandinavia, where the rune was dropped from the Younger Futhark, but the English and Gothic evidence supports the elder reconstruction *gebō.

Old English g covered several sounds: a hard g, a fricative between vowels, and a y-sound (j) before front vowels, as in geard "yard". The old j rune, ger, lost its separate function because initial j and palatal g had fallen together. Dickins noted that English inscriptions almost always write that sound with g. In the north the problem was eventually handled the other way: gar was created for the hard g, and g was kept for the softened sound.

The rune is well attested. On the Undley bracteate it is the base of the bind-runes in gægogæ, where vowel strokes are attached to the X. On the front of the Franks Casket it occurs in fergenberig, warþga, grorn and giswom.

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, written as bind-runes on the g
• Seax of Beagnoth, position 7
• Franks Casket, front panel: fergenberig, giswom

On inscriptions described on this site

Sources

• Dickins (1915), pp. 14–15, note to v. 19, and note to v. 32.
• Wikipedia, 'Undley bracteate', checked 2026-10.