Wyrdseidr

ᛅ ár

Younger Futhark · position 10 · year; the year's yield, harvest, plenty

Name
ár
Meaning
year; the year's yield, harvest, plenty
Transliteration
a
Sounds
a, æ (and sometimes e)
Unicode
U+16C5 runic letter long-branch-ar ae

Line of descent

ᛃ*jēraElder Futhark→ ᛅárYounger Futhark

History

The Younger Futhark a rune is the clearest example of a rune whose value moved with its name. Its ancestor is the Elder Futhark j rune, jera, named *jēra "year, good season". In early Norse initial j was lost, so Proto-Germanic *jēra, Proto-Norse *jāra, became ár. The rune's name now began with a vowel, and the rune took the value a. The old a rune had meanwhile moved to the nasal vowel ą (see óss), so the change filled a gap.

The shape changed along the way. The transitional Blekinge stones (Stentoften DR 357, Björketorp DR 360) use an intermediate form for a. On Stentoften the old j rune also stands alone as a word-sign in gaf j, usually read gaf j[ār] "gave a good year", which shows the name was known. The Viking Age long-branch form ᛅ is a stave crossed by two short strokes. The short-twig ᛆ has a single stroke. In the medieval alphabet the two forms divided the work: ᛆ for a and ᛅ for æ.

The Norwegian poem calls ár "a boon to men" and names the legendary peace-king Fróði. The Icelandic poem speaks of "a good summer" and "a fully ripened field" and glosses with Latin annus. Dickins set out the meanings: "year", "summer", the summer's yield, and prosperity, as in the formula til árs ok friðar "for a good year and peace". The Icelandic stanza is damaged in the oldest manuscript and is supplied from later copies.

In the rune poems

The Old Norwegian Rune Poem, stanza 10
Ár er gumna góðe;
get ek at ǫrr var Fróðe.
Harvest is a boon to men;
I hold that Fróði was generous.
Fróði is the legendary Danish peace-king whose mill Grotti ground out gold, so that gold could be called 'Fróði's meal'. Ár means year, then the year's yield.
The Old Icelandic Rune Poem, stanza 10 · Latin gloss annus · chieftain word allvaldr
Ár er gumna góði
ok gott sumar
ok algróinn akr.
Harvest is a boon to men
and a good summer
and a fully ripened field.
AM 687 d is damaged here; Dickins notes that it seems to have dala dreyri 'moisture of the dales' in the last line. The text follows AM 749 and Jón Ólafsson's copies.

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

Where it is found

  • Jelling stone 2 (DR 42): tanmaurk ala 'all Denmark'
  • Stentoften stone (DR 357), transitional: gaf j, the j-rune as a word-sign for 'year'
  • Rök stone (Ög 136), short-twig ᛆ: aft 'in memory of'

On inscriptions described on this site

Rök runestoneSmall Jelling stone (Gorm's stone)Large Jelling stone (Harald's stone)Ramsund carving (Sigurd carving)Piraeus LionMaeshowe runic inscriptionsBryggen rune-sticks

Sources

  • Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata), signa DR 42, DR 357, Ög 136
  • Dickins (1915), notes to the Norwegian poem, stanza 10
  • Wikipedia: Jēran; Stentoften Runestone; Medieval runes (checked 2026-10-26)
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