Wyrdseidr

ᚴ kaun

Younger Futhark · position 6 · sore, ulcer

Name
kaun
Meaning
sore, ulcer
Transliteration
k
Sounds
k, g (and the ng-sound before k and g)
Unicode
U+16B4 runic letter kaun k

Line of descent

ᚲ*kaunan (or *kēnaz)Elder Futhark→ ᚴkaunYounger Futhark

History

k is a stave with a single branch rising to the right, the same shape in long-branch and short-twig. It replaces the small angle-shaped Elder Futhark rune kaunan, which had sat at mid-height or been attached to the stave. When the old g rune ᚷ dropped out of the row, k took over its sound as well. Viking Age carvers write g with k as a matter of course. On the Jelling stones, kurmR is Gormr and kaurua is gørwa "to make" (DR 42). Before k or g the nasal ng was usually not written separately, so the carver of the Galteland stone in Norway wrote England as iklot (N 184).

The Norse name kaun means a sore or boil, and both rune poems take it that way: "the bane of children". Old English has cen, read as "torch", and the Gothic letter name is different again, so the Proto-Germanic name is reconstructed with some uncertainty. *kaunan is the usual choice, based on the Norse word. The stanzas of the Norwegian and Icelandic poems are both textually difficult here, and the received text depends on editorial emendation.

In the medieval alphabet a dotted form, ᚵ, was introduced for g. Dotted k is among the earliest dotted runes, from around the end of the 10th or the early 11th century. Undotted ᚴ continued to write k, and was often used for Latin c as well.

In the rune poems

The Old Norwegian Rune Poem, stanza 6
Kaun er barna bǫlvan;
bǫl gørver nán fǫlvan.
A sore is the bane of children;
harm makes a corpse pale.
Bǫlvan is Magnus Olsen's emendation, which Dickins accepted for the first line. He kept the manuscript's nán 'corpse' in the second.
The Old Icelandic Rune Poem, stanza 6 · Latin gloss flagella · chieftain word konungr
Kaun er barna böl
ok bardaga [för]
ok holdfúa hús.
A sore is the bane of children
and a course of affliction
and the house of rotting flesh.
The second line is uncertain. Most manuscripts have only bardagi, and för is supplied from one of Jón Ólafsson's copies. The translation follows Bugge's understanding, 'a place where pain dwells'.

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): haraltr kunukR baþ kaurua kubl 'King Haraldr ordered the monument made', k for both k and g
  • Galteland stone (N 184): iklot 'England'
  • Gørlev stone (DR 239), position 6 of the row

On inscriptions described on this site

Small Jelling stone (Gorm's stone)Large Jelling stone (Harald's stone)Ramsund carving (Sigurd carving)Maeshowe runic inscriptionsBryggen rune-sticksKensington Runestone

Sources

  • Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata), signa DR 42, N 184, DR 239
  • Barnes, Runes: a Handbook (2012)
  • Wikipedia: Kaunan; Medieval runes (checked 2026-10-26)
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