ᛘ maðr

Line of descent

History

m keeps the sound and name of the Elder Futhark mannaz, but not its shape. The older rune looked like a Latin M with crossed inner strokes (ᛗ). The Viking Age long-branch form ᛘ is a stave with two branches rising from the top, like an upturned Y with a long stem. The short-twig form ᛙ reduces this to strokes on one side. The Ribe skull fragment of about 725 still uses the old ᛗ shape, one of the features that make it a transitional text.

The name maðr "man" continues Proto-Germanic *mannaz, matching Old English man(n). The Norwegian poem calls man "an increase of the dust", a phrase that also occurs in the Icelandic Hervarar saga and which Dickins thought probably came from a Psalm. The Icelandic poem repeats it and adds "the delight of man", a phrase borrowed from Hávamál stanza 47.

Scribes using Latin letters in medieval Iceland and Norway kept ᛘ as an abbreviation for the word maðr. In the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda (c. 1270) it is used in this way many times in Hávamál. It is one of the clearest signs that literate people of the time knew the rune names.

In the later medieval rune-rows, influenced by the order of the Latin alphabet, m and l sometimes exchange places. The Bergen stick N B17 ends its row tbmly, keeping m before l.

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

• Jelling stone 2 (DR 42): muþur 'mother'
• Rök stone (Ög 136): mukmini 'to the young men' (reading and meaning disputed)
• Bergen, Bryggen stick N B17: rune row fuþork hnias tbmly

On inscriptions described on this site

Sources

• Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata), signa DR 42, Ög 136, N B17
• Wikipedia: Medieval runes; Ribe skull fragment (checked 2026-10-26)
• Dickins (1915), notes to the Norwegian poem, stanza 14, and Icelandic poem, stanza 14