What ᛠ means
It was a letter for the Old English vowel sound spelled “ea.”
The grave image comes from the final stanza of the Old English Rune Poem, a verse about rune names. It describes flesh cooling and the earth as its bed. A transcription was printed in 1705; the manuscript that preserved the poem was destroyed in 1731.
As of 8 August 2026, no established separate Anglo-Saxon divination meaning for Ear is known. Readings such as “death” or “endings” are modern interpretations of the poem’s image, not a fixed historical definition.
Why was the Ear rune made?
It filled a gap in the expanded Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet. The Futhorc adapted older runic writing for Old English and Frisian, adding ᛠ for the vowel spelling “ea.”
A 10th-century Thames scramasax—a single-edged knife—has a Futhorc row ending in ᛠ.
ᛠ belongs to the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, not the Elder Futhark. Calling it simply a “Viking rune” is too broad to identify its writing tradition.
A historical Old English letter with a grave image in its rune poem.
Do not present the poem’s grave image as a universal or fixed divination meaning.
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Who writes ᛠ
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Questions people ask
2Is the Ear rune a divination symbol?
No fixed historical divination meaning is established. As of 8 August 2026, no separate Anglo-Saxon reading is established; “death” or “endings” are modern interpretations of the poem’s grave image.
Why does ᛠ show as a box?
The font in use may lack Runic support and show a missing-glyph box. A compatible font can display ᛠ.
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How to type or find ᛠ
- Also called
- Ear rune · Anglo-Saxon Ear
- Search it as
- ea rune · grave rune · anglo saxon rune · futhorc ear · old english rune
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.