Rune poems
It is recorded in all three rune poems, and it is called Ur in all, however with different meanings:| Rune Poem: | English Translation: |
| Old Norwegian
Úr er af illu jarne; opt løypr ræinn á hjarne. |
Dross comes from bad iron; the reindeer often races over the frozen snow. |
| Old Icelandic
Úr er skýja grátr ok skára þverrir ok hirðis hatr. umbre vísi | Rain is lamentation of the clouds and ruin of the hay-harvest and abomination of the shepherd. |
| Anglo-Saxon
Ur byþ anmod ond oferhyrned, felafrecne deor, feohteþ mid hornum mære morstapa; þæt is modig wuht. | The aurochs is proud and has great horns; it is a very savage beast and fights with its horns; a great ranger of the moors, it is a creature of mettle. |
The Icelandic word for "rain" and the Anglo-Saxon for "aurochs" go back to two different Proto-Germanic words, ûruz and ûram (although possibly from the same root). The Norwegian meaning "dross, slag" is more obscure, but may be an Iron Age technical term derived from the word for water (c.f. the Kalevala, where iron is compared to milk).
Because of this, it is difficult to reconstruct a Proto-Germanic name for the Elder Futhark rune. It may have been ûruz "aurochs" (see also Bull worship), or ûram "water". The aurochs is preferred by authors of modern runic divination systems, but both seem possible, compared to the names of the other runes: "water" would be comparable to "hail" and "lake", and "aurochs" to "horse" or "elk" (although the latter name is itself uncertain). The Gothic alphabet seems to support "aurochs", though: as the name of the letter 𐌿 u is urus.
References
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Last updated on Friday July 11, 2008 at 18:10:50 PDT (GMT -0700)
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