ᛦ

ᛦ U+16E6, ᛦ RUNIC LETTER LONG-BRANCH-YR ← ᛥ [U+16E5] Runic ᛧ → [U+16E7]

Translingual

Etymology

From Elder Futhark ᛉ. The rune was flipped upside down around the 400s-500s, as can be seen on the inscription of the Järsberg Runestone.

Letter

ᛦ

1. A letter of the Younger Futhark, Yr (“yew”), representing /r/ and transliterated as ʀ.

Coordinate terms

• ᛉ

See also

• ᛣ

Further reading

• Algiz § Younger Futhark on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

German

Life and death runes on the graves of SS officer Paul Zapp and two of his family.

Runes on a 1940s grave in Hamburg. The death rune is partially visible under the woman’s name; for the man, who fell in the field, the Iron Cross is used instead.

Etymology

From the interpretation as Todesrune (“death rune”).

Symbol

ᛦ

1. (Nazism, neo-Heathenry) died, dead

   Synonyms: (normal use) †, gest.

   Coordinate term: ᛉ

Usage notes

• This usage was far from general in Nazi Germany and mainly restricted to those strata that symphathized with neo-pagan and anti-Christian ideologies. These were found especially among the SS.
• The rune is part of the Armanen runes, which are based on the Younger Futhark. The visual representation of the rune in the original publication is closer to ⟨ᛣ⟩, with straight arms to mirror ⟨ᛉ⟩, but this denotes a different letter, Old English calc /k/, and not yr. There is currently no specific codepoint in Unicode for straight-armed yr as opposed to curved-armed yr, so both are conventionally encoded as ⟨ᛦ⟩. The distinction between round and straight runes is purely graphemic, and does not historically distinguish one runic script from another.