Dagaz
The Elder Futhark rune for the “d” sound. Its name, *dagaz, meant day.
Meaning
Store norske leksikon gives the reconstructed name *dagaR, Old Norse dagr, “day”. The Old English poem, where the name is dæg, calls day “the glorious light of the Creator”, sent by the Lord, “a source of hope and happiness to rich and poor, and of service to all”.
Origin and history
The rune has no stanza in the Norwegian and Icelandic poems, which were written for the later 16-rune alphabet, the Younger Futhark. The Bosworth–Toller dictionary glosses the English name as “a day”.
Write in runes
stringmash.comRune translatorTurn English into Elder Futhark, Younger Futhark or Anglo-Saxon runes, with a chart of all 24 Elder Futhark runes.See also
Uruz, Thurisaz, Ansuz, Raido, Kaunan, Gebo.
Sources
- Runer (Store norske leksikon), Store norske leksikon, Runenavn (table of rune names)
- Futhark (Store norske leksikon), Store norske leksikon
- Runic and heroic poems of the old Teutonic peoples, Bruce Dickins (ed. and trans.), 1915, Cambridge University Press (Internet Archive), Anglo-Saxon poem v. 74
- dæg (Bosworth–Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary), Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898), online edition, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, entry “dæg”
Last reviewed September 26, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research