Kaunan
The Elder Futhark rune for the “k” sound. Its Norse name, kaun, means an ulcer or sore; in England the same rune was called cen, a torch.
Meaning
Store norske leksikon reconstructs the name as *kauna; the Old Norse is kaun, “inflammation, sore, boil”. The Norwegian and Icelandic rune poems agree: an ulcer is “fatal to children”. The Old English poem gives the rune the name cen and a different meaning, a torch “known to every living man by its pale, bright flame”, burning where princes sit.
Origin and history
In the oldest inscriptions the rune is a simple angle, like a less-than sign. Bruce Dickins notes that the English cen and the Norse kaun both descend from “the K (<) of the earliest inscriptions”. The Bosworth–Toller dictionary gives the English name as cén, a torch, and Dickins traces the word to “resinous pine-wood”, hence a torch.
An ulcer in the north, a torch in England
The two traditions disagree about the name. The English called the rune a torch; the Norwegian and Icelandic poems call it a sore. The reconstructed Elder Futhark name in Store norske leksikon, *kauna, follows the Norse one.
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.Read next
- Next in Elder Futhark runesGeboThe Elder Futhark rune for the “g” sound, an X-shaped cross. Its name, *gebu, meant a gift.
- The same shape in Hobo symbolsHobo monikerA hobo’s road name, written with the date and an arrow for the direction of travel on water tanks, bridges and stations. Unlike the chalk signs, these marks survive in numbers.
See also
Uruz, Thurisaz, Ansuz, Raido, Wunjo, Hagalaz.
Sources
- Runer (Store norske leksikon), Store norske leksikon, Runenavn (table of rune names)
- Runic and heroic poems of the old Teutonic peoples, Bruce Dickins (ed. and trans.), 1915, Cambridge University Press (Internet Archive), Anglo-Saxon poem v. 16 and note; Norwegian poem 6; Icelandic poem 6
- cén (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 “cén”
The same shape elsewhere
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Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 30, 2026. How we research
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