Naudiz
The Elder Futhark rune for the “n” sound. Its name, *naudiz, meant need, hardship or constraint.
Meaning
Store norske leksikon reconstructs the name as *naudiR; the Old Norse is nauð, “need, distress, being stuck”. The Norwegian rune poem says that “constraint gives scant choice”; the Icelandic poem calls it the “grief of the bond-maid and state of oppression and toilsome work”. The Old English poem adds a turn: trouble “is oppressive to the heart”, yet often proves “a source of help and salvation” to anyone who heeds it in time.
Origin and history
The Bosworth–Toller dictionary records the English nyd as “the name of the rune, ᚾ, N” and notes that the rune could stand for the word itself in a text. Each Scandinavian poem pairs the name with a second picture: in the Norwegian, “a naked man is chilled by the frost”; in one Icelandic manuscript the stanza ends with the Latin opera, works.
Need on the fingernails
The Eddic poem Sigrdrífumál gives the rune a use. Its speaker teaches ale-runes, which Henry Adams Bellows, the translator, explains were meant to keep a guest from being bewitched by the ale his host's wife handed him: “On the horn thou shalt write, and the backs of thy hands, And Need shalt mark on thy nails.” Bellows notes that the word nauth, “need”, “is also the name of the rune which became ‘N’”.
Magic, then and now
Store norske leksikon says that since the mid-twentieth century the prevailing view is that runes were ordinary letters, used for practical, solemn and magical purposes alike. Lex, the Danish national encyclopedia, says it is problematic to treat the rune signs as magical in themselves. Rune divination is modern: Lex dates its popularity to the 1980s.
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 runesIsazThe Elder Futhark rune for the “i” sound, a single upright stroke. Its name, *īsaz, meant ice.
- The same shape in Catholic symbolsMarian crossA cross with a capital M beside it or beneath it, for Mary standing at the foot of the cross. It is best known from the coat of arms of Pope John Paul II.
See also
Uruz, Thurisaz, Ansuz, Raido, Kaunan, Gebo.
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. 27; Norwegian poem 8; Icelandic poem 8
- níd (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 “níd”
- The Poetic Edda (Bellows translation), Henry Adams Bellows (trans.), 1923, American-Scandinavian Foundation (Project Gutenberg), Sigrdrifumol, stanza 7 and note
- Runer (Lex), Lex, Danmarks Nationalleksikon, Runemagi
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from crosses or letters and numbers.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 3, 2026. How we research
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