Berkano (ᛒ) is the eighteenth rune of the Elder Futhark and stands for the sound b. Its name means "birch." The medieval rune poems describe a green, leafy young tree, one that spreads without bearing fruit. In modern rune reading Berkano is taken to mean growth, new beginnings and care for something small, and it is read as a yes.
What does the Berkano rune mean?
Berkano is the b of the oldest runic alphabet and one of several runes named after trees. That much is history.
The symbolic meanings are modern, formed in 20th-century rune reading around the image of the birch:
- Growth. Slow, green, steady increase.
- New beginnings. A project, a relationship or a habit in its first season.
- Care. The patient tending that young things need.
The Berkano sign and its sound
Berkano looks like a capital B drawn with straight lines: an upright with two pointed loops on its right side. Of all the runes it is the closest to its Latin counterpart, and it has the same sound, b. That is no accident of taste: the two alphabets are related, and a handful of runes still show the family likeness.
Because the shape is so familiar, Berkano is often the first rune that beginners learn to pick out in an inscription.
The name is spelled Berkano, Berkana or Berkanan. In Old English the rune is Beorc, and in Old Norse Bjarkan.
The name Berkano and what the rune poems say
Tineke Looijenga's table of rune names gives the reconstructed form as berkanan and translates Old English beorc as "birch." The b rune stayed in use everywhere, so all three medieval rune poems describe it. The lines are from Bruce Dickins's 1915 translation.
The Old Icelandic poem is the simplest, three small pictures of the same thing: "Leafy twig and little tree and fresh young shrub."
The Old Norwegian poem agrees about the leaves: "Birch has the greenest leaves of any shrub." Its second line, about Loki's luck in deceit, is there for the rhyme and has no clear link to the tree.
The Old English verse is longer and stranger. Dickins translates the tree as a poplar, not a birch: "The poplar bears no fruit; yet without seed it brings forth suckers, for it is generated from its leaves. Splendid are its branches and gloriously adorned its lofty crown which reaches to the skies." The English word beorc means birch, but the poet's description, a tall tree that spreads by suckers, made the translator think of a different species.
Whichever tree the poet had in mind, the theme holds across all three poems: fresh green growth, and in the English one a tree that multiplies without fruit or seed. Modern readings of Berkano as birth and motherhood stretch that image. The poems stay with leaves, twigs and a crown against the sky.
Berkano in a modern rune reading
Rune reading is a modern practice, and the following is how Berkano is used in it today.
As a rune of the day, Berkano is taken as a prompt to look after something new and small.
In a three-rune cast:
- The situation. Something has just begun. It is real but not yet sturdy.
- The challenge. Young growth is easy to neglect or to overload. The task is steady, modest care.
- The likely outcome. The new thing takes root and puts out leaves. It is a direction, not a verdict.
In a yes-or-no question Berkano is read as a yes.
Draw one rune or cast three below.
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Is there a reversed Berkano?
Rune books that use reversals read an upside-down Berkano as stalled growth. The poems have no such second verse, and our rune reading uses upright meanings only. In the challenge position, Berkano already asks what is keeping a new thing from growing.
Berkano in its ætt and neighboring runes
Berkano is the second rune of the third ætt, the last group of eight, which begins with the god Tyr.
It stands between Tiwaz, the rune of justice, and Ehwaz, the horse. It is also the third tree in the row, if the thorn bush of Thurisaz and the yew of Eihwaz are counted. All 24 are in the guide to the Elder Futhark runes.