Dagaz (ᛞ) is the twenty-third rune of the Elder Futhark and stands for the sound d. Its name means "day." The Old English rune poem calls day a glorious light, a source of hope and happiness to rich and poor alike. In modern rune reading Dagaz is taken to mean dawn, a breakthrough and change for the better, and it is read as a yes.
What does the Dagaz rune mean?
Dagaz is the letter d, and its name is as plain as a name can be: the word that became English "day."
Modern rune reading, a practice of the 20th century, narrows "day" to its first moment:
- Dawn. Light returning after a dark stretch.
- Breakthrough. A problem that suddenly gives way.
- Change. A turn for the better that alters how everything looks.
The Dagaz sign and its sound
Dagaz is two upright lines joined by two diagonals that cross in the middle, so that the whole sign resembles a bow tie or an hourglass lying on its side. It is fully symmetrical: left and right match, and so do top and bottom.
That symmetry invites interpretation, and modern books often describe the two halves as night and day meeting. It is an attractive idea with no old source behind it.
The rune stands for d. Its reconstructed name is Dagaz, and the Old English name is Dæg, also written Daeg.
The name Dagaz and what the rune poem says
Tineke Looijenga's table of rune names has the reconstructed form dagaz and the Old English dæg, "day."
The d rune was dropped from the later Scandinavian alphabet, so the Norwegian and Icelandic poems are silent. The Old English rune poem has this, in Bruce Dickins's 1915 translation: "Day, the glorious light of the Creator, is sent by the Lord; it is beloved of men, a source of hope and happiness to rich and poor, and of service to all."
The verse is openly Christian, like several in the poem, and it is one of the least complicated. Day is good. It is good for everyone. It is useful.
Two details are worth noticing. First, "rich and poor": the poet uses nearly the same phrase about the harvest in the verse for Jera. Daylight and a good year are the two gifts in the poem that nobody can keep for themselves. Second, the verse is about day, not daybreak. The drama of dawn and breakthrough is a modern sharpening of a calmer original.
Dagaz also pairs naturally with Sowilo, the sun. The alphabet gives one rune to the sun itself and another to the light it makes. In the English poem the sun verse belongs to sailors far from land, while the day verse belongs to everybody at once, which may be why modern readers find Dagaz the more hopeful of the two.
Dagaz in a modern rune reading
The following is how the rune is read now, not a tradition from the age of the inscriptions.
As a rune of the day, Dagaz is taken as a reminder that a new start may be closer than it feels.
In a three-rune cast:
- The situation. Something that was obscure is becoming visible. The worst of the dark is behind.
- The challenge. Old habits formed in the dark. The task is to act on what you can now see.
- The likely outcome. A clearer view and a real change of outlook. It is a direction, not a verdict.
In a yes-or-no question Dagaz is read as a yes.
Draw one rune or cast three below.
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Why Dagaz has no reversed form
Turn Dagaz upside down, or flip it left to right, and nothing changes. Like the other symmetrical runes it stands outside the modern system of reversed meanings, which our rune reading does not use for any rune.
Dagaz in its ætt and neighboring runes
Dagaz belongs to the third ætt, the last group of eight, and shares the end of the alphabet with Othala. The oldest rune rows that survive disagree about their order: in some Dagaz is last, in others Othala. We follow the order with Dagaz as number 23.
Before it comes Ingwaz, the rune of Ing. All 24 are laid out in the guide to the Elder Futhark runes.