Hagalaz (ᚺ) is the ninth rune of the Elder Futhark and stands for the sound h. Its name means "hail," and all three medieval rune poems describe it the same way: as cold grain falling from the sky. In modern rune reading it is taken to mean sudden disruption that cannot be controlled and does not last, and it is read as a no.
What does the Hagalaz rune mean?
As a matter of history, Hagalaz was the letter h in the oldest runic alphabet, nothing more mysterious than that.
Its reputation as a rune of upheaval belongs to modern rune reading, a 20th-century practice that draws on the rune's name. There it stands for:
- Disruption. Plans interrupted by something no one arranged.
- Storm. A short, sharp spell of trouble from outside.
- Clearing. What the storm removes leaves room for something else.
The Hagalaz sign and its sound
Hagalaz is two upright lines joined by a slanting bar, much like a capital H with a crooked crosspiece. Some inscriptions use two bars.
It stands for h. The name is written Hagalaz or Haglaz in reconstructed form; Hagall is Old Norse and Hægl, or Haegl, Old English.
The name Hagalaz and what the rune poems say
The names of the runes were written down long after the Elder Futhark went out of use, and the early forms are reconstructed. Tineke Looijenga gives haglaz for this rune and glosses the Old English name as "hail, bad happenings."
The h rune survived into the later 16-rune Scandinavian alphabet, so all three rune poems have a verse for it. They are quoted here in Bruce Dickins's 1915 translation, and they share one image.
The Old English poem: "Hail is the whitest of grain; it is whirled from the vault of heaven and is tossed about by gusts of wind and then it melts into water."
The Old Norwegian poem: "Hail is the coldest of grain; Christ created the world of old."
The Old Icelandic poem: "Cold grain and shower of sleet and sickness of serpents."
Calling hail a grain is a small dark joke. It looks like seed and falls on the fields, and it destroys the crop it resembles. The poets knew what a hailstorm before harvest meant.
Only the English verse follows the hailstone to the end: "then it melts into water." Modern readings of Hagalaz as a clearing, a damage that turns into something useful, grow out of that half line. The Norse verses stop at cold.
Hagalaz in a modern rune reading
The readings here are modern. No evidence shows that runes were drawn singly for guidance when they were an everyday script.
As a rune of the day, Hagalaz is taken as advice not to fight the weather: wait it out and tidy up afterward.
In a three-rune cast:
- The situation. Something has been upset, or is about to be, by forces outside your control.
- The challenge. The reflex is to resist or to blame. The task is to protect what you can and let the rest pass.
- The likely outcome. The ground is cleared. It is a direction, not a verdict, and it says nothing about what gets built next.
In a yes-or-no question Hagalaz is read as a no: not now, or not in this form.
A difficult rune in a reading is a prompt to think, never a forecast of harm. See it in context below.
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Is there a reversed Hagalaz?
Many rune books give runes a second meaning when they fall upside down. That is a modern convention; the poems give one verse each. Hagalaz is often listed as having no reversal at all, since readers already treat it as a hard rune.
Our rune reading reads every rune upright.
Hagalaz in its ætt and neighboring runes
The Elder Futhark is traditionally divided into three groups of eight, each called an ætt. Hagalaz is the first rune of the second group, which is often called Hagal's ætt after it.
The group it opens is the wintry one. It comes straight after Wunjo, joy, and is followed by Nauthiz, need, and then by ice. Hail, need, ice: three hard runes in a row before the harvest rune turns the year.
All 24 are shown in order in the guide to the Elder Futhark runes.