Thurisaz (ᚦ) is the third rune of the Elder Futhark and stands for the sound th. Its reconstructed name means "giant," while the Old English name for the same rune is Thorn. In modern rune reading it is taken to mean an obstacle, a defense or a pause before acting, and in a yes-or-no question it is a maybe.
What does the Thurisaz rune mean?
Historically, Thurisaz was a letter for a sound that Latin had no sign for: the th of "thing." Its name was an everyday word starting with that sound, as with every rune.
The meanings people look up today come from modern rune reading, which grew up in the 20th century around the old names. There Thurisaz stands for three related ideas:
- Obstacle. Something blocks the path and will not move by force.
- Defense. A thorn hedge keeps things out as well as hurting those who push through.
- Pause. The useful response is to stop and look before reacting.
The Thurisaz sign and its sound
The sign is an upright line with a small triangle jutting from its middle, like a thorn on a stem. It is one of the easiest runes to recognize.
Its sound is th. In the word "futhark" itself, the "th" is this rune: the alphabet is named after its first six letters, f, u, th, a, r, k.
The rune had a long afterlife. Old English scribes writing with Latin letters borrowed it for the th sound and called the letter thorn, written þ. English later dropped it, but Icelandic still uses þ every day.
Spellings vary: Thurisaz, Thurs, Thuris and Thorn all name the same rune.
The name Thurisaz and what the rune poems say
The name Thurisaz is a reconstruction. No one recorded rune names during the centuries when the Elder Futhark was carved; they survive in later manuscripts. The runologist Tineke Looijenga lists the reconstructed form as þurisaz, with the meanings "thurs (giant)" and, for the Old English name, "thorn."
The three medieval rune poems split along the same line.
The Old English poem talks about the plant. In Bruce Dickins's 1915 translation: "The thorn is exceedingly sharp, an evil thing for any knight to touch, uncommonly severe on all who sit among them."
The two Scandinavian poems talk about the giant, and neither is kind. The Old Norwegian verse says the giant "causes anguish to women" and adds that "misfortune makes few men cheerful." The Old Icelandic poem calls him "cliff-dweller and husband of a giantess."
A thurs in Norse stories is a dangerous, hostile being. The English name may have been a deliberate swap for a tamer word, but that is a guess. What the poems share is the tone: this is a rune for something that hurts when you grab it.
Thurisaz in a modern rune reading
The readings below are modern practice. Nothing shows that the people who used the Elder Futhark drew single runes to answer questions.
As a rune of the day, Thurisaz is taken as advice to wait a moment before responding to whatever stings.
In a three-rune cast the position colors it:
- The situation. Something is in the way, and it may have been there longer than you noticed.
- The challenge. The urge is to push straight through. The task is to step back and choose: go around, wait, or protect what matters.
- The likely outcome. The matter resolves once the obstacle is understood, not when it is attacked. It is a direction, not a verdict.
Asked a yes-or-no question, our tool reads Thurisaz as maybe. Something has to be looked at first.
Draw a rune or cast three below to see it in context.
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Is there a reversed Thurisaz?
Books on rune reading often give a separate "reversed" meaning for a rune that lands upside down. That is a modern convention; the poems offer one verse per rune.
Our rune reading reads every rune upright. With Thurisaz little is lost, because the old verses are already about the rune's sharp side.
Thurisaz in its ætt and neighboring runes
The 24 runes are traditionally divided into three groups of eight, each called an ætt. Thurisaz is third in the first group, often called Freyr's ætt.
It follows Uruz, the wild ox, and comes before Ansuz, the rune of speech. Read in a row, the three move from raw force to an obstacle to words, which is a tidy way to remember the order.
The full alphabet, with all three groups, is in the guide to the Elder Futhark runes.