Berkano upright
Birth, growth and new beginnings — particularly domestic ones. Fertility in the widest sense.
Rune 18 of 24 · Tyr's Aett
ᛒ Berkano rune meaning
Berkano rune meaning: birth, growth and new beginnings — particularly domestic ones. Its name is read as “birch, growth”; it is rune 18 of 24, in Tyr's Aett, with the sound b. Reversed: stagnation, family difficulty, or growth that has stalled.
- Place in the row
- 18 of 24 Tyr's Aett, aett 3
- Sound
- b said BER-kah-no
- Rune poems
- 3 of 3 named beorc · bjarkan
- Read as
- Birch, growth from the rune’s name
Dickins, Runic and Heroic Poems, 1915.
Berkano reversed
Stagnation, family difficulty, or growth that has stalled.
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Where Berkano sits in the Elder Futhark
Berkano is rune 18, the second of the eight in Tyr's Aett, between Tiwaz and Ehwaz.
Position in the row18 of 24
AettTyr's Aett
SoundB
Literal meaningBirch, growth
ElementEarth
Can be reversedYes
In a reading
What Berkano usually means when you draw it
Berkano, the birch, is growth, nurturing and new beginnings. It is often linked to family, birth and gentle development.
Berkano in love
Nurturing love, family and fertility.
Berkano at work
A new project growing steadily with care.
Advice
Tend new growth patiently.
Primary source
What the rune poems say about Berkano
In brief, the Anglo-Saxon verse describes the birch as a tree that bears no fruit yet puts out new shoots and graceful branches.
“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.”
Beorc byþ bleda leas, bereþ efne swa ðeah
tanas butan tudder, biþ on telgum wlitig,
heah on helme hrysted fægere,
geloden leafum, lyfte getenge.
“Birch has the greenest leaves of any shrub; Loki was fortunate in his deceit.”
Bjarkan er laufgrønstr líma;
Loki bar flærða tíma.
“Birch — leafy twig and little tree and fresh young shrub.”
Bjarkan er laufgat lim
ok lítit tré
ok ungsamligr viðr.
Bruce Dickins, Runic and Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic Peoples (Cambridge University Press, 1915) — read the original text.
Both the original texts and the translations are from Dickins’s edition. Dickins translates beorc as “poplar”: the usual meaning, birch, does not fit a tree that grows from suckers rather than seed, and Old English glossaries also use the word for the poplar. The Scandinavian poems mean the birch. Where the three rune poems come from
Berkano in the three rune poems, side by side
The Norwegian and Icelandic poems agree on the birch; the Anglo-Saxon verse is about the poplar.
| Source | Name | The verse is about |
|---|---|---|
| Elder Futhark name (reconstructed) | Berkano | birch, growth |
| Anglo-Saxon rune poem | beorc | the poplar |
| Norwegian rune poem | bjarkan | the birch |
| Icelandic rune poem | bjarkan | the birch |
Subjects in the words of Dickins’s 1915 translation; the first row is the modern reconstructed name and reading.
Calculated
Berkano by the numbers
Berkano turns up 18 times as the rune of the day in 2026, above the even share of 15.2 — joint 5th of 24 with one other rune. It lies reversed on 6 of them. November is its busiest month, with 3. Its longest gap between draws, from July 14 to August 29, spans 46 days.
Position in the row
18 of 24
Odds of drawing it
1 in 24 · 4.17%
Rune of the day in 2026
18 times · 4.93%
Reversed on those days
6 of 18
Can be reversed
Yes
Days in 2026:
- Jan 9, 21
- Feb 17
- Mar 11, 26
- Apr 15 (rev.), 22
- May 18
- Jun 6 (rev.), 12
- Jul 14 (rev.)
- Aug 29 (rev.)
- Sep 24 (rev.)
- Oct 10
- Nov 9, 16, 21 (rev.)
- Dec 8
Which runes can be reversed, and how the daily draw is fixed →
What happened to it
Berkano after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Survived as bjarkan, birch. Kept both shape and meaning almost unchanged.
Worth knowing
The Norwegian rune poem calls the birch the greenest-leaved of shrubs and, in the same couplet, says Loki was lucky in his deceit.
Berkano: deity, tree and element
Pronounced
BER-kah-no
Deity
Frigg and Nerthus
Tree
Birch
Element
Earth
The poem above is a source; this table is a twentieth-century reconstruction.
How to type the Berkano rune
| Character | ᛒ |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+16D2 |
| Unicode name | RUNIC LETTER BERKANAN BEORC BJARKAN B |
| HTML | ᛒ or ᛒ |
The Unicode standard names it Berkanan, not Berkano, and its name also records Beorc and Bjarkan.
Copy the character, or paste the code into a web page; it shows wherever a font covers the Runic block, added in Unicode 3.0.
Sources
- Bruce Dickins, Runic and Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic Peoples (Cambridge University Press, 1915)
Statements of fact on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. How we choose and check sources: editorial policy.
Cite this page
AstroHot. “Berkano Rune Meaning: Birch, Growth.” Accessed October 27, 2026. https://astrohot.com/runes/berkano/
For Wikipedia
{{cite web |title=Berkano Rune Meaning: Birch, Growth |url=https://astrohot.com/runes/berkano/ |website=AstroHot |access-date=2026-10-27}}