Upright
Birth, growth and new beginnings — particularly domestic ones. Fertility in the widest sense.
Rune 18 of 24 · Tyr's Aett
ᛒ Berkano
Berkano is rune 18 of the 24 in the Elder Futhark, in Tyr's Aett, and carries the sound B. It means “Birch, growth”. Upright: Birth, growth and new beginnings — particularly domestic ones. Fertility in the widest sense. Reversed: Stagnation, family difficulty, or growth that has stalled. That reading exists for 17 of the 24 runes; the other 7 are symmetrical or read upright only.
Reversed
Stagnation, family difficulty, or growth that has stalled.
Position in the row18 of 24
AettTyr's Aett
SoundB
Literal meaningBirch, growth
ElementEarth
Can be reversedYes
Berkano is the 18th rune of the Elder Futhark and belongs to Tyr's Aett. Before it meant anything divinatory it was a letter, carrying the B sound.
Primary source
What the rune poem says
The birch bears no fruit, yet without seed it brings forth suckers, for it is generated from its leaves. Splendid are its branches and gloriously adorned.
— Anglo-Saxon rune poem, recorded around the 8th–10th century
Where the rune poems come from and why the medieval reading is often blunter than the modern one — explained once on the main page.
Calculated
Berkano by the numbers
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
33%
Can be reversed
Yes
Of the 24 runes, only 17 have a reversed reading — 71% of the row. Four are symmetrical and cannot be turned over at all, and 3 more are conventionally read upright only.
The rune-of-the-day figures are exact rather than estimated. Our daily draw is derived from the date, so the whole year can be computed — which a site with a random draw cannot do.
Days it falls in 2026: 9 Jan, 21 Jan, 17 Feb, 11 Mar, 26 Mar, 15 Apr, 22 Apr, 18 May
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
Frequently carved on birthing charms and on stones raised by women.
Around 800 CE the 24-rune Elder Futhark contracted to the 16-rune Younger Futhark — fewer symbols for more sounds, at exactly the point the language was growing more complex. Eight runes were dropped outright. Which ones survived, and how they changed, is the closest thing to a documented history these symbols have.
Traditional associations
Pronounced
BER-kah-no
Deity
Frigg and Nerthus
Tree
Birch
Element
Earth
Berkano sits in Tyr's Aett, position 18 of the row, and carries the B sound. Its literal meaning is birch, growth — which is where every later reading of it starts.
The poem above is a source; this table is twentieth-century reconstruction.