Upright
Partnership and trusted movement. The horse and rider working as one — progress made with someone rather than alone.
Rune 19 of 24 · Tyr's Aett
ᛖ Ehwaz
Ehwaz is rune 19 of the 24 in the Elder Futhark, in Tyr's Aett, and carries the sound E. It means “Horse”. Upright: Partnership and trusted movement. The horse and rider working as one — progress made with someone rather than alone. Reversed: A partnership out of step, or movement without direction. That reading exists for 17 of the 24 runes; the other 7 are symmetrical or read upright only.
Reversed
A partnership out of step, or movement without direction.
Position in the row19 of 24
AettTyr's Aett
SoundE
Literal meaningHorse
ElementEarth
Can be reversedYes
Ehwaz is the 19th rune of the Elder Futhark and belongs to Tyr's Aett. Before it meant anything divinatory it was a letter, carrying the E sound.
Primary source
What the rune poem says
The horse is a joy to princes in the presence of warriors, a steed in the pride of its hooves, when rich men on horseback bandy words about it.
— 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
Ehwaz by the numbers
Position in the row
19 of 24
Odds of drawing it
1 in 24 · 4.17%
Rune of the day in 2026
15 times · 4.11%
Reversed on those days
47%
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: 5 Jan, 2 Mar, 6 Apr, 12 Apr, 19 Apr, 14 May, 1 Jun, 13 Jul
What happened to it
Ehwaz after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Dropped from the Younger Futhark. The E sound merged into íss.
Worth knowing
Its twin-stroke shape mirrors mannaz, and the two are easily confused in worn inscriptions.
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
EH-wahz
Deity
Freyr and Freyja
Tree
Oak and ash
Element
Earth
Ehwaz sits in Tyr's Aett, position 19 of the row, and carries the E sound. Its literal meaning is horse — which is where every later reading of it starts.
The poem above is a source; this table is twentieth-century reconstruction.