Ehwaz 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 rune meaning
Ehwaz rune meaning: partnership and trusted movement. Its name is read as “horse”; it is rune 19 of 24, in Tyr's Aett, with the sound e. Reversed: a partnership out of step, or movement without direction.
- Place in the row
- 19 of 24 Tyr's Aett, aett 3
- Sound
- e said EH-wahz
- Rune poems
- 1 of 3 named eh
- Read as
- Horse from the rune’s name
Dickins, Runic and Heroic Poems, 1915.
Ehwaz reversed
A partnership out of step, or movement without direction.
18 pages · printable
The 2027 Sky Calendar — free PDF
Every retrograde, eclipse, new and full moon of 2027 to the minute, already converted to your city. A month to a page, ready to print.
Where Ehwaz sits in the Elder Futhark
Ehwaz is rune 19, the third of the eight in Tyr's Aett, between Berkano and Mannaz.
Position in the row19 of 24
AettTyr's Aett
SoundE
Literal meaningHorse
ElementEarth
Can be reversedYes
In a reading
What Ehwaz usually means when you draw it
Ehwaz, the horse, is movement, trust and partnership. It points to progress made together and to reliable allies.
Ehwaz in love
Trust and cooperation; a partnership moving forward.
Ehwaz at work
Teamwork, travel and steady progress.
Advice
Move forward with someone you trust.
Primary source
What the rune poems say about Ehwaz
In brief, the Anglo-Saxon verse describes the horse as a joy to its riders and a proud companion that brings comfort to the restless.
“The horse is a joy to princes in the presence of warriors, a steed in the pride of its hoofs, when rich men on horseback bandy words about it; and it is ever a source of comfort to the restless.”
Eh byþ for eorlum æþelinga wyn,
hors hofum wlanc, ðær him hæleþ ymb[e]
welege on wicgum wrixlaþ spræce
and biþ unstyllum æfre frofur.
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. The Norwegian and Icelandic poems cover only the 16 runes of the Younger Futhark, which dropped Ehwaz. Where the three rune poems come from
Ehwaz in the three rune poems, side by side
Only the Anglo-Saxon poem has a verse for Ehwaz, and it is about the horse.
| Source | Name | The verse is about |
|---|---|---|
| Elder Futhark name (reconstructed) | Ehwaz | horse |
| Anglo-Saxon rune poem | eh | the horse |
| Norwegian and Icelandic poems | — | no verse: the Younger Futhark dropped Ehwaz |
Subjects in the words of Dickins’s 1915 translation; the first row is the modern reconstructed name and reading.
Calculated
Ehwaz by the numbers
In 2026 the date-seeded draw lands on Ehwaz only 15 times, under the even share of 15.2, which puts it joint 16th of 24 with one other rune. It lies reversed on 7 of them. April is its busiest month, with 3. Its longest gap between draws, from July 18 to September 14, spans 58 days.
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
7 of 15
Can be reversed
Yes
Days in 2026:
- Jan 5
- Mar 2
- Apr 6 (rev.), 12, 19 (rev.)
- May 14
- Jun 1 (rev.)
- Jul 13, 18 (rev.)
- Sep 14 (rev.), 28
- Oct 17
- Nov 11
- Dec 10 (rev.), 27 (rev.)
Which runes can be reversed, and how the daily draw is fixed →
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.
Ehwaz: deity, tree and element
Pronounced
EH-wahz
Deity
Freyr and Freyja
Tree
Oak and ash
Element
Earth
The poem above is a source; this table is a twentieth-century reconstruction.
How to type the Ehwaz rune
| Character | ᛖ |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+16D6 |
| Unicode name | RUNIC LETTER EHWAZ EH E |
| HTML | ᛖ or ᛖ |
Besides Ehwaz, the official name lists Eh, a name the same stave carries in another row or poem.
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. “Ehwaz Rune Meaning: Horse.” Accessed October 27, 2026. https://astrohot.com/runes/ehwaz/
For Wikipedia
{{cite web |title=Ehwaz Rune Meaning: Horse |url=https://astrohot.com/runes/ehwaz/ |website=AstroHot |access-date=2026-10-27}}