Eihwaz upright
Endurance through a hard passage. The yew is poisonous and near-immortal — the rune of surviving what should have finished you.
Rune 13 of 24 · Heimdall's Aett
ᛇ Eihwaz rune meaning
Eihwaz rune meaning: endurance through a hard passage. Its name is read as “yew tree”; it is rune 13 of 24, in Heimdall's Aett, with the sound ei. Reversed: confusion, weakness, or avoiding a passage that must be crossed.
- Place in the row
- 13 of 24 Heimdall's Aett, aett 2
- Sound
- ei said AY-wahz
- Rune poems
- 3 of 3 named eoh · ýr
- Read as
- Yew tree from the rune’s name
Dickins, Runic and Heroic Poems, 1915.
Eihwaz reversed
Confusion, weakness, or avoiding a passage that must be crossed.
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Where Eihwaz sits in the Elder Futhark
Eihwaz is rune 13, the fifth of the eight in Heimdall's Aett, between Jera and Perthro.
Position in the row13 of 24
AettHeimdall's Aett
SoundEI
Literal meaningYew tree
ElementAll
Can be reversedYes
Its shape is one of the 9 in the row that look the same after a half-turn, so an upside-down draw cannot be seen. The reversed reading above comes from modern rune books, which read how the stave falls rather than its outline.
In a reading
What Eihwaz usually means when you draw it
Eihwaz, the yew, stands for endurance, protection and the link between life and death. It often appears when a situation requires steady resilience.
Eihwaz in love
A bond that survives difficulty.
Eihwaz at work
Perseverance through a long or testing project.
Advice
Stay rooted; endurance is the strength here.
Primary source
What the rune poems say about Eihwaz
In brief, the Anglo-Saxon verse describes the yew as rough-barked and deeply rooted, a keeper of fire and a welcome sight on an estate.
“The yew is a tree with rough bark, hard and fast in the earth, supported by its roots, a guardian of flame and a joy upon an estate.”
Eoh byþ utan unsmeþe treow,
heard hrusan fæst, hyrde fyres,
wyrtrumun underwreþyd, wyn on eþle.
“Yew is the greenest of trees in winter; it is wont to crackle when it burns.”
Ýr er vetrgrønstr viða;
vænt er, er brennr, at sviða.
“Yr — bent bow and brittle iron and giant of the arrow.”
Ýr er bendr bogi
ok brotgjarnt járn
ok fífu fárbauti.
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 verses are for ýr, “yew” — the Younger Futhark rune that took this rune’s name, although its shape came from algiz. Where the three rune poems come from
Eihwaz in the three rune poems, side by side
The Anglo-Saxon and Norwegian verses are about the yew; the Icelandic one is about yr, a bent bow.
| Source | Name | The verse is about |
|---|---|---|
| Elder Futhark name (reconstructed) | Eihwaz | yew tree |
| Anglo-Saxon rune poem | eoh | the yew |
| Norwegian rune poem | ýr | the yew |
| Icelandic rune poem | ýr | yr, a bent bow |
Subjects in the words of Dickins’s 1915 translation; the first row is the modern reconstructed name and reading.
Calculated
Eihwaz by the numbers
In 2026 the date-seeded draw lands on Eihwaz only 13 times, under the even share of 15.2, which puts it joint 18th of 24 with one other rune. It lies reversed on 2 of them. September is its busiest month, with 3. Its longest gap between draws, from May 22 to July 12, spans 51 days.
Position in the row
13 of 24
Odds of drawing it
1 in 24 · 4.17%
Rune of the day in 2026
13 times · 3.56%
Reversed on those days
2 of 13
Can be reversed
Yes
Days in 2026:
- Feb 5, 26
- Mar 20
- Apr 18 (rev.), 30
- May 22
- Jul 12 (rev.)
- Aug 18
- Sep 1, 15, 29
- Oct 21
- Dec 11
Which runes can be reversed, and how the daily draw is fixed →
What happened to it
Eihwaz after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Dropped from the Younger Futhark, but its name, yew, passed to the ýr rune, which took its shape from algiz.
Worth knowing
One of the least attested runes, and its exact original sound is still argued over.
Eihwaz: deity, tree and element
Pronounced
AY-wahz
Deity
Ullr
Tree
Yew
Element
All
The poem above is a source; this table is a twentieth-century reconstruction.
How to type the Eihwaz rune
| Character | ᛇ |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+16C7 |
| Unicode name | RUNIC LETTER IWAZ EOH |
| HTML | ᛇ or ᛇ |
The Unicode standard names it Iwaz, not Eihwaz, and its name also records Eoh.
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. “Eihwaz Rune Meaning: Yew Tree.” Accessed October 27, 2026. https://astrohot.com/runes/eihwaz/
For Wikipedia
{{cite web |title=Eihwaz Rune Meaning: Yew Tree |url=https://astrohot.com/runes/eihwaz/ |website=AstroHot |access-date=2026-10-27}}