Upright
A gift, and the obligation that comes with it. Partnership, generosity and the balance of what passes between two people.
Rune 7 of 24 · Freyr's Aett
ᚷ Gebo
Gebo is rune 7 of the 24 in the Elder Futhark, in Freyr's Aett, and carries the sound G. It means “Gift, exchange”. Upright: A gift, and the obligation that comes with it. Partnership, generosity and the balance of what passes between two people. The shape is symmetrical, so it has no reversed position at all — true of only 4 runes in the row.
Reversed
Gebo is symmetrical — turning it over changes nothing, so it has no reversed meaning.
Position in the row7 of 24
AettFreyr's Aett
SoundG
Literal meaningGift, exchange
ElementAir
Can be reversedNo
Gebo is the 7th rune of the Elder Futhark and belongs to Freyr's Aett. Before it meant anything divinatory it was a letter, carrying the G sound.
This is one of the four symmetrical runes — along with Gebo, Isa, Jera and Ingwaz — which cannot be drawn reversed.
Primary source
What the rune poem says
Generosity brings credit and honour, which uphold one's dignity; it furnishes help and subsistence to all broken men who are devoid of aught else.
— 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
Gebo by the numbers
Position in the row
7 of 24
Odds of drawing it
1 in 24 · 4.17%
Rune of the day in 2026
16 times · 4.38%
Can be reversed
No
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: 19 Feb, 23 Mar, 10 Apr, 27 Apr, 4 Aug, 10 Aug, 9 Sep, 16 Sep
What happened to it
Gebo after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Dropped entirely from the Younger Futhark. Its sound merged into kaun.
Worth knowing
Its X shape survives in modern use as a kiss at the end of a letter, which is a coincidence rather than a descent.
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
GHEB-oh
Deity
Odin
Tree
Ash and elm
Element
Air
Gebo sits in Freyr's Aett, position 7 of the row, and carries the G sound. Its literal meaning is gift, exchange — which is where every later reading of it starts.
The poem above is a source; this table is twentieth-century reconstruction.