Isa upright
Stillness and suspension. Everything held in place — frustrating if you want movement, useful if you needed to stop.
Rune 11 of 24 · Heimdall's Aett
ᛁ Isa rune meaning
Isa rune meaning: stillness and suspension. Its name is read as “ice”; it is rune 11 of 24, in Heimdall's Aett, with the sound i. The shape looks the same upside down, so there is no reversed reading.
- Place in the row
- 11 of 24 Heimdall's Aett, aett 2
- Sound
- i said EE-sah
- Rune poems
- 3 of 3 named is · íss
- Read as
- Ice from the rune’s name
Dickins, Runic and Heroic Poems, 1915.
Isa reversed
Isa is symmetrical — turning it over changes nothing, so it has no reversed meaning.
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 Isa sits in the Elder Futhark
Isa is rune 11, the third of the eight in Heimdall's Aett, between Nauthiz and Jera.
Position in the row11 of 24
AettHeimdall's Aett
SoundI
Literal meaningIce
ElementWater
Can be reversedNo
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. It has no reversed reading here.
In a reading
What Isa usually means when you draw it
Isa is ice: stillness, standstill and waiting. Nothing moves for now, and forcing it risks slipping.
Isa in love
A cooling or pause; give each other time.
Isa at work
A freeze on progress; plan while waiting for the thaw.
Advice
Be still and let clarity form.
Primary source
What the rune poems say about Isa
In brief, the Anglo-Saxon verse describes ice as very cold and slippery, yet glittering like jewels and beautiful to look at.
“Ice is very cold and immeasurably slippery; it glistens as clear as glass and most like to gems; it is a floor wrought by the frost, fair to look upon.”
Is byþ oferceald, ungemetum slidor,
glisnaþ glæshluttur gimmum gelicust,
flor forste geworuht, fæger ansyne.
“Ice we call the broad bridge; the blind man must be led.”
Ís kǫllum brú bræiða;
blindan þarf at læiða.
“Ice — bark of rivers and roof of the wave and destruction of the doomed.”
Íss er árbǫrkr
ok unnar þak
ok feigra manna fár.
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. Where the three rune poems come from
Isa in the three rune poems, side by side
All three poems agree: the verse for Isa is about ice.
| Source | Name | The verse is about |
|---|---|---|
| Elder Futhark name (reconstructed) | Isa | ice |
| Anglo-Saxon rune poem | is | ice |
| Norwegian rune poem | íss | ice |
| Icelandic rune poem | íss | ice |
Subjects in the words of Dickins’s 1915 translation; the first row is the modern reconstructed name and reading.
Calculated
Isa by the numbers
In 2026 the date-seeded draw lands on Isa only 9 times, under the even share of 15.2, which puts it joint 23rd of 24 with one other rune. Its longest gap between draws, from April 25 to June 29, spans 65 days.
Position in the row
11 of 24
Odds of drawing it
1 in 24 · 4.17%
Rune of the day in 2026
9 times · 2.47%
Can be reversed
No
Days in 2026:
- Feb 27
- Mar 16
- Apr 25
- Jun 29
- Jul 24, 30
- Aug 6, 25
- Oct 3
Which runes can be reversed, and how the daily draw is fixed →
What happened to it
Isa after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Survived as íss, ice. A single vertical stroke, and the simplest rune to carve.
Worth knowing
The Icelandic rune poem calls ice 'bark of rivers and roof of the wave and destruction of the doomed'.
Isa: deity, tree and element
Pronounced
EE-sah
Deity
Rime giants
Tree
Alder
Element
Water
The poem above is a source; this table is a twentieth-century reconstruction.
How to type the Isa rune
| Character | ᛁ |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+16C1 |
| Unicode name | RUNIC LETTER ISAZ IS ISS I |
| HTML | ᛁ or ᛁ |
The Unicode standard names it Isaz, not Isa, and its name also records Is and Iss.
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. “Isa Rune Meaning: Ice.” Accessed October 27, 2026. https://astrohot.com/runes/isa/
For Wikipedia
{{cite web |title=Isa Rune Meaning: Ice |url=https://astrohot.com/runes/isa/ |website=AstroHot |access-date=2026-10-27}}