Jera upright
The harvest arriving in its own time. Cycles completing, and the reward for work done a season ago.
Rune 12 of 24 · Heimdall's Aett
ᛃ Jera rune meaning
Jera rune meaning: the harvest arriving in its own time. Its name is read as “year, harvest”; it is rune 12 of 24, in Heimdall's Aett, with the sound j/y. The shape looks the same upside down, so there is no reversed reading.
- Place in the row
- 12 of 24 Heimdall's Aett, aett 2
- Sound
- j/y said YARE-ah
- Rune poems
- 3 of 3 named ger · ár
- Read as
- Year, harvest from the rune’s name
Dickins, Runic and Heroic Poems, 1915.
Jera reversed
Jera is symmetrical — turning it over changes nothing, so it has no reversed meaning.
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Where Jera sits in the Elder Futhark
Jera is rune 12, the fourth of the eight in Heimdall's Aett, between Isa and Eihwaz.
Position in the row12 of 24
AettHeimdall's Aett
SoundJ/Y
Literal meaningYear, harvest
ElementEarth
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 Jera usually means when you draw it
Jera is the harvest and the turning year. It signals results arriving in their season after patient effort.
Jera in love
A relationship maturing over time; rewards for commitment.
Jera at work
Long-term projects bearing fruit.
Advice
Be patient — the cycle will bring what you planted.
Primary source
What the rune poems say about Jera
In brief, the Anglo-Saxon verse connects the rune to harvest time, when the earth yields its crops to rich and poor alike.
“Summer is a joy to men, when God, the holy King of Heaven, suffers the earth to bring forth shining fruits for rich and poor alike.”
Ger byÞ gumena hiht, ðonne God læteþ,
halig heofones cyning, hrusan syllan
beorhte bleda beornum ond ðearfum.
“Plenty is a boon to men; I say that Frothi was generous.”
Ár er gumna góðe;
get ek at ǫrr var Fróðe.
“Plenty — boon to men and good summer and thriving crops.”
Ár er gumna góði
ok gott sumar
algróinn akr.
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. Ger means “year”; Dickins translates it “summer”, the season of the harvest the verse describes. Where the three rune poems come from
Jera in the three rune poems, side by side
The Norwegian and Icelandic poems agree on plenty; the Anglo-Saxon verse is about summer.
| Source | Name | The verse is about |
|---|---|---|
| Elder Futhark name (reconstructed) | Jera | year, harvest |
| Anglo-Saxon rune poem | ger | summer |
| Norwegian rune poem | ár | plenty |
| Icelandic rune poem | ár | plenty |
Subjects in the words of Dickins’s 1915 translation; the first row is the modern reconstructed name and reading.
Calculated
Jera by the numbers
Jera turns up 16 times as the rune of the day in 2026, above the even share of 15.2 — joint 10th of 24 with 5 others. Its longest gap between draws, from March 12 to May 27, spans 76 days.
Position in the row
12 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
Days in 2026:
- Jan 1
- Feb 23
- Mar 12
- May 27
- Jun 11
- Jul 17
- Aug 9, 16
- Sep 10, 27
- Oct 18, 24
- Nov 22, 29
- Dec 23, 28
Which runes can be reversed, and how the daily draw is fixed →
What happened to it
Jera after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Survived as ár, year or good harvest, but its shape changed beyond recognition — from two facing hooks to a single stroke with a branch.
Worth knowing
The sound also shifted from J to A, one of the largest changes in the whole row.
Jera: deity, tree and element
Pronounced
YARE-ah
Deity
Freyr
Tree
Oak
Element
Earth
The poem above is a source; this table is a twentieth-century reconstruction.
How to type the Jera rune
| Character | ᛃ |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+16C3 |
| Unicode name | RUNIC LETTER JERAN J |
| HTML | ᛃ or ᛃ |
The Unicode standard names it Jeran, not Jera.
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. “Jera Rune Meaning: Year, Harvest.” Accessed October 27, 2026. https://astrohot.com/runes/jera/
For Wikipedia
{{cite web |title=Jera Rune Meaning: Year, Harvest |url=https://astrohot.com/runes/jera/ |website=AstroHot |access-date=2026-10-27}}