Upright
Intuition, flow and the unconscious. What moves beneath the surface, and the sense to follow it.
Rune 21 of 24 · Tyr's Aett
ᛚ Laguz
Laguz is rune 21 of the 24 in the Elder Futhark, in Tyr's Aett, and carries the sound L. It means “Water, lake”. Upright: Intuition, flow and the unconscious. What moves beneath the surface, and the sense to follow it. Reversed: Being overwhelmed, or intuition ignored. Fear of what is under the water. That reading exists for 17 of the 24 runes; the other 7 are symmetrical or read upright only.
Reversed
Being overwhelmed, or intuition ignored. Fear of what is under the water.
Position in the row21 of 24
AettTyr's Aett
SoundL
Literal meaningWater, lake
ElementWater
Can be reversedYes
Laguz is the 21th rune of the Elder Futhark and belongs to Tyr's Aett. Before it meant anything divinatory it was a letter, carrying the L sound.
Primary source
What the rune poem says
The ocean seems interminable to men if they venture on the rolling ship, and the waves of the sea terrify them, and the courser of the deep heeds not its bridle.
— 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
Laguz by the numbers
Position in the row
21 of 24
Odds of drawing it
1 in 24 · 4.17%
Rune of the day in 2026
17 times · 4.66%
Reversed on those days
47%
Can be reversed
Yes
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: 4 Jan, 27 Jan, 11 Feb, 8 Mar, 7 Apr, 24 Apr, 29 May, 14 Jun
What happened to it
Laguz after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Survived as lögr, water or sea. Shape and meaning both held.
Worth knowing
Extremely common on stones raised for men lost at sea.
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
LAH-gooz
Deity
Njord and Nerthus
Tree
Willow
Element
Water
Laguz sits in Tyr's Aett, position 21 of the row, and carries the L sound. Its literal meaning is water, lake — which is where every later reading of it starts.
The poem above is a source; this table is twentieth-century reconstruction.