Upright
The self in relation to others. Community, shared humanity, and what you are within a group.
Rune 20 of 24 · Tyr's Aett
ᛗ Mannaz
Mannaz is rune 20 of the 24 in the Elder Futhark, in Tyr's Aett, and carries the sound M. It means “Man, humanity”. Upright: The self in relation to others. Community, shared humanity, and what you are within a group. Reversed: Isolation, self-deception, or expecting from others what you will not give. That reading exists for 17 of the 24 runes; the other 7 are symmetrical or read upright only.
Reversed
Isolation, self-deception, or expecting from others what you will not give.
Position in the row20 of 24
AettTyr's Aett
SoundM
Literal meaningMan, humanity
ElementAir
Can be reversedYes
Mannaz is the 20th rune of the Elder Futhark and belongs to Tyr's Aett. Before it meant anything divinatory it was a letter, carrying the M sound.
Primary source
What the rune poem says
The joyous man is dear to his kinsmen; yet every man is doomed to fail his fellow, since the Lord by his decree will commit the vile carrion to the earth.
— 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
Mannaz by the numbers
Position in the row
20 of 24
Odds of drawing it
1 in 24 · 4.17%
Rune of the day in 2026
19 times · 5.21%
Reversed on those days
32%
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: 15 Jan, 22 Jan, 29 Jan, 14 Feb, 28 Feb, 19 Mar, 25 Mar, 2 Apr
What happened to it
Mannaz after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Survived as maðr, man, but the shape simplified drastically from a linked pair to a single branching stroke.
Worth knowing
One of the most frequently carved runes on memorial stones, for obvious reasons.
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
MAH-nahz
Deity
Heimdall and Odin
Tree
Holly
Element
Air
Mannaz sits in Tyr's Aett, position 20 of the row, and carries the M sound. Its literal meaning is man, humanity — which is where every later reading of it starts.
The poem above is a source; this table is twentieth-century reconstruction.