Othala upright
Inheritance — land, family, tradition and what was handed down. What you belong to rather than what you acquired.
Rune 24 of 24 · Tyr's Aett
ᛟ Othala rune meaning
Othala rune meaning: inheritance — land, family, tradition and what was handed down. Its name is read as “ancestral property, homeland”; it is rune 24 of 24, in Tyr's Aett, with the sound o. Reversed: rootlessness, or clinging to an inheritance that has become a burden.
- Place in the row
- 24 of 24 Tyr's Aett, aett 3
- Sound
- o said OH-tha-la
- Rune poems
- 1 of 3 named eþel
- Read as
- Ancestral property, homeland from the rune’s name
Dickins, Runic and Heroic Poems, 1915.
Othala reversed
Rootlessness, or clinging to an inheritance that has become a burden.
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Where Othala sits in the Elder Futhark
Othala is rune 24, the eighth of the eight in Tyr's Aett, which it closes after Dagaz.
Position in the row24 of 24
AettTyr's Aett
SoundO
Literal meaningAncestral property, homeland
ElementEarth
Can be reversedYes
In a reading
What Othala usually means when you draw it
Othala is home, inheritance and heritage. It points to family, property and what is passed down.
Othala in love
Home life, family ties and long-term security.
Othala at work
Property, family business or long-term assets.
Advice
Protect and build on what you have inherited.
Primary source
What the rune poems say about Othala
In brief, the Anglo-Saxon verse describes the ancestral home as dear to everyone who can live there in peace and prosperity.
“An estate is very dear to every man, if he can enjoy there in his house whatever is right and proper in constant prosperity.”
Eþel byþ oferleof æghwylcum men,
gif he mot ðær rihtes and gerysena on
brucan on bolde bleadum oftast.
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. The Norwegian and Icelandic poems cover only the 16 runes of the Younger Futhark, which dropped Othala. Where the three rune poems come from
Othala in the three rune poems, side by side
Only the Anglo-Saxon poem has a verse for Othala, and it is about an estate.
| Source | Name | The verse is about |
|---|---|---|
| Elder Futhark name (reconstructed) | Othala | ancestral property, homeland |
| Anglo-Saxon rune poem | eþel | an estate |
| Norwegian and Icelandic poems | — | no verse: the Younger Futhark dropped Othala |
Subjects in the words of Dickins’s 1915 translation; the first row is the modern reconstructed name and reading.
Calculated
Othala by the numbers
In 2026 the date-seeded draw lands on Othala only 10 times, under the even share of 15.2, which puts it joint 20th of 24 with 2 others. It lies reversed on 3 of them. December is its busiest month, with 3. Its longest gap between draws, from August 28 to December 9, spans 103 days.
Position in the row
24 of 24
Odds of drawing it
1 in 24 · 4.17%
Rune of the day in 2026
10 times · 2.74%
Reversed on those days
3 of 10
Can be reversed
Yes
Days in 2026:
- Mar 27 (rev.)
- May 12 (rev.)
- Jun 7, 13
- Jul 29
- Aug 14, 28 (rev.)
- Dec 9, 16, 21
Which runes can be reversed, and how the daily draw is fixed →
What happened to it
Othala after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Dropped from the Younger Futhark. Its O sound merged into óss.
Worth knowing
Its association with inherited land made it a target for appropriation by nationalist movements, which is worth knowing before wearing one.
Othala: deity, tree and element
Pronounced
OH-tha-la
Deity
Odin
Tree
Hawthorn
Element
Earth
The poem above is a source; this table is a twentieth-century reconstruction.
How to type the Othala rune
| Character | ᛟ |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+16DF |
| Unicode name | RUNIC LETTER OTHALAN ETHEL O |
| HTML | ᛟ or ᛟ |
The Unicode standard names it Othalan, not Othala, and its name also records Ethel.
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. “Othala Rune Meaning: Ancestral Property, Homeland.” Accessed October 27, 2026. https://astrohot.com/runes/othala/
For Wikipedia
{{cite web |title=Othala Rune Meaning: Ancestral Property, Homeland |url=https://astrohot.com/runes/othala/ |website=AstroHot |access-date=2026-10-27}}