Upright
Chance, secrets and what has not been revealed. The dice are still in the cup.
Rune 14 of 24 · Heimdall's Aett
ᛈ Perthro
Perthro is rune 14 of the 24 in the Elder Futhark, in Heimdall's Aett, and carries the sound P. It means “Dice cup, the unknown”. Upright: Chance, secrets and what has not been revealed. The dice are still in the cup. Reversed: Stagnation, or a secret that should have come out and has not. That reading exists for 17 of the 24 runes; the other 7 are symmetrical or read upright only.
Reversed
Stagnation, or a secret that should have come out and has not.
Position in the row14 of 24
AettHeimdall's Aett
SoundP
Literal meaningDice cup, the unknown
ElementWater
Can be reversedYes
Perthro is the 14th rune of the Elder Futhark and belongs to Heimdall's Aett. Before it meant anything divinatory it was a letter, carrying the P sound.
Primary source
What the rune poem says
Perthro is a source of recreation and amusement to the great, where warriors sit blithely together in the banqueting hall.
— 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
Perthro by the numbers
Position in the row
14 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
24%
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: 14 Jan, 23 Jan, 15 Feb, 7 Mar, 18 Mar, 17 Apr, 5 May, 4 Jun
What happened to it
Perthro after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Dropped from the Younger Futhark. Its meaning was already uncertain when the poems were written.
Worth knowing
The most disputed rune in the row — dice cup, chess piece and pear tree have all been proposed.
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
PER-thro
Deity
Frigg and the Norns
Tree
Beech
Element
Water
Perthro sits in Heimdall's Aett, position 14 of the row, and carries the P sound. Its literal meaning is dice cup, the unknown — which is where every later reading of it starts.
The poem above is a source; this table is twentieth-century reconstruction.