Sowilo upright
Success, vitality and clarity. Wholeness — the rune closest to unambiguously good news.
Rune 16 of 24 · Heimdall's Aett
ᛊ Sowilo rune meaning
Sowilo rune meaning: success, vitality and clarity. Its name is read as “sun”; it is rune 16 of 24, in Heimdall's Aett, with the sound s. The shape looks the same upside down, so there is no reversed reading.
- Place in the row
- 16 of 24 Heimdall's Aett, aett 2
- Sound
- s said so-WEE-lo
- Rune poems
- 3 of 3 named sigel · sól
- Read as
- Sun from the rune’s name
Dickins, Runic and Heroic Poems, 1915.
Sowilo reversed
Sowilo is symmetrical — turning it over changes nothing, so it has no reversed meaning.
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Where Sowilo sits in the Elder Futhark
Sowilo is rune 16, the eighth of the eight in Heimdall's Aett, which it closes after Algiz.
Position in the row16 of 24
AettHeimdall's Aett
SoundS
Literal meaningSun
ElementFire
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 Sowilo usually means when you draw it
Sowilo is the sun: success, vitality and clarity. It is usually read without a reversal and is one of the most positive runes.
Sowilo in love
Warmth, optimism and a relationship in the light.
Sowilo at work
Success, recognition and energy for your goals.
Advice
Act with confidence while the light is on your side.
Primary source
What the rune poems say about Sowilo
In brief, the Anglo-Saxon verse describes the sun as a source of hope for sailors crossing the sea until they reach land.
“The sun is ever a joy to seafarers (or, in the hopes of seafarers) when they journey away over the fishes’ bath, until the courser of the deep bears them to land.”
Sigel semannum symble biþ on hihte,
ðonne hi hine feriaþ ofer fisces beþ,
oþ hi brimhengest bringeþ to lande.
“Sun is the light of the world; I bow to the divine decree.”
Sól er landa ljóme;
lúti ek helgum dóme.
“Sun — shield of the clouds and shining ray and destroyer of ice.”
Sól er skýja skjǫldr
ok skínandi rǫðull
ok ísa aldrtregi.
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. Where the three rune poems come from
Sowilo in the three rune poems, side by side
All three poems agree: the verse for Sowilo is about the sun.
| Source | Name | The verse is about |
|---|---|---|
| Elder Futhark name (reconstructed) | Sowilo | sun |
| Anglo-Saxon rune poem | sigel | the sun |
| Norwegian rune poem | sól | the sun |
| Icelandic rune poem | sól | the sun |
Subjects in the words of Dickins’s 1915 translation; the first row is the modern reconstructed name and reading.
Calculated
Sowilo by the numbers
Sowilo turns up 17 times as the rune of the day in 2026, above the even share of 15.2 — joint 7th of 24 with 2 others. January is its busiest month, with 3. Its longest gap between draws, from January 20 to April 23, spans 93 days.
Position in the row
16 of 24
Odds of drawing it
1 in 24 · 4.17%
Rune of the day in 2026
17 times · 4.66%
Can be reversed
No
Days in 2026:
- Jan 3, 8, 20
- Apr 23
- May 6, 19, 31
- Jun 18, 24
- Jul 1, 15, 22
- Sep 12
- Oct 11, 26
- Nov 17, 20
Which runes can be reversed, and how the daily draw is fixed →
What happened to it
Sowilo after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Survived as sól, sun, though its zigzag was simplified to a single angled stroke.
Worth knowing
Its later appropriation by the SS in the twentieth century is the reason many people meet this rune with unease.
Sowilo: deity, tree and element
Pronounced
so-WEE-lo
Deity
Baldur and Sol
Tree
Juniper
Element
Fire
The poem above is a source; this table is a twentieth-century reconstruction.
How to type the Sowilo rune
| Character | ᛊ |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+16CA |
| Unicode name | RUNIC LETTER SOWILO S |
| HTML | ᛊ or ᛊ |
Its official name is Sowilo alone, with no second name attached.
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. “Sowilo Rune Meaning: Sun.” Accessed October 27, 2026. https://astrohot.com/runes/sowilo/
For Wikipedia
{{cite web |title=Sowilo Rune Meaning: Sun |url=https://astrohot.com/runes/sowilo/ |website=AstroHot |access-date=2026-10-27}}