Thurisaz upright
A defensive force, and a warning. Thurisaz is the thorn — it protects and it draws blood, depending on which side you stand.
Rune 3 of 24 · Freyr's Aett
ᚦ Thurisaz rune meaning
Thurisaz rune meaning: a defensive force, and a warning. Its name is read as “thorn, giant”; it is rune 3 of 24, in Freyr's Aett, with the sound th. Reversed: danger ignored, or defensiveness turned into aggression.
- Place in the row
- 3 of 24 Freyr's Aett, aett 1
- Sound
- th said THUR-ee-sahz
- Rune poems
- 3 of 3 named þorn · þurs
- Read as
- Thorn, giant from the rune’s name
Dickins, Runic and Heroic Poems, 1915.
Thurisaz reversed
Danger ignored, or defensiveness turned into aggression. Acting before thinking.
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Where Thurisaz sits in the Elder Futhark
Thurisaz is rune 3, the third of the eight in Freyr's Aett, between Uruz and Ansuz.
Position in the row3 of 24
AettFreyr's Aett
SoundTH
Literal meaningThorn, giant
ElementFire
Can be reversedYes
In a reading
What Thurisaz usually means when you draw it
Thurisaz is a rune of defense and friction — a thorn that protects and wounds. It often signals a conflict or obstacle that should be approached carefully.
Thurisaz in love
Tension, jealousy or a need for boundaries.
Thurisaz at work
Opposition or a sharp decision; think before reacting.
Advice
Pause before you strike; not every threat needs a fight.
Primary source
What the rune poems say about Thurisaz
In brief, the Anglo-Saxon verse describes the thorn as painfully sharp — something that hurts anyone who grips it or rests among it.
“The thorn is exceedingly sharp, an evil thing for any knight to touch, uncommonly severe on all who sit among them.”
Ðorn byþ ðearle scearp; ðegna gehwylcum
anfeng ys yfyl, ungemetum reþe
manna gehwylcum, ðe him mid resteð.
“Giant causes anguish to women; misfortune makes few men cheerful.”
Þurs vældr kvinna kvillu;
kátr værðr fár af illu.
“Giant — torture of women and cliff-dweller and husband of a giantess.”
Þurs er kvenna kvǫl
ok kletta búi
ok varðrúnar verr.
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
Thurisaz in the three rune poems, side by side
The Norwegian and Icelandic poems agree on a giant; the Anglo-Saxon verse is about the thorn.
| Source | Name | The verse is about |
|---|---|---|
| Elder Futhark name (reconstructed) | Thurisaz | thorn, giant |
| Anglo-Saxon rune poem | þorn | the thorn |
| Norwegian rune poem | þurs | a giant |
| Icelandic rune poem | þurs | a giant |
Subjects in the words of Dickins’s 1915 translation; the first row is the modern reconstructed name and reading.
Calculated
Thurisaz by the numbers
Thurisaz turns up 20 times as the rune of the day in 2026, above the even share of 15.2 — joint 1st of 24 with one other rune. It lies reversed on 5 of them. August is its busiest month, with 3. Its longest gap between draws, from March 21 to May 23, spans 63 days.
Position in the row
3 of 24
Odds of drawing it
1 in 24 · 4.17%
Rune of the day in 2026
20 times · 5.48%
Reversed on those days
5 of 20
Can be reversed
Yes
Days in 2026:
- Jan 11, 26
- Feb 4 (rev.), 10
- Mar 9, 21 (rev.)
- May 23, 28
- Jun 15, 22
- Jul 7
- Aug 12, 19, 31
- Sep 23 (rev.)
- Oct 8, 20 (rev.)
- Nov 5, 26 (rev.)
- Dec 4
Which runes can be reversed, and how the daily draw is fixed →
What happened to it
Thurisaz after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Survived as þurs, giant. One of the few runes whose name kept its mythological sense unchanged.
Worth knowing
In the Eddic poem Skírnismál, Skírnir threatens to carve 'a þurs and three staves' as a curse — the rune's best-known literary appearance.
Thurisaz: deity, tree and element
Pronounced
THUR-ee-sahz
Deity
Thor
Tree
Hawthorn
Element
Fire
The poem above is a source; this table is a twentieth-century reconstruction.
How to type the Thurisaz rune
| Character | ᚦ |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+16A6 |
| Unicode name | RUNIC LETTER THURISAZ THURS THORN |
| HTML | ᚦ or ᚦ |
Besides Thurisaz, the official name lists Thurs and Thorn, names the same stave carries in other rows and poems.
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. “Thurisaz Rune Meaning: Thorn, Giant.” Accessed October 27, 2026. https://astrohot.com/runes/thurisaz/
For Wikipedia
{{cite web |title=Thurisaz Rune Meaning: Thorn, Giant |url=https://astrohot.com/runes/thurisaz/ |website=AstroHot |access-date=2026-10-27}}