Upright
Justice, courage and self-sacrifice for a principle. Tyr gave his hand to bind the wolf — the rune of a price paid knowingly.
Rune 17 of 24 · Tyr's Aett
ᛏ Tiwaz
Tiwaz is rune 17 of the 24 in the Elder Futhark, in Tyr's Aett, and carries the sound T. It means “Tyr, the sky god”. Upright: Justice, courage and self-sacrifice for a principle. Tyr gave his hand to bind the wolf — the rune of a price paid knowingly. Reversed: Injustice, cowardice, or energy dissipated. A cause abandoned. That reading exists for 17 of the 24 runes; the other 7 are symmetrical or read upright only.
Reversed
Injustice, cowardice, or energy dissipated. A cause abandoned.
Position in the row17 of 24
AettTyr's Aett
SoundT
Literal meaningTyr, the sky god
ElementAir
Can be reversedYes
Tiwaz is the 17th rune of the Elder Futhark and belongs to Tyr's Aett. Before it meant anything divinatory it was a letter, carrying the T sound.
Primary source
What the rune poem says
Tir is a guiding star; well does it keep faith with princes; it is ever on its course over the mists of night and never fails.
— 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
Tiwaz by the numbers
Position in the row
17 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
50%
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: 18 Feb, 24 Feb, 15 Mar, 22 Mar, 11 Apr, 26 Apr, 8 May, 20 May
What happened to it
Tiwaz after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Survived as týr, keeping the god's name. One of only two runes named after a specific deity.
Worth knowing
Its arrow shape made it the standard rune for victory inscriptions on weapons.
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
TEE-wahz
Deity
Tyr
Tree
Oak
Element
Air
Tiwaz sits in Tyr's Aett, position 17 of the row, and carries the T sound. Its literal meaning is tyr, the sky god — which is where every later reading of it starts.
The poem above is a source; this table is twentieth-century reconstruction.