Runes · Hagal’s ætt
Hagalaz
Sound: h · The name: hail
- disruption
- change
- what passes
What the old rune poems say
All three poems know hail. The Old English poem calls it ‘the whitest of grain’, whirled from the vault of heaven and tossed about by gusts of wind, ‘and then it melts into water’. The Norwegian poem has ‘the coldest of grain’ and adds a Christian line: ‘Christ created the world of old.’ The Icelandic poem gives cold grain, a shower of sleet and sickness of serpents.
How it is read today
Modern rune readers see Hagalaz as the rune of disruption from outside, which comes like a hailstorm and passes. The modern books stress the Old English ending: hail melts into water, and what was hard becomes something the ground can use. This is a modern reading, and it gives the rune no reversed meaning.
Reversed
This rune looks the same turned round; modern books give it no reversed meaning.
As your rune of the day
Not everything that falls on you today is yours to carry. Let some of it melt.
A shower does not last. Wait it out, then carry on.
Reading runes as an oracle is modern, from Guido von List (1908) and Ralph Blum (1982); the people who carved them, Vikings included, used them for writing, names and charm words.