Runes · Týr’s ætt
Othala
Sound: o · The name: ancestral land, inheritance
- home
- heritage
- belonging
What the old rune poems say
Only the Old English poem has this rune, under the name ethel: ‘An estate is very dear to every man, if he can enjoy there in his house whatever is right and proper in constant prosperity.’ On the Kylver stone it is the last rune of the row; on the bracteates it comes before Dagaz.
How it is read today
Modern rune readers read Othala as the rune of home and inheritance: what we receive from those before us and what we hand on. The modern books speak of family, of a place to belong and of choosing what to keep. This is a modern reading. Nazi and neo-Nazi groups used a form of this rune with added feet or wings; this site shows only the plain letter.
Reversed
Modern books read it reversed as feeling unsettled at home, or being held back by the past. That is a modern device.
As your rune of the day
Think of one good thing you inherited, not money but a habit or a way of seeing.
Make your home a little more your own today.
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.