Nauthiz

  • Alphabet Elder Futhark
  • Group Heimdall's Ætt
  • Sound n
Historical evidence

The name and the earliest evidence

The rune’s Proto-Germanic name is reconstructed as *naudiz, “need”, with a sense of distress or hardship. Like all the old rune names it is not written out in any early inscription, but the later names agree closely: Old English nȳd, Old Norse nauðr and the Gothic letter name nauþs, “need”. A ninth-century manuscript of Alcuin (Vienna, Codex 795) records the Gothic n-letter’s name in the spelling noicz; scholars note that these manuscript names may have been coloured by Old English and Old High German. The rune stands for the sound n.

Naudiz is the tenth rune of the 24-rune Elder Futhark and the second of its second group of eight, the group modern writers call Heimdall’s ætt (the original names of the three groups are unknown). It appears in the oldest complete rune row, on the Kylver Stone from Gotland, dated to about 400. The sixth-century Vadstena and Mariedamm bracteates and the Grumpan bracteate of about 500 set out the row in three groups, with n second in the middle group, as it is on Kylver.

Its shape is an upright stave crossed by one short slanting stroke. Where it came from is uncertain: it may be an original runic form, or it may be borrowed from the letter N of the Raetic alphabet, one of the North Italic scripts.

The rune survived both later reforms. In the Younger Futhark of the Viking Age, cut down to sixteen runes by the late eighth century, it is nauðr, “need”, drawn as ᚾ in the long-branch row and with a shorter stroke (ᚿ) in the short-twig row. In the Anglo-Saxon futhorc it keeps the same shape and is called nȳd (written næd in one source), “need” or “plight”.

Myth and literature · Quotation

The rune poems

Old English Rune Poem

N. (trouble) is oppressive to the heart; yet often it proves
a source of help and salvation to the children of men,
to everyone who heeds it betimes.

Old Norwegian Rune Rhyme

Constraint gives scant choice;
a naked man is chilled by the frost.

Old Icelandic Rune Poem

Constraint = grief of the bond-maid
and state of oppression
and toilsome work.

  • Bruce Dickins (ed. and trans.), Runic and Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic Peoples (opens in a new tab) (1915), Anglo-Saxon Runic Poem, stanza 10 (vv. 27-29); Norwegian Runic Poem, stanza 8; Icelandic Runic Poem, stanza 8 Rights: Public domain. Published 1915; the translator died in 1978, but the work is in the public domain in the US (published before 1930).
Myth and literature

What the rune poems say

All three poems read the rune’s name as need or constraint, and all three see hardship in it, but they draw different lessons. The Old English poem, which Dickins thought far older than its eleventh-century manuscript, admits that trouble weighs on the heart, then turns it round: hardship often brings help and rescue to people who pay attention to it early. Need is treated as a warning that can save.

The Norwegian rhyme, from the late thirteenth century, gives no comfort: constraint leaves little choice, and a man without clothes freezes. The Icelandic poem, thought to date from the fifteenth century, makes it social: constraint is the sorrow of a bond-woman, a state of oppression and hard labour. Dickins compares it with the Eddic poem Gróttasöngr, in which two enslaved giant women are made to grind at a king’s mill without rest.

Dickins also points to the Eddic poem Sigrdrífumál, where the valkyrie tells Sigurd to cut “ale-runes” on the drinking-horn and the back of the hand and to mark the n-rune on a fingernail, and to a line of Cynewulf’s Old English poem Elene (v. 1260), one of the passages where that poet worked the runes of his own name into his verse.

Historical evidence

Later history

When the Austrian writer Guido von List published his “Armanen” rune row (an article in 1906, a book in 1908), he built it on the sixteen runes of the Younger Futhark with two of his own added. Its eighth rune is Not (also written Nauth), taken over from the Younger Futhark nauðr. List said the runes came to him in 1902 during a period of blindness; the system is his own, not an old tradition. The völkisch movement took up his runes, and the SS used runic signs on its flags and insignia until 1945, though this rune was not one of its well-known emblems. After the war Karl Spiesberger reworked the Armanen system and removed its racist elements. Heathen Heritage rejects any racist or extremist use of the runes.

Modern rune divination for a general public grew largely from Ralph Blum’s The Book of Runes (first edition 1983), sold with 24 rune stones and a blank one of Blum’s own invention. Nauthiz, the spelling this site uses, is among them, with meanings that are Blum’s own.

Modern interpretation

Name and sources

Sound and image: N: Need.

Upright: Delays, restrictions. Resistance leading to strength, innovation, need-fire (self-reliance). Distress, confusion, conflict, and the power of will to overcome them. Endurance, survival, determination. A time to exercise patience. Recognition of one’s fate. Major self-initiated change. Face your fears.

Reversed or merkstave: Constraint of freedom, distress, toil, drudgery, laxity. Necessity, extremity, want, deprivation, starvation, need, poverty, emotional hunger.

Modern interpretation

As read on this site

This is the divinatory meaning used for readings here. Rune divination as practised today is a modern practice; it is not a documented ancient Norse one.

Upright

  • honest need
  • constraint
  • necessary friction
  • resourcefulness under pressure

Nauthiz is need — friction, constraint, the resistance that comes from not having quite enough. This rune isn't comfortable, but it's honest: it points directly at what's lacking and demands you deal with it rather than look away. Need, faced directly, becomes the friction that sparks fire.

Upright in particular areas
In general
A real constraint is present, and naming it honestly is the first useful step. Don't dress up the lack as something else.
In love
An unmet need in a relationship that's worth stating plainly rather than hoping it resolves itself.
In work
A resource constraint that's forcing creative problem-solving. The limitation is real, but it's also productive.

Reversed

  • denied need
  • ignored constraint
  • avoidable exhaustion
  • unaddressed lack

Nauthiz reversed is need ignored or denied — a constraint that's being papered over instead of addressed, which only makes the eventual reckoning worse. This rune warns against the particular exhaustion of pretending you have enough when you don't.

Reversed in particular areas
In general
A real lack is being ignored rather than dealt with. The avoidance is costing more than the honest constraint would.
In love
A need in the relationship that's been suppressed rather than voiced, building quiet resentment.
In work
A resource or capacity problem that's being worked around instead of fixed, at a mounting cost.

Draw runes for a reading

Discovery trails that pass through here