Elder Futhark · Tyr's aett · rune 21 of 24
ᛚLaguz
Water: crossing, depth and dread.
- Name means
- water, sea, lake
- Sound
- l
- Aett
- Tyr's aett
- Evidence
- well attested
What Laguz means
*Laguz is water, and specifically water you have to get across. For societies whose wealth and expansion moved by ship, the sea was the road and the risk in one substance, and the rune keeps that ambivalence rather than resolving it. There is a live scholarly alternative: some link the l-rune's name to *laukaz, leek, a word inscribed on bracteates and apparently used for protection or fertility, which would give the rune a wholly different flavour. The reading of Laguz as the unconscious mind is a Jungian import, applied to it in the twentieth century.
What the rune poems actually say
The Old English stanza is fearful: the sea seems endless to people who must venture out on an unsteady vessel, the waves badly frighten them, and the sea-steed pays no attention to the bridle. The Old Icelandic lögr gives churning water, a wide kettle and the land of fish. The Old Norwegian turns instead to a waterfall falling from a mountainside, with a second line about gold ornaments. Three poems, three different waters, and no agreement on which one the rune means.
Evidence rating: well attested — Name and meaning securely reconstructed, and a rune poem addresses it.
In a casting
Readers use it for feeling rather than reasoning: intuition, dreams, grief, anything moving under a surface that looks calm. It also stands for literal water and sea travel, and for situations where the honest response is to stop steering and let a process carry you. Drawn beside a rune of order such as Tiwaz, most readers set it up as the counterweight.
Reversed
Laguz reverses. Turned, the usual readings are being overwhelmed, judgement clouded by feeling, or avoidance of something the querent already senses underneath. Some read it as fear of the depth rather than the depth itself. Where the upright rune suggests going with the current, the reversed one suggests being pulled by it.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Laguz rune mean?
*Laguz is water, and specifically water you have to get across. For societies whose wealth and expansion moved by ship, the sea was the road and the risk in one substance, and the rune keeps that ambivalence rather than resolving it. There is a live scholarly alternative: some link the l-rune's name to *laukaz, leek, a word inscribed on bracteates and apparently used for protection or fertility, which would give the rune a wholly different flavour. The reading of Laguz as the unconscious mind is a Jungian import, applied to it in the twentieth century.
What do the rune poems say about Laguz?
The Old English stanza is fearful: the sea seems endless to people who must venture out on an unsteady vessel, the waves badly frighten them, and the sea-steed pays no attention to the bridle. The Old Icelandic lögr gives churning water, a wide kettle and the land of fish. The Old Norwegian turns instead to a waterfall falling from a mountainside, with a second line about gold ornaments. Three poems, three different waters, and no agreement on which one the rune means.
What does Laguz mean reversed?
Laguz reverses. Turned, the usual readings are being overwhelmed, judgement clouded by feeling, or avoidance of something the querent already senses underneath. Some read it as fear of the depth rather than the depth itself. Where the upright rune suggests going with the current, the reversed one suggests being pulled by it.