Icelandic Runes and Staves: A Guide to Iceland's Norse Symbols

Icelandic runes are the 16 letters of the Younger Futhark, the alphabet Norse settlers brought to Iceland in the late 9th century and used for everything from gravestones to manuscript marginalia. Galdrastafir, or magical staves, are something else entirely: intricate sigils like the Vegvísir and Helm of Awe, recorded in Icelandic grimoires from around the 17th to 19th centuries. They draw on runic traditions and older symbolism, but most of the famous ones aren't medieval, and they aren't an alphabet.

That gap between runes and staves, as well as between Viking Age and folk-magic Iceland, is where most of the confusion lives. We'll walk through both, with the meanings, the manuscripts they come from, and where you can see the originals in person.

Icelandic runes are a writing system Iceland's Viking settlers used to mark ownership, commemorate the dead, and record short messages on wood, bone, stone, and metal. These Norse runes had been carved across Scandinavia since around the 2nd century, until the Latin alphabet gradually replaced them after Christianization. The word itself traces back to Proto-Germanic rūnō, meaning “secret” or “mystery.” Old Norse rún, Old English rūn, Old High German rūna, and Gothic rūna all descend from it, clustering around senses of secret knowledge and whispered counsel.

Iceland kept using runes longer than anywhere else in Scandinavia. Centuries after the Latin alphabet had taken over elsewhere, Icelandic scribes were still carving them into manuscripts and everyday objects, like the Hruni spindle whorl, a small soapstone disc inscribed Þóra á mig ("Þóra owns me"). Dated between 1197 and 1400, the whorl likely belonged to the Þóra named in Sturlunga saga as the mistress of Hruni in the early 13th century.

You can see the whorl at the National Museum of Iceland, alongside other surviving Icelandic rune symbols. For many locals, Iceland’s settlement history and these old shapes still feel sacred, even when the symbols show up on a coffee mug.

According to Norse mythology, the god Óðinn (Odin) hung from a windy tree for nine nights, pierced by a spear and given to himself in sacrifice. The tree is long understood as Yggdrasil, the mythical ash of Norse cosmology. His reward was the runes. The same hunger for knowledge sends Odin’s ravens Huginn and Muninn across the world each day to bring back news. The Icelandic poem Hávamál tells the story in a section known as the Rúnatal (stanzas 137 to 144, depending on the edition). Yggdrasil also appears in Völuspá, the Eddic poem in which the seeress foretells the fate of Norse gods like Thor and the rest of the pantheon at the prophecy of Ragnarök.

Runes appear throughout the Icelandic Sagas, giving us some of the clearest written evidence of how Norse society actually used them. Egil's Saga, the Icelandic family saga that follows the warrior-poet Egil Skallagrímsson, begins in Norway around 850 and traces his family's emigration to Iceland in the late 9th century. The story contains several rune episodes. In one famous passage, Egil finds a sick farmer's daughter and discovers that someone has tried to heal her with badly carved runes. He scrapes them off, burns the whalebone they were carved on, and cuts new ones. The episode gives us his often-quoted line: "No man should carve runes unless he can read them well; many a man goes astray around those dark letters."

That detail tells us something useful about Icelandic runes meaning in the saga age. Runes were not only divination tools; they were treated as practical instruments that could heal, harm, or curse depending on the carver's skill. Egil's Saga alone records runes used to detect poisoned drink, to raise a curse-pole against a king, and to mend an illness gone wrong. Healing runes also appear in Sigrdrífumál, where the valkyrie Sigrdrífa teaches the hero Sigurðr a set of bjargrúnar (birth-runes) to be inscribed on the palms and joints to help bring a child safely into the world.

Iceland historically used the Younger Futhark, a 16-rune alphabet that Norse settlers brought from Scandinavia. The name comes from its first six runes: F, U, Þ, A, R, K. It replaced an older 24-rune system known as the Elder Futhark, which had been used across Germanic Europe until roughly 800 CE. Norse speakers actually shrank the alphabet even as the Old Norse language developed more sounds, leaving a single rune to do the work of several. Each rune kept its own name and meaning drawn from everyday Norse life: Fé for wealth or cattle, Úr for rain, Sól for the sun.

In Iceland, scribes kept these letters in active use in manuscripts long after most of Scandinavia had switched to the Latin alphabet for everyday writing. Medieval Icelandic manuscripts also record an expanded set sometimes called medieval runes or stungnar rúnir (dotted runes), which added marks to existing letters to capture extra sounds. By the 13th century, the system had grown enough to assign roughly one rune per sound, and a number of Iceland's surviving runic artifacts from this period are held at the National Museum of Iceland.

If you've ever bought a “Viking rune set” in a Reykjavík souvenir shop, you've almost certainly walked away with the Elder Futhark instead. The reason is that modern fortune telling with runes took off in the 1980s, when English-language authors assigned each of the 24 Elder runes a meaning. No one did the same for the 16 Icelandic runes, so they never became part of the souvenir trade. The result is a small irony: the runes most associated with “Viking Iceland” today are not the ones that were carved here.

Icelandic magical staves, known in Icelandic as galdrastafir, are complex symbols built from combinations of runic shapes and original line work, used for protection, guidance, luck, and other specific purposes. Most are documented in Icelandic grimoires, the most famous being the Galdrabók (now preserved in Stockholm), a 47-spell manuscript written by four scribes between the late 16th and mid-17th centuries.

While some staves draw on rune-derived elements, others are original sigil designs, and the tradition is distinctly Icelandic rather than Viking-age. The Icelandic stave runes below are the ones you're most likely to come across, whether on Reykjavík souvenirs, in Icelandic folklore, or at the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft in Hólmavík, a Westfjords town.

The Vegvísir, often called the Icelandic wayfinder, is a magical stave meant to guide its bearer safely through rough weather and unfamiliar territory. Its earliest known appearance is the Huld Manuscript, compiled in 1860 by the Icelandic scribe and bookbinder Geir Vigfússon and now held at the National and University Library of Iceland. The manuscript instruction reads: “Carry these staves with you and you will not get lost in storms or bad weather, even when the way is unknown.”

Despite the symbol's strong modern association with Vikings, the Vegvísir post-dates the Viking Age by roughly 800 years. It also appears in two later 19th-century grimoires, but in no surviving sources earlier than 1860, and shows up nowhere in the sagas, the Eddas, or in any Viking-age artifact. That hasn't slowed its spread: today it's one of the most-tattooed symbols in the Nordic world, and you'll see it on jewelry and souvenirs across Reykjavík.

The Ægishjálmur, known in English as the Helm of Awe, is a protective stave with eight trident-like arms radiating from a center point, used to inspire fear in enemies and shield the wearer. The visual stave is first documented in the 1670 Galdrakver, with eight-armed versions widespread in 17th-century Icelandic grimoires. According to the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft, the recorded ritual is to carve the stave onto a small lead plate and press it between the eyes and the forehead while reciting an incantation: “I wash off my enemies, robbery, and the anger of rich people.”

The literary ægishjálmr is much older. In the Poetic Edda's Fáfnismál, the dragon Fáfnir boasts of having worn a “helm of terror” to guard his hoard before he is slain by Sigurðr, and the same helm appears as a piece of his treasure in Völsunga saga. The Eddic helm and the eight-armed stave share a name and an idea, but they are not the same object. The stave as an Icelandic sigil is post-medieval, even if the Norse concept behind it is centuries older.

Not all Icelandic staves were for protection or magic in dramatic situations. Many lukkustafir targeted ordinary practical needs: a good catch at sea, fertile sheep, success in trade, and healthy livestock. The Veiðistafur, or fishing stave, is one of the best-known.

The instruction recorded in Icelandic grimoires is to draw the stave in wren's blood on a piece of amniotic membrane, using a pen made from a raven's feather, then place it in a gimlet hole beneath the prow of your ship. The promised result is a good catch every time. Iceland's economy ran on fish, so staves like this one were among the most commonly recorded in the grimoires.

Kaupaloki is the seal of bargains, carved on a beechwood board and carried at the chest to ensure success in buying and selling. Kaupaloki is documented in the Galdrabók Manuscript.

Angurgapi, a small four-pointed stave, was traditionally carved on the ends of barrels to keep them from leaking, a practical concern in a subsistence economy where a leaking barrel could mean a hungry winter. Popular depictions of Angurgapi circulate widely; its exact manuscript source is less well attested.

Þjófastafur, the thief-stave, is one of the most common types of stave in the Icelandic record, with multiple variants across the surviving grimoires. The Huld Manuscript records one version with the instruction to carve the stave under the doorstep of a suspected thief: he will recoil when he steps over it if he is guilty of theft.

A strong tradition of fortune telling still exists in Iceland today, and many Icelanders remain open-minded about spiritual and esoteric beliefs. One explanation often points to the Icelandic Sagas, which are still widely read in modern Iceland. In these stories, seers, dreams, and prophecies are not treated as strange or separate from daily life, but as part of the world people lived in.

The clearest place to encounter the fortune telling tradition is Spákonuhof, the Museum of Prophecies in the village of Skagaströnd in northwest Iceland. The museum tells the story of Þórdís the Prophetess (Þórdís spákona), the first named inhabitant of Skagaströnd, who lived in the late 10th century. Þórdís was a working seer, a respected counselor consulted by chieftains in legal and supernatural matters, and the foster mother of Þorvaldur the Far-Traveller, Iceland's first Christian missionary. She appears in Vatnsdæla saga, Kormáks saga, Heiðarvíga saga, and Landnámabók. The exhibition is built around a painted tapestry telling Þórdís's story, with set design by Sigurjón Jóhannsson, and lets visitors have their fortune told with runes, playing cards, coffee cups, or palm reading.

A rune reading is usually quick and quiet. The reader asks the visitor to focus on a question, then draws one or three runes from a small bag of wooden or stone tiles. Each rune carries a layered meaning: Fé might suggest material concerns, Reið a journey or decision, Ár a season of growth. The reader interprets that cluster in light of your question rather than offering a fixed prediction. Small rune sets sold in Reykjavík souvenir shops usually come with a leaflet that lays out similar meanings for at-home readings. Online Icelandic runes translator tools work the same way in reverse, converting English letters into runic shapes.

Spákonuhof (the Museum of Prophecies) is open from June to September, Tuesday to Sunday, 13:00 to 18:00, closed Mondays. Winter visits are by arrangement. Hours accurate as of early 2026.

Three places give you the clearest view of Iceland's rune and stave heritage. The National Museum of Iceland in Reykjavík holds the country's main collection of Viking-age and medieval runic artifacts. Highlights include the Hruni spindle whorl and the 1200 AD Valþjófsstaður Door, a carved church door with one of Iceland's few surviving wooden runic inscriptions.

The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft in Hólmavík, in Iceland's remote Westfjords region, holds the country's most complete collection of galdrastafir and real Icelandic runes. It's also home to the famous necropants and the exhibits on the 17th-century Icelandic witch trials. Spákonuhof in Skagaströnd is the place to experience the tradition firsthand, with rune readings delivered in the village where Þórdís the Prophetess once lived.

Iceland's Norse symbols aren't from a single era. They include the 16-rune Younger Futhark used for inscriptions on wood and bone, the saga-era runes Egil used for healing and curse-poles, and the post-medieval galdrastafir that still appear on doors, jewelry, and tattoos today.

What sets Iceland apart from broader Nordic rune traditions is not the alphabet itself but the manuscript culture that preserved it, and the centuries-long stave tradition that grew from it.

Want to experience Iceland's Norse heritage firsthand? Walk Reykjavík with our local guides on the Viking Walking Tour or the Folklore Walking Tour, where the runes, sagas, and mythology you've been reading about stop being abstract and start being tangible.

Yes. Viking settlers brought the Younger Futhark runic alphabet to Iceland in the 9th century. Runes appear in the Icelandic Sagas such as Egil's Saga, in medieval manuscripts, and today on jewelry, tattoos, and museum exhibits across the country. Icelandic and Scandinavian scribes also expanded the alphabet during the medieval period, adding dotted runes (stungnar rúnir) to capture extra sounds. Iceland's runes remain visible in everyday life thanks to the country's strong manuscript tradition and contemporary stave culture.

Iceland used the Younger Futhark, a 16-character runic alphabet that replaced the older 24-rune Elder Futhark across Scandinavia around the 9th century. Modern souvenir rune sets sold in Iceland usually use the Elder Futhark because its divinatory meanings were popularized in 1980s English-language publishing, but the historical Icelandic alphabet was always the Younger Futhark.

Iceland is predominantly Norse, but with a significant Celtic strand. Genetic research from the Icelandic company deCODE found that around 80% of Iceland's original male settlers came from Scandinavia, while around 62% of female settlers came from the British Isles. The dominant language, pre-Christian religion, and mythology were Norse, but the Celtic genetic and cultural influence on Icelandic identity is meaningful and well documented.

The ᛒ rune is called Bjarkan in the Younger Futhark and Berkana in the Elder Futhark. It represents the letter B and the birch tree, with associations of new beginnings, healing, and feminine power. In the Sigrdrífumál, an Eddic poem, the valkyrie Sigrdrífa teaches Sigurðr a set of bjargrúnar (birth-runes) carved on the palms and joints to help women through difficult labor, a tradition often linked to the symbolism of the Bjarkan rune.

The Vegvísir, often translated as “wayfinder” or “signpost,” is an Icelandic magical stave intended to help its bearer find their way through rough weather and unfamiliar terrain. Its earliest known appearance is the Huld Manuscript of 1860, so while it's distinctively Icelandic, it is not a Viking-age symbol. It has become one of Iceland's most recognizable symbols in modern jewelry and tattoo design.

The Helm of Awe, or Ægishjálmur in Icelandic, is a magical stave made of eight trident-like arms radiating from a center point. It was used as a protective symbol meant to inspire fear in enemies and shield the wearer from harm. According to the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft, the recorded ritual is to carve the stave onto a small lead plate and press it between the eyes and the forehead while reciting a protective incantation. Like the Vegvísir, the visual stave appears in Icelandic grimoires from the post-medieval period rather than the Viking Age.