Fehu
| Name | Proto-Germanic | Old English | Old Norse | |
| *Fehu | Feoh | Fé | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "livestock, wealth" | ||||
| Shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
 |
||||
| Unicode | ᚠ
U+16A0
|
|||
| Transliteration | f | |||
| Transcription | f | |||
| IPA | [f] | |||
| Position in rune-row | 1 | |||
The Fe rune ᚠ (Old Norse fé; Old English feoh) represents the f-sound in the Younger Futhark and Futhorc alphabets. Its name means "(mobile) wealth", cognate to English fee with the original meaning of "sheep" or "cattle" (Dutch Vee, German Vieh, Latin pecum, Sanskrit pashu).
The rune derives from the unattested but reconstructed Proto-Germanic *fehu in the Elder Futhark alphabet, with the original meaning of "money, cattle, wealth".[1]
The corresponding letter of the Gothic alphabet is 𐍆 f, called faihu. Such correspondence between all rune poems and the Gothic letter name, as well, is uncommon, and gives the reconstructed name of the Old Futhark a high degree of certainty.
The shape of the rune is likely based on Etruscan v 𐌅 
, like Greek Digamma Ϝ and Latin F ultimately from Phoenician waw 
.
Rune poems
The name is recorded in all three rune poems:
| Rune Poem:[2] | English Translation: |
|
Old Norwegian |
|
|
Old Icelandic |
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Anglo-Saxon |
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See also
References
- ↑ Page, Raymond I. (2005) Runes. The British Museum Press. p. 15. ISBN 0-7141-8065-3
- ↑ Original poems and translation from the Rune Poem Page.
