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Ior
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Pronunciation: oar
Literal Meaning: Beaver, Otter, or Snake, possibly some other amphibious animal.
Other Names: None
Phonetic Value: io
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| Rune Poems |
| Anglo Saxon |
Iar byþ eafix and ðeah a bruceþ fodres on foldan, hafaþ fægerne eard wætre beworpen, ðær he wynnum leofaþ. | |
| Ior is a river fish and though it always feeds on land, it has a lovely home, surrounded by water, where it lives in happiness. |
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| Norwegian |
Not listed. |
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| Icelandic |
Not listed. |
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Ior is a later variation of the Jera phoneme from the Elder Futhark. Ior is one of the characters created to compensate for the phonetic sounds not originally found in early Germanic languages.
Later on, it had a phonetic shift to “H” in some versions of younger futhark that dripped Hagel from their character set. This was strictly a regional phonetic shift and should not be thought of has an essential change.
It is unknown what animal this is referencing. The Beaver, Otter, and Snake all make their homes near water and can hunt on land. Snake would also make sense because there are several varieties in England, but they are rarer in Norway, and nonextant in Iceland; which might also explain their absence in the other poems. Because of this many people have chosen to interpret this as the Jormungandr the world serpent, however there is no historical reason for this or evidence that this rune would have been interpreted in such a way by the Norse.
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