Hagalaz ᚺ

Hagalaz or hagall; hail

Icelandic rune poem:

Hagall er kaldakorn, ok krapadrífa, ok snáka sótt. Hail is the cold grain, and shower of sleet, and sickness of serpents.

Hagalaz is the first of three menacing runes in a sequence. Hagalaz, naudhiz, and isa are associated with the three Norns who weave the fates. It is linked to the ancient creation myth when this world was formed as world of fire, Muspelheim, met the world of ice, Niflheim. Hagalaz signals a time of creation and destruction, which may be perceived as catastrophe. It has no inversion.

By the end of the first millenium the ᚺ ‘stave’ had evolved to the icy, snowflake form ᚼ 

In Runes of Battle, the second of the Rune Song trilogy, the appearance of hagalaz in a rune cast signals imminent misfortune, as unavoidable as the snows of winter.

For introductions to other runes, there’s a pull-down menu under the ‘Norse Runes’ tab. More details about the Rune Song epic fantasy trilogy via my ‘books’ pages or on Amazon UK or Amazon.com. All books are published by Second Sky / Hachette and are available in print, ebook, and audiobook formats