Ætt 2 · Pos. 7

Name

Uncertain. The usual reconstruction is elk, built on the Old English name eolhx; the poem makes it eolh-secg, elk-sedge, a sharp marsh grass.

Meaning

The only poem to keep this rune calls it elk-sedge: a grass that lives in the fen, grows in the water, and cuts anyone who grabs it, leaving their hand bloody. It grows where land and water meet, in ground that is neither, and it guards that edge: reach in, and you bleed. The fens were where offerings were sent across, weapons and whole boats sunk for good, and many of the oldest runic objects come from them.

The poems

English Rune Poem

Elk-sedge lives
most often in the fen,
it grows in the water,
it wounds grimly,
burns with blood
every man
who makes
any grab at it.