Name and linguistic reconstruction
Berkano is the conventional normalised form of the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name *berkanan. It means birch. The asterisk marks a form not directly attested as a rune name in a surviving Elder Futhark inscription.
Sign and historical use
In the Elder Futhark this rune served first as a written character. Its sound value, position in rune rows, and use in inscriptions are more direct historical evidence than modern lists of symbolic meanings.
A rune name could aid memory and occasionally function as an ideograph. This does not mean that every occurrence automatically invoked the name’s entire semantic content.
What the rune poems attest
No Elder Futhark rune poem survives. The Old English, Norwegian, and Icelandic stanzas shown here belong to later rune rows. They help reconstruct names but are not unchanged commentary from the period when the sign arose.
Birch is linguistically well founded. Motherhood and female fertility are modern symbolic systems, not the rune’s documented total meaning.
Modern symbolic interpretation
Modern rune practice often expands Berkano from the image-field “birch”. Such readings can serve as a language for reflection, but they are modern tradition rather than an attested Viking-Age oracle definition.
Rune poems in the original
Old English
Old English Rune Poem
beorc byþ bleda leas, bereþ efne swa þeah tanas butan tudder, biþ on telgum wlitig, heah on helme hrysted fægere, geloden leafum, lyfte getengeBirch is without fruit yet bears branches without offspring; it is beautiful in its boughs, high and finely crowned, laden with leaves and close to the sky.
A sense-based working translation of the CLASP transcription; imagery and ambiguous words will be reviewed before final approval.
Old Norwegian
Norwegian Rune Poem
Bjarkan er laufgrønstr líma; Loki bar flærða tíma.Birch has the leaf-greenest branches; Loki brought a time of deceit.
A sense-based working translation. The second line is often an independent gnomic statement; a direct semantic link to the rune must not be assumed.
Old Icelandic
Icelandic Rune Poem
Bjarkan er laufgat lim ok lítit tré ok ungsamligr viðr.Birch is a leafy branch, a little tree, and youthful wood.
The stanza describes the birch botanically and as young, growing wood.