Name and linguistic reconstruction
Dagaz is the conventional normalised form of the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name *dagaz. It means day. 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.
The rune is absent from the Younger Futhark and has no Norse poem stanza. Awakening and transformation are modern deductions from the image of day.
Modern symbolic interpretation
Modern rune practice often expands Dagaz from the image-field “day”. 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
dæg byþ drihtnes sond, deore mannum, mære metodes leoht, myrgþ and tohiht eadgum and earmum, eallum briceDay is the Lord’s message, dear to people, the glorious light of the creator, joy and hope for rich and poor, useful to all.
A sense-based working translation of the CLASP transcription; imagery and ambiguous words will be reviewed before final approval.