Name and sound values
Sól is a historically transmitted name of the rune and denotes sun. In the Younger Futhark the sign could cover the sound values /s/.
Reducing the row from 24 to 16 signs meant that one rune wrote several different sounds. The correct reading therefore depends on vocabulary, grammar, and inscriptional context.
Historical use
Younger runes primarily served writing: on memorial stones, everyday objects, ownership marks, and short messages. Magical inscriptions exist, but they do not turn every rune into an independent magical sign.
The Norse rune poems
The Norwegian and Icelandic rune poems do comment on the sixteen Younger Futhark runes. They survive, however, only through medieval manuscripts and may transmit divergent imagery.
The Icelandic stanza calls the sun light and destroyer of ice; the Norwegian calls it the light of the world.
Modern interpretation
Present-day practice may use Sól as a symbolic field for “sun”. Such reflection is modern; the rune poems offer images and mnemonics, not a complete surviving system for drawing individual oracle stones.
Rune poems in the original
Old Norwegian
Norwegian Rune Poem
Sól er landa ljóme; lúti ek helgum dóme.The sun is the light of lands; I bow to the holy judgement.
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
Sól er skýja skjöldr ok skínandi röðull ok ísa aldrtregi.The sun is the shield of clouds, a shining heavenly light, and the lifelong sorrow of ice.
The final circumlocution describes the melting of ice; röðull is a poetic term for the sun.