The rune's name: Uruz
The Numerology number: 2
The Meaning:
The sound: U or V
The Germanic name: Uraz (Uruz)
The Norse name: Úr
The Anglo Saxon name: Ur
The Icelandic name: Úr
The Norwegian name: Ur
The Uruz-rune is the original creative power - the primal power. In divination the rune stands for
beginning, new power and increase. The rune helps to make things all right, heals illness and disputes.
Strength\Health
- Physician or someone in the crafts
Magical Meaning
- Healing and maintenance of good mental and physical health
- Shaping and forming circumstances creatively through will and inspiration
- Bringer of fortunate circumstances
URUZ
This represents the aurochs, the great wild and untameable cattle of northern Europe which are now extinct. Julius Caesar described them in De Bello Gallico as slightly
less than the elephant in size and of the colour and shape of a bull. They had extraordinary strength and speed and were exceptionally ferocious. By far the best way of
capturing an aurochs was with a pit trap, and the proof of the adventure was the display of the dead beast's horns. These were of massive size and were bound at the
tips with silver for use as festive cups.
Thus the aurochs came to be a symbol of great strength and speed, and in being such a challenge to the hunter, also a symbol of man's prowess. There was also a
parallel to be implied in its defence against the hunter, which compared to man defending his home against the invader. The Anglo-Saxon rune poem (ASRP) describes
the beast in terms similar to those employed by Caesar, as both proud and 'having great horns; it is a very savage beast and fights with its horns; a great ranger of the
moors, it is a creature of mettle'. NRP tooks a new meaning of dross, or slag, while perplexingly offering the line that the 'reindeer often races over the frozen snow'.
This echoes the speed of the aurochs and shows an awareness, albeit a reduced one, of the earlier meaning. IRP offered a meaning of shower, making the strength of
the noble beast into the force of rain beating down upon crops and livestock.
The bull was believed to have been dedicated to Thor, and certainly the strength of the one reinforces a possible correspondence with the other. 'Achievement' may also
have been a meaning of this rune, with the hunting of the aurochs providing an ultimate test of strength and initiative.
Uruz is pronounced as the double O sound in the modern English word 'book'.
