← The 24 runes of the Elder Futhark
Eihwaz
- Literal meaning
- yew
- Associated concepts
- world axis · death and rebirth · root
- Ætt
- Hagal's ætt
Eihwaz names the yew, an evergreen whose toxic wood was widely used for bows: a single species that holds death and endurance in the same trunk. It shouldn't be confused with Yggdrasil, which the Poetic Edda explicitly calls an ash. It stands for an uncomfortable kind of permanence: something that lasts precisely because it's poisonous.