← The 24 runes of the Elder Futhark
Fehu
- Literal meaning
- cattle
- Associated concepts
- wealth · abundance · prosperity
- Ætt
- Freyr's ætt
Fehu names cattle — the wealth that walks, and so can be lost or given away: the most common form of fortune in the early north, before coinage. The Norwegian rune poem calls it a source of strife among kin; the Icelandic one, gold of the Æsir. It stands for prosperity that's earned and circulated, not hoarded.