Anglo-Saxon runes or Anglo-Frisian runes are runes that were used by the Anglo-Saxons and Medieval Frisians (collectively called Anglo-Frisians) as an alphabet in their native writing system, recording both Old English and Pre–Old Frisian (). Today, the characters are known collectively as the Futhorc ( ) from the first six runes and their sound values (). The futhorc was a development from the older co-Germanic 24-character runic alphabet, known today as Elder Futhark, expanding to 28 characters in its older form and up to 34 characters in its younger form. In contemporary Scandinavia, the Elder Futhark developed into a shorter 16-character alphabet, today simply called Younger Futhark.
Use of the Anglo-Frisian runes is likely to have started in the 5th century onward and they continued to see use into the High Middle Ages. By the 8th century, they were eventually overtaken by the Old English Latin alphabet introduced to Anglo-Saxon England by missionaries at the end of the 6th century. Futhorc runes were no longer in common use by the 11th century, but MS Oxford St John's College 17 indicates that fairly accurate understanding of them persisted into at least the 12th century.
History
thumb|upright=1.7|The left half of the front panel of the 7th century [[Franks Casket, depicting the Germanic legend of Weyland Smith and containing a riddle in Anglo-Saxon runes.]]
The Anglo-Frisian runic row was a 28-type further development of the 24-type Elder Futhark (type = number of runes), introducing more runes and reworking some existing runes to fit the period language. Starting from around the 5th century, it was used in Britain and Frisia as part of the diffuse Anglo-Frisian cultured sphere. Around the 8th century, runic writing disappears from Frisia, but use continues in Britain.
In the 9th century, the now Anglo-Saxon runic row, was further developed and more runes were introduced, eventually becoming a 33-type runic row with some further unstandardized examples of runes existing. In its late stage, it was largely analogous to the Latin script, and disappeared in its favour during the High Middle Ages.
Usage and commonality is unclear. From at least five centuries of use, fewer than 200 artifacts bearing futhorc inscriptions have survived.
Origin
The origin of the Anglo-Frisian runic row is unknown. One theory proposes that it was developed in Frisia and from there later spread to Britain. Another holds that runes were first introduced to Britain from the mainland where they were then modified and exported to Frisia. Both theories have their inherent weaknesses, and a definitive answer may come from further archaeological evidence.
Anglo-Frisian development
The early futhorc was nearly identical to the Elder Futhark, except for the split of ansuz rune| a into three variants āc, æsc and ōs, resulting in 26 runes. This was done to account for the new phoneme produced by the Ingvaeonic split of allophones of long and short a. The earliest known instance of the ōs rune may be from the 5th century, on the Undley bracteate. The earliest known instances of the āc rune may be from the 6th century, appearing on objects such as the Schweindorf solidus. The double-barred hægl characteristic of continental inscriptions is first attested as late as 698, on St Cuthbert's coffin; before that, the single-barred variant was used.
Anglo-Saxon development
In England, outside of the Brittonic West Country where evidence of Latin and even Ogham continued for several centuries, usage of the futhorc expanded. Runic writing in England became closely associated with the Latin scriptoria from the time of Anglo-Saxon Christianization in the 7th century. In some cases, texts would be written in the Latin alphabet, and þorn and ƿynn came to be used as extensions of the Latin alphabet. Additionally, in texts such as Beowulf and The Exeter Book, Anglo-Saxon runes were sometimes used as ideographic runes alongside the Latin alphabet to abbreviate words; for example, ᛗ was sometimes used to abbreviate "mann". By the time of the Norman Conquest of 1066 it was very rare, and it disappeared altogether a few centuries thereafter.
Several famous English examples mix runes and Roman script, or Old English and Latin, on the same object, including the Franks Casket and St Cuthbert's coffin; in the latter, three of the names of the Four Evangelists are given in Latin written in runes, but "LUKAS" (Saint Luke) is in Roman script. The coffin is also an example of an object created at the heart of the Anglo-Saxon church that uses runes. A leading expert, Raymond Ian Page, rejects the assumption often made in non-scholarly literature that runes were especially associated in post-conversion Anglo-Saxon England with Anglo-Saxon paganism or magic.
Letters
thumb|A chart showing 30 Anglo-Saxon runes
thumb|right|A rune-row showing variant shapes
The letter sequence and letter inventory of futhorc, along with the actual sounds indicated by those letters, could vary depending on location and time. That being so, an authentic and unified list of runes is not possible.
Rune inventory
{| class="wikitable"
! Image !! Unicode !! Name !! Name meaning !! Transliteration !! IPA
|-
| 24x20px|class=skin-invert || || feh (feoh) || wealth, cattle || f || /f/, [v] (word-medial allophone of /f/)
|-
| 24x20px|class=skin-invert || || ur (ūr) || aurochs || u || /u(:)/
|-
| 24x20px|class=skin-invert || || ðorn (þorn) || thorn || þ || /θ/, [ð] (word-medial allophone of /θ/)
|-
| 24x20px|class=skin-invert || || os (ōs) || The great god, Woden
|-
| 24x20px|class=skin-invert || || rada (rād) || riding || r || /r/
|-
| 24x20px|class=skin-invert || || cen (ċēn) || torch || c || /k/, /kʲ/, /tʃ/
|-
| 24x20px|class=skin-invert || || geofu (ġyfu) || gift || g || /ɡ/, [ɣ] (word-medial allophone of /ɡ/), /j/
|-
| 24x20px|class=skin-invert || || wyn (wynn) || joy || w || /w/
|-
| 24x20px|class=skin-invert || || hægil (hæġl) || hail || h || /h/, [x], [ç]
|-
| 24x20px|class=skin-invert || || næd (nēod) || plight, || n || /n/
|-
| 24x20px|class=skin-invert || || is (īs) || ice || i || /i(:)/
|-
| 24x20px|class=skin-invert24x20px || || gær (ġēar) || year || j || /j/
|-
| 24x20px|class=skin-invert || || ih (īw) || yew tree || ï || /i(:)/ [x], [ç]) || p || /p/
|-
| 24x20px|class=skin-invert || || ilcs (eolh?) || (unknown, perhaps a derivative of