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Rune 9 of 16

íss – The Is rune

Sound
i, e
Meaning
ice

The Norwegian rune poem

Ís kǫllum brú bræiða; blindan þarf at læiða.

Ice we call the broad bridge; the blind must be led.

The Norwegian rune poem is from the 1200s and has one verse per rune. The original is in the public domain; the translations are our own.

Commentary

Ice as infrastructure. Frozen lakes and bogs were winter’s road network in Norway, making otherwise impassable country passable.

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