Armanen Runes
Tyr
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Origin 1902 to 1908
Tyr is twelfth, taking its name and shape from the Younger Futhark tyr, the god of the assembly and of oaths who in the Norse account loses his hand binding the wolf Fenrir. The medieval rune poems make the rune a guiding star as much as a god. List read it as the deity of war and justice and, in his characteristic move, as rebirth: the initiate who dares to be reborn, who fears neither death nor the loss of a hand. Armanen practice draws it for courage, for justice, for sworn obligation, and for a sacrifice made knowingly. The rune was adopted as an emblem by several National Socialist formations, including Reich Labour Service and SS training units, which is one reason it is often encountered without its older meaning attached.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period1902 to 1908 2Tradition: Armanen system (Guido von List) Origin Period800 to 1100 CE 1Tradition: Younger Futhark, the historical row von List built on Origin PeriodSixteen of the eighteen Armanen characters adapt the historical Younger Futhark script, in documented use across Scandinavia from about 800 to 1100 CE. The row itself was published by the Austrian occultist Guido von List, first as a periodical article in 1906 and then in full as Das Geheimnis der Runen in 1908. 2 Place of OriginVienna, Austria-Hungary. 2 Attributed Author / CompilerGuido von List (1848-1919). He published the row as a periodical article in 1906 and as Das Geheimnis der Runen in 1908, and did not present it as an invention: his claim was that he had recovered the secret alphabet of an 'Armanen' priest-king caste of a pre-Christian Aryan civilisation. No trace of such a caste exists in any source. 2 Origin of the NameAdapted from the historical Scandinavian rune name Tyr, the god. Sixteen of the eighteen Armanen characters are the Younger Futhark, the row genuinely used across Scandinavia in the Viking Age, and their names are largely the historical Scandinavian names, sometimes lightly altered. The meanings von List attached to them are new. 2 Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern UseThe Armanen row was formulated inside an Austrian volkisch milieu, was taken up by the Germanenorden and by later Ariosophical and SS-adjacent runic enthusiasts, and is today used both in ordinary modern esotericism and on the far right. The row itself does not distinguish the two, which is why its origin has to be stated rather than assumed. 2 Order
Position in the Sequence Attributions
Associated Sound Learn More
The Armanen Rune Tyr
Tyr is one of the eighteen Armanen runes, the runic row devised by the Austrian occultist Guido von List and published in his Das Geheimnis der Runen (The Secret of the Runes) in 1908, developing ideas he had begun to set out from about 1902. It is given the sound-value T.
The rune and its meaning
Von List did not recover an ancient alphabet. He built his eighteen runes on the sixteen characters of the Younger Futhark, expanded to eighteen to match the eighteen rune-charms of the Havamal in the Poetic Edda, and assigned to each a mystical meaning of his own. In his system Tyr stands for the sky-god Tyr and spiritual rebirth; renewal through death and return, the turning point of the fear-conquering hero.
These readings are von List's early twentieth-century esoteric invention, not the meanings of the historical Viking-age runes, and are described here as such. The Armanen system was later taken up by volkisch and, in the 1930s and 1940s, National Socialist circles; that political appropriation is a separate and widely condemned chapter, and forms no part of the historical or comparative study of the row set out here.
What von List Took for Tyr
The eighteen Armanen runes are Guido von List's row, published in 1908 and built on historical characters that he renamed and reinterpreted.
The character behind it
Tyr corresponds to the Younger Futhark character whose Old Norse name was tyr, the name of a god. The rune poems gloss it in terms of the god and of a guiding star, and the Old English tradition gives its equivalent a similar reading. It is among the very few runes named directly for a named deity, and the association is genuinely medieval rather than modern.
What von List did with it
He kept the T value and the name, and assigned the character a meaning within his own eighteen. Here the historical name survives essentially intact, which makes the rune a useful check on how much of the row is inherited: the name is old, the place in a row of eighteen is not.
The frame
Von List presented the eighteen as a recovered ancient Germanic priestly alphabet and set the count from the eighteen rune-charms of the Havamal. Runologists do not accept the recovery claim.
Reception
The Armanen row was taken up in volkisch circles and by National Socialist organisations in the 1930s and 1940s, and characters from the row, this one among them, were used as insignia by those organisations. That history is documented and the atlas states it rather than leaving it to be discovered elsewhere.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Attributed To
Devised by von List, by his own account during the temporary blindness following his 1902 cataract surgery, and published in Das Geheimnis der Runen in 1908.
Contained In
One of the eighteen runes of the Armanen row.
Derived From
Tiwaz, Runes Von List's Tyr (T) derives from the Elder Futhark Tiwaz (the god Tyr, justice).
Disciplines That Use This
The Armanen row, a twentieth century system rather than a historical futhark.
Originates in Language
Sources
1. Runes: A Handbook
Michael P. Barnes, The Boydell Press, 2012On the sixteen-character Younger FutharkView the Source 2. The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Aquarian Press, 1985Part I, on Guido von List and the Armanist revivalView the Source Das Geheimnis der Runen (The Secret of the Runes)
Guido von List, Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft, 1908The eighteen Armanen runes, no. 12View the Source The Science of the Swastika
Bernard Mees, Central European University Press, 2008On runic emblems in National Socialist use
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