Armanen Runes
Thorn
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Origin 1902 to 1908
Thorn, also given as Thurs, is List's third rune, corresponding to the Younger Futhark thurs. The historical name means giant or ogre and the Icelandic and Norwegian rune poems treat it as something dangerous and female-harming; List instead read it as the thorn of will, the sudden flash of activity, and the power that both wounds and defends. He connected it to Thor's hammer and to the sleep-thorn of the sagas, an association that is his own literary reading rather than anything the medieval sources make. In use it is taken for directed force, for the breaking of a deadlock, and for the moment at which passive intention becomes an act.
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 thurs, 'giant', lightly altered towards the Old English thorn. 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 Thorn
Thorn 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 Th.
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 Thorn stands for the thorn and the god Thor's striking power, the will directed and made hard; the active, defending force that acts through resolve.
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 Thorn
The Armanen row was published by Guido von List in 1908. Its eighteen characters are his arrangement, and the honest description of any one of them separates the historical character from what he added.
The character behind it
Thorn corresponds to the Younger Futhark character whose Old Norse name was thurs, meaning giant or ogre, a name the Norwegian and Icelandic rune poems treat as thoroughly unpleasant. The Old English rune poem calls its equivalent character thorn and describes a sharp thorn that wounds anyone who grasps it.
What von List did with it
He took the second of those two names. Calling the character Thorn rather than Thurs is a choice between two genuinely attested traditions, and it is one of the few places where von List's naming has an actual manuscript behind it. The sound value, a dental fricative, is retained. The meaning he assigns within his eighteen belongs to his own system.
The framing, and the afterlife
Von List presented the eighteen as an ancient priestly alphabet recovered rather than composed, and set the count at eighteen to match the eighteen rune-charms of the Havamal in the Poetic Edda. That recovery claim is not accepted by historians of runology.
The row was afterwards adopted in volkisch circles and by National Socialist organisations in the 1930s and 1940s. This atlas records that reception rather than passing over it.
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
Von List's Thorn (Th) derives from the Elder Futhark Thurisaz (thorn, giant).
Disciplines That Use This
The Armanen row, a twentieth century system rather than a historical futhark.
Originates in Language
Sources
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