Perthro (ᛈ)
Pronunciation: PER-throh · Latin equivalent: P · Heimdall’s ætt, sixth rune
Name and meaning
Proto-Germanic perþō — and here honesty requires a shrug: nobody knows what the word meant. The shape suggests to many a lot-cup tipped on its side, and the one surviving poem verse places it among game and laughter in the hall, so the working reading is the cast lot: chance, hidden outcome, wyrd in the cup.
In the rune poems
Attested only in the Anglo-Saxon poem (peorð), and even that verse describes rather than defines — play and laughter among bold men where warriors sit. The most mysterious rune in the row, and this site will not pretend otherwise.
Upright
The unrevealed: chance, fate in motion, secrets not yet surfaced, the dice still rolling. Also the practice of divination itself — Perthro in a cast is the cast looking back at you. Favorable for trusting the process when the outcome cannot be forced.
Merkstave
The cup overturned badly: secrets working against you, chance courted past wisdom, wyrd read wrong or refused. Sometimes stagnation — waiting on fate for what effort should decide.
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