Ingwaz Rune Meaning — the God Ing ᛜ Rune Explained
Ingwaz (ᛜ) is the twenty-second rune of the Elder Futhark and it means "the god Ing" — an early name for the god who became known as Freyr, or Yngvi, patron of fertility and peace. It carries the sound ng and belongs to the Elder Futhark and survived into the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc as Ing, but it was dropped when the Younger Futhark reduced the row from 24 runes to 16 in the Viking Age.
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What does Ingwaz mean?
The name Ing is a Proto-Germanic divine name recorded far earlier than the Viking Age: the Roman historian Tacitus, writing around 98 AD, names the Ingaevones as one of the tribal groupings of the Germanic peoples, said to take their name from a god called Ing. By the Viking Age this same god-name had become closely tied to Yngvi-Freyr, the god of fertility, prosperity and peace in the Norse pantheon, and to the Yngling dynasty of Swedish and Norwegian kings who claimed descent from him.
Because Ing predates the sources that describe the Norse gods in any detail, scholars cannot say with certainty how far "Ing" and "Freyr" were always the same figure or how the identification grew over time. What is well established is that the rune's shape — a lozenge, or two triangles meeting point to point — was read as an emblem of enclosed, contained power, fitting for a fertility god tied to land and lineage.
Ingwaz in the Old English rune poem
Ing wæs ærest mid East-Denum gesewen secgun, oþ he siððan est ofer wæg gewat; wæn æfter ran; ðus Heardingas ðone hæle nemdun.
"Ing was first seen by men among the East-Danes, till he departed east over the wave, his wagon running after; so the Heardings named that hero." — Old English Rune Poem, c. 8th–9th century
Only the Old English poem survives for this rune, because the Norwegian and Icelandic rune poems cover just the sixteen runes of the Younger Futhark, and Ingwaz had already left that row by the Viking Age. The Old English verse is a fragment of a lost narrative: a hero-god named Ing appears among the East Danes, then departs eastward over the sea in a wagon that "runs after" him — plausibly a folk memory of a wagon-borne fertility cult, of the kind Tacitus also describes for the goddess Nerthus among the same Germanic tribes.
How to write Ingwaz
Ingwaz stands for the sound ng. Any name or word containing that sound can be transliterated with ᛜ — try it in our free rune translator, which writes your name in the Elder, Younger or Anglo-Saxon rows and lets you download it as a poster. The full texts of all three rune poems, with our translations, are on the same page.
Ingwaz, fertility and the god Freyr
As the rune of a fertility god tied to land, lineage and peace, Ingwaz is often read today alongside runes like Jera (harvest) and Berkano (growth) — a symbolic grouping from modern interpretation rather than an attested Viking-Age system. You can read every rune in order in our Elder Futhark rune meanings guide, and runic inscriptions appear across our Viking jewelry collection.
Ingwaz FAQ
What does the Ingwaz rune mean?
Ingwaz (ᛜ) is the twenty-second rune of the Elder Futhark and means "the god Ing" — an early name or aspect of the god later known as Freyr or Yngvi, associated with fertility, peace and the Yngling royal dynasty.
Why is there only one rune poem for Ingwaz?
The Norwegian and Icelandic rune poems only cover the sixteen runes of the Younger Futhark, which had dropped several Elder Futhark runes, including Ingwaz, by the Viking Age. Only the Old English rune poem, which describes the full older row, includes a verse for Ing.
Who was the god Ing?
Ing is a Germanic god name recorded as early as the 1st century AD, when Tacitus described the Ingaevones tribal group as taking their name from him. By the Viking Age, Ing was closely identified with Yngvi-Freyr, and the Swedish and Norwegian Yngling kings claimed descent from him.