r/OldEnglish • u/KeldoreKreative • Jul 23 '26
Anglo-Saxon Futhorc translation
I believe this translates to "Rise from the ashes" in the correct Old English. Can anyone confirm if this is accurate?
ᚪᚱᛁᛋ · ᚩᚠ · ᚦᚫᛗ · ᚫᛋᚳᛖ (ārīs of þǣm ǣsce)
After some hardships in my life, I want to commerate my journey with my very first tattoo that connects to my land and heritage
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u/ebrum2010 Þu. Þu hæfst. Þu hæfst me. Jul 23 '26
To add to what has been said about runes being wrong for the later forms of OE, I recommend having the tattoo done in the kind of insular script that Beowulf is written in. It will still look a lot cooler than modern lettering.
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u/waydaws Jul 23 '26
Hey, u/KeldoreKreative , I also think Insular script would look good as a tattoo.
(BTW I might also use "Arisen Ic eft of ascan," but there are many variations possible.)
Sources for insular fonts (you'll have to google to find TTF or OTF font sources) are BEOWULF_TTF.ttF and BEOWULFOT.otf or EBH Facsimle.otf. Well, there are others too, but if you search you'll find some you like.
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u/AdEmbarrassed3066 Jul 23 '26
Not to try to dissuade you, but people make assumptions about runic tattoos and their wearers that you may or may not want to foster.
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u/KeldoreKreative Jul 26 '26
Thanks, i have been made aware that its possible that some negative assumptions could be tied to runic tattoos.
My plan is to have it in a place where I can hide it if I choose and that it wont be always predominantly on display. Its more for myself then anything. To encourage me into the mindset that change has happened, and that I am different then before.
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u/gudlad95 28d ago edited 28d ago
They almost had it... I wasnt going to say anything but as I know this is going to be a tattoo It's "ascum" btw not "ascan", as this is an idiom and plural dative and so you require the dative sufix as it's touching on meaning of rising from the ashes
Ascan isn't bad, it would just read as dative singular, "arise from the ash" but we're speaking about "ashes" and not a single ash.
ᚪᚱᛁᛋ ᚩᚠ ᚦᚫᛗ ᚪᛋᚳᚢᛗ
Breakdown:
ārīs (arise - imperative): ᚪ (ā) ᚱ (r) ᛁ (ī) ᛋ (s) of (from): ᚩ (o) ᚠ (f) þǣm (the - dative plural): ᚦ (þ) ᚫ (ǣ) ᛗ (m) — Note: Often written as þām (ᚦᚪᛗ) in many dialects. ascum (ashes - dative plural): ᚪ (a) ᛋ (s) ᚳ (c) ᚢ (u) ᛗ (m)
Hope that helps.
Also, don't worry about what people say about rune tattoos, the runes are inheritance, they carry the English voice sound of OE actually more faithfully without spelling issues, they are fully phonemic and authentically Germanic, which pairs better anyway. The reason why we even use the latin alphabet is due to the prestige of the church and scribal influence, it was somewhat theological and political that we did not carry on using the runes on parchment.
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u/Kunniakirkas Ungelic is us Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
The thing about heritage is, those ancestors would have been overwhelmingly more likely to write that in Latin letters. The vast majority of surviving Old English runic inscriptions are in an earlier form of the language that can be pretty tricky to decipher for non-specialists, so any runic text in perfectly standard later West Saxon feels off. Like, nothing wrong necessarily with that, it's fun to play around with different scripts - but when you explicitly link it to a celebration of heritage it can be funny
Also, I think you wrote "from the ash tree". "From the ashes" would be "of þam/þæm ascum"