Dagr

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Dagr rides his horse in this 19th century painting by Peter Nicolai Arbo.
Dagr rides his horse in this 19th century painting by Peter Nicolai Arbo.

Dagr ("day", modern Scandinavian: Dag, modern Icelandic: Dagur) was, in Norse mythology, the god of the daytime, a son of Delling (god of twilight) and Nótt. Dagr, the Bright and the Fair, drove across the sky in a chariot every day, pulled by a horse named Skinfaxi. Skinfaxi's mane lights up the earth and sky. Nótt's equivalent horse, Hrimfaxi, lights up the night.

[edit] Dagaz rune

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Name Proto-Germanic Anglo-Saxon
*Dagaz Dæȝ
"day"
Shape Elder Futhark Futhorc
Unicode
U+16DE
Transliteration d
Transcription d
IPA [ð] [d]
Position in rune-row 23 or 24

The d rune ) is called Daeg "day" in the Anglo-Saxon rune poem. The corresponding letter of the Gothic alphabet 𐌳 d is called dags. This rune stave is also part of the Elder Futhark, with a reconstructed Proto-Germanic name *dagaz. The * is applied as a standard academic prefix to show that this rune-name is a hypothetical reconstruction. The name *Dagaz is academically postulated as a likely name for this rune stave in the Elder Futhark period, but this rune-name is not recorded in any extant source as an actual rune-name and remains only as a suggestion. Similarly no other names of any of the Elder Futhark rune staves are actually recorded in sources from the Elder Futhark period. In popular and non-academic literature concerning the use of runes, the * is often omitted, which frequently leads to the mistaken assumption that *Dagaz and other rune names are definitely known to have been the names used in the Elder Futhark period, rather than simply being "best guesses" based upon comparative linguistic study.

[edit] See also



Runes See also: Rune poems · Runestones · Runology · Runic divination
Elder Fuþark:          
Anglo-Saxon Fuþorc: o c ȝ eo x œ   a æ y ea
Younger Fuþark: ą     a               ʀ        
Transliteration: f u þ a r k g w · h n i j ï p z s · t b e m l ŋ d o