Armanen Runes
Gibor
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Origin 1902 to 1908
Gibor closes the row as its eighteenth rune and is, with Eh, one of the two List added to the Younger Futhark. He read it as the giver and the gift, the union of beginning and end, and the all-encompassing principle he wrote as God-All-Gibor; in his cosmology it is where the sequence returns on itself. The count of eighteen is the point of the whole arrangement. List took it from the Ljodatal, the passage in the Old Norse Havamal where Odin recites eighteen charms he alone knows, and treated that as evidence that an eighteen-rune row had once existed. The Havamal lists songs, not letters, and no eighteen-character futhark is attested anywhere in the epigraphic record. The number came first and the row was built to fit it.
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 NameNot a Younger Futhark character. Gibor is one of the two characters von List added to bring the row to eighteen, a number he took from the eighteen charms of the Havamal. The name and the meaning are his. 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 Gibor
Gibor 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 G.
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 Gibor stands for the giver and the All-Father, cosmic union and the crown of the row; the culmination in which the many are gathered back into the One.
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.
Gibor: The Eighteenth, and the Other One He Added
Gibor closes the Armanen row, and like Eh it has no counterpart in the Younger Futhark. It is the second of the two characters Guido von List supplied to bring his row to eighteen.
Where the name comes from
The name echoes the Elder Futhark character conventionally read as gebo, the gift. The Elder Futhark is the older twenty-four character row of the earliest Germanic inscriptions; it had been out of use in Scandinavia for centuries by the time the Younger Futhark that supplied von List's other sixteen characters was in service.
Why it is last
Von List built the row to eighteen because the Havamal lists eighteen rune-charms, and he treated the last of his eighteen as the culminating one, glossing it in terms of the giver and the gift. The position and the reading are his. The Havamal's eighteenth charm is not about an alphabet and does not describe a character.
What this rune shows about the row
Gibor is the clearest single demonstration that the Armanen row is composed rather than inherited. Its shape, its position and its meaning all originate in 1908, and its name is borrowed from a row that had fallen out of use long before the one the rest of the sequence comes from.
Reception
The Armanen row was taken up in volkisch circles and, in the 1930s and 1940s, by National Socialist organisations. The atlas records that history rather than omitting 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
Gebo, Runes Von List's Gibor (G, the giver/God-rune) derives from the Elder Futhark Gebo (gift, exchange).
Disciplines That Use This
The Armanen row, a twentieth century system rather than a historical futhark.
Originates in Language
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