Feoh and Its Elder Futhark Cognate, Fehu

Feoh is the first of the twenty four Futhorc runes that descend directly from the Elder Futhark row, its Anglo-Frisian form and Old English name a direct linguistic development from Fehu, the opening rune of the older twenty four rune system attested on the Kylver Stone and elsewhere from around 400 CE, the two runes sharing both a sound value and a core meaning of wealth and moveable property across the split between the continental and Scandinavian runic traditions on one side and the Anglo-Frisian tradition on the other.

R. I. Page's survey of the runic evidence places this kind of direct continuity, name, sound and meaning all preserved together, as typical of the first twenty four Futhorc runes, in contrast to the five runes added later purely to cover Old English sounds the Elder Futhark row had no signs for. As the row's opening rune, Feoh occupies the same structural position Fehu holds in the Elder Futhark, and Anglo-Saxon epigraphic practice, coins, memorial inscriptions and manuscript marginalia among the contexts runes appear in, generally preserves this same opening position, the futhorc row conventionally cited beginning Feoh, Ur, Thorn just as the Elder Futhark is cited beginning Fehu, Uruz, Thurisaz.