Mann and Its Elder Futhark Cognate, Mannaz

Mann is the twentieth of the twenty four Futhorc runes carried from the Elder Futhark, its name and core reading a direct continuation of Mannaz, whose own name likewise means man or humankind, both traditions naming the same general subject though the Old English stanza's specific turn toward mortality and the failure of human bonds at death is a development the sparse Elder Futhark evidence gives no basis for confirming or denying as an older, shared reading.

R. I. Page's account treats Mannaz as one of the runes whose Elder Futhark meaning is reconstructed largely by extrapolation backward from the later, better attested Old English and Younger Futhark evidence rather than from any surviving continental commentary of its own, a genuine limitation on how confidently any specific stanza content can be projected back onto the earlier tradition. The rune's consonant value m carries over unchanged between the two traditions, and Mann's position twentieth of twenty four in the row it shares with the Elder Futhark places it well into the final third of the runes both traditions hold in common, only four more inherited signs remaining before the futhorc's five later, purely Anglo-Frisian additions begin.