Hagalaz Rune Meaning
ᚺ · sound "h" · Heimdall's ætt · name means hail
disruption, release, forces beyond control, transformation
Upright meaning
Hagalaz is the hailstorm: sudden, cold and out of anyone's control. It can mirror a disruption that clears away what was fragile and leaves room for something sturdier. Storms pass, and what they leave behind can still be put to use.
Reversed
This rune looks the same upside down, so it has no reversed meaning.
Lore
Hagalaz means hail, and the second ætt is often called Hagal's ætt after it. All three rune poems cover it and picture hail as a kind of grain: the coldest grain in the Norse verses, the whitest in the Anglo-Saxon poem, which adds that it whirls down from the sky and turns to water. That turn, from hard grain to water the ground can drink, shapes most modern readings.