Runes
Mannaz
The twentieth rune, Mannaz, sounds as M. It is the fourth rune of Tyr's aett, the third row of the Elder Futhark. The shape is two upright strokes with a cross between them near the top, like a capital M whose two inner lines have kept going past each other. The thing it names is man in the old sense of humankind, every one of us, and through that it speaks of the self among others, of community, of the mind and of what people are.
The picture
Look at the shape and you see two of the previous rune, Ehwaz, laid over each other. Two pairs. A crowd starts at four. The picture is of people joined at the top, which is to say joined by what goes on in their heads, and standing on their own two feet underneath.
I read Mannaz as the mirror rune. Everyone you meet shows you something about yourself, and the thing that irritates you most in another person is very often the thing you have not finished with in your own life. That is an old teaching and the rune carries it well. You cannot know what you are except among other people. A hermit has opinions about himself and no way to check them.
In ordinary life Mannaz is the family table, the workplace, the street where you know three neighbours by name and the rest by their dogs. It is the committee, the choir, the Tuesday night class. It is also the mind itself, the part of you that thinks about thinking, and I like that the old letter holds intelligence and humanity together, as if the carvers saw no gap between them.
When it comes up
When Mannaz comes up I read it as a moment that asks you to see yourself as others see you. Whatever the question was, part of the answer is sitting in how you are coming across. That is uncomfortable, and it is meant to be. The rune is holding up a mirror and asking you to look without flinching and without fishing for compliments either.
It also points to help, the plain kind. Whatever you are facing, other people have faced it, and some of them are within reach. Mannaz suggests you ask. We are a species that solved most of our problems by talking to each other, and the rune is a reminder that your problem is probably not as unique as it feels late at night with the lights off.
The third thread is the mind. Mannaz favours thinking a thing through, taking advice, sleeping on it. It is the rune of the reasonable adult, which does not sound exciting and is in short supply. Standing in this rune means remembering that you are one of many, which is a comfort and a responsibility at once. You are ordinary in the best sense, and so is everyone you are dealing with.
Reversed
Upside down, the cross sits low and the figure looks as if it is standing on its head, and I read it as the self cut off from the others. Isolation, or the feeling of it. Thinking that has gone round in circles because nobody else was let into the room. It can also point to seeing enemies where there are only people, or to a group that has turned on one of its own. The remedy is usually a conversation you have been avoiding. Pick up the phone before the story in your head gets any longer.
Across the traditions
In the tarot I put Mannaz beside The Hierophant, the fifth card of the Major Arcana, with his two kneeling students in front of him and the keys at his feet. He stands for what people know together and hand on to each other, which is this rune's territory. That is my own pairing and nothing stronger. The Hierophant page in The 78 Cards goes further into the card. The Three of Cups sits nearby too, for the plain joy of company. In numerology the same idea lives in the number 2 and the number 6, the partner and the family, and The Numbers pages cover both. There is no tree in this picture, so I leave the Ogham out of it.
Who in your life would tell you the truth about yourself, and when did you last ask them?
If you would like this read against your own chart, my readings are here.
The Runes
The other pages in this set, and where they sit in the Library.
See every page and post in the Contents.
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