The rune ᚢ representing the sound u is called Ur in all three rune poems, however with different meanings:
- ᚢ er af illu jarne;
- opt lųypr ręinn į hjarne.
- Dross comes from bad iron;
- the reindeer often races over the frozen snow.
- ᚢ er skżja grįtr
- ok skįra žverrir
- ok hiršis hatr.
- umbre vķsi
- Rain is lamentation of the clouds
- and ruin of the hay-harvest
- and abomination of the shepherd.
- ᚢ byž anmod ond oferhyrned,
- felafrecne deor, feohtež mid hornum
- męre morstapa; žęt is modig wuht.
- The aurochs is proud and has great horns;
- it is a very savage beast and fights with its horns;
- a great ranger of the moors, it is a creature of mettle.
The Icelandic word for "rain" and the Anglo-Saxon for "aurochs" go back to two different Proto-Germanic words, ūruz and ūram (although possibly from the same root). The Norwegian meaning "dross, slag" is more obscure, but maybe an Iron Age technical term derived from the word for water (c.f. the Kalevala, where iron is compared to milk).
Because of this, it is difficult to reconstruct a Proto-Germanic name for the Old Futhark rune. It may have been ūruz "aurochs" (see also Bull worship), or ūram "water". The aurochs is preferred by authors of modern runic divination systems, but both seem possible, compared to the names of the other runes: "water" would be comparable to "hail" and "lake", and "aurochs" to "horse" or "elk" (although the latter name is itself uncertain). The Gothic alphabet seems to support "aurochs", though: the name of the letter 𐌿 u is urus.
