Draft content, not yet reviewed.
Attested
Found in inscriptions or medieval manuscripts.
Berkanan is the eighteenth rune of the Elder Futhark and writes the sound /b/.
The Norwegian and Icelandic poems name this rune bjarkan, the birch. The Norwegian poem says the birch has the greenest leaves of any shrub, and the Icelandic poem a young, leafy sapling. The Old English poem names it beorc and describes a tree that bears no fruit but sends up shoots and spreads tall branches; Dickins translates it as poplar.
Reconstructed
Scholarly reconstruction from linguistic evidence.
The Proto-Germanic name is reconstructed as *berkanan, "birch."
In practice today
How people use this rune now, in divination, magic, and devotion. Valid in its own right, and labeled modern so it isn’t mistaken for history.
In Ralph Blum's modern divination system, this rune (spelled Berkana) is read as growth.
Practice today: wyrd, galdr, and other old words people use when working with the runes now.