*Ōþala

The sole attested name of the rune is Old English: ēþel or óðel ("property, inheritance, home, native land"). The Proto-Germanic name for the rune has therefore been reconstructed as *ōþala or *ōþila ("patrimony, inherited possession").^[1][2][3] It has cognates with similar meanings in other Germanic languages, including Old Norse: óðal ("ancestral property", "patrimony", "inheritance"), Old Saxon: ōthil ("home") and Old High German: uodal ("ancestral property").^[1][2] Alternative names for the rune include *ōðilan.^[4]

This general meaning is found in Old Norse: óðal, which refers to Scandinavian laws of inheritance which established land rights for families that had owned that parcel of land over a number of generations, restricting its sale to others. Among other aspects, this protected the inheritance rights of daughters against males from outside the immediate family.^[5] Some of these laws remain in effect today in Norway as the Odelsrett (allodial right). The tradition of Udal law found in Shetland, Orkney, and the Isle of Man, is from the same origin.^{[citation needed]}

ᛟ features in Elder Futhark, where it represents the /o:/ sound and is transliterated to the Latin script as o.^[6] As with other Elder Futhark runes, its exact origins are unclear beyond its ultimate descent from the Phoenician alphabet.^[7] Derivation from Latin O or Q has been proposed, however, while most Elder Futhark runes are more similar capital Latin letters than Greek ones, ᛟ more closely resembles Ω ("Omega").^{[8] [9]} North Italic alphabets have also been suggested as the source, including Venetic and Lepontic, and^[10] Letters with very similar sounds and shape are also known in Alpine and Etruscan scripts, suggesting these as a possible origin.^[9][11][12] Why the runes have their order is also unclear and debated, with little correspondence between it and that of potential source scripts. A notable alignment though is between ᛟ and Ω, which are both found at the end.^[13]

ᛟ is used throughout the body of Elder Futhark inscriptions to denotes the /o:/ sound. This includes in the some of the earliest runic inscriptions such as the Hole Runestone (c. 50 BCE-275 CE) and Vimose planer (c. 160-400 CE).^[14][15] It has also been suggested to be used as an ideograph representing the word "*oþal" on the Ring of Pietroassa, referencing the ring as hereditary treasure.^[16] It has been similarly proposed to denote the Thorsberg chape (c. 210-260 CE) as the inherited possession of the inscription's writer.^[17][18]

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  Illustration of the Thorsberg chape (c. 210-260 CE) showing the runic inscriptions on both sides^[18]
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  Bracteate from the Vindelev Hoard c. 375-470, showing the word wodnas ("Óðinn's") right to left ^[19]
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  ᛟ at the end of the Kylver Stone rune-row c. 400.

The letter in the Gothic alphabet 𐍉 (utal) was used in the 4th century CE by Wulfila to represent an /o:/ sound in his Bible, and may have been derived from ᛟ.^[20] Alternatively, it may have been derived from the Greek Ω (omega), which closely resembles both, or ο (omicron).^[21][22][23] As with the names of most other Gothic letters, utal is cognate with the name of its corresponding rune, *ōþala.^[20] This name is recorded in a manuscript from around the 10th century, however, and it has been suggested that the names in general may have been created retrospectively based on rune names, long after the letters were.^[24]

Usage of ᛟ continues into the Anglo-Frisian runes, where it was used along with all the other 23 Elder Futhark runes and new innovations. Anglo-Frisian sound changes led to it taking on the sound ø, also written as ö. ᛟ in Anglo-Frisian runes is therefore transliterated into Latin script as œ, while the /o:/ sound becomes represented by the new ᚩ, from the Elder Futhark ᚨ.^[25] When exactly these developments first took place and spread is unclear, however ᛟ seems to represent the œ vowel in all known English inscriptions that contain it and ᚩ is first attested early, on the 5th century Undley bracteate.^[26] Furthermore, both ᛟ and ᚩ are found on the pre-Old English Chessel Down inscription, suggesting the changes had taken place by c. 525-550 when this inscription was made.^[27] In contrast, the likely Frisian skanomodo solidus (before the mid 7th century), uses ᛟ for the /o:/ sound and there are no known Frisian inscriptions with ᚩ from before the 8th century. This absence could, however, be a result of there being very few known Frisian runic texts.^[28]

An alternative form of the rune developed in this writing system, in which it was ritten with a single vertical line instead of the two diagonal legs, perhaps due to its simpler form. This form is found in some manuscripts and more rarely in runic inscriptions, such as on the 10th century Seax of Beagnoth.^[29][30] The rune is also used ideographically as a shorthand for the word ēþel or œþel ("ancestral property or land") in manuscripts of texts such as Beowulf, Waldere and the Old English translation of Orosius' Historiae adversus paganos.^[31][32] This is similar to wider practices of the time, in which runes such as ᛞ, ᚹ and ᛗ were also used as shorthands to write the name of the rune.^[32] Furthermore, a stanza based on ᛟ's name "eþel" forms part of the Old English rune poem, composed in the 8th or 9th century and preserved in a now lost 10th century manuscript:^[33][34]

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  Back of the Harford Farm Brooch (c. 610-650) ^[35]
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  The left panel of the Franks Casket (early 8th century), showing the rune on both the top right and bottom right^[36]
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  Seax of Beagnoth rune row (c. 10th century), showing the alternative rune form between the ᛗ and ᚪ^[30]
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  Section of Beowulf in the Nowell Codex (late 10th-early 11th century), showing the rune to represent the word "ēðel"^[32]

While ᛟ continued to be used in England, it largely disappeared in Scandinavia during the development of the Younger Futhark, which began to emerge shortly after 700 CE.^[37] In this new system, the /o/ phoneme became instead written in the same way as /u/ phoneme and all other rounded vowels, with ᚢ.^[38] The reason for the loss of ᛟ, alongside 7 other elder futhark runes, is debated but was possibly a choice to use the more simple shape of ᚢ.^[38] It may also have been influenced by sound changes of the rune names, with *ōþila likely developing into *œðil. This vowel mutation left no rune with a name matching the /o/ sound. Furthermore, it may have not been seen as worth keeping a dedicated rune to write the rare "œ" vowel that the rune name now began with.^[39][40]

ᛟ is found in some transitional inscriptions that use both Elder Futhark and new rune shapes, including those that would become Younger Futhark. Many of these include ᚼ, representing an /a/ sound, alongside runes elsewhere only found in Elder Futhark inscriptions, as in the c. 7th century Stentoften Runestone.^[41][42] ᛟ is also attested on the mostly Younger Futhark Rök runestone, dating to around 800 CE. In this context, the choice to use older runes has been proposed to be an intentional reference to an event nine generations ago mentioned in the inscription.^[43]

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  Eggja stone (c. 650-700 CE, with both ᛟ and ᚼ
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  Rök runestone (c. 800 CE), showing ᛟ alongside Younger Futhark runes^[43]