A Few Thoughts on Fehu: Rune of Wealth and Abundance

Fehu seems to be a particularly salient rune for today, which is no bad thing overall. It’s a good reminder to be respectful and responsible of one’s resources. Fehu connects to one’s luck or hamingja (for good or ill). It’ll often come up in a reading not only to indicate the state of one’s luck and where blockages are, but to indicate if your own lack of attention to resource management is the cause of said blockages.

In addition to Freya and the Vanir, I strongly associate this rune with the Duergar, especially Andvari.  I was told by a very devoted Andvari’s woman, and have found this in my own practice to be true, that money has two runes: fehu (the wealth that sustains) and laguz (Flow). There’s a very strong connection between this rune and everything Andvari has to teach about honoring wealth and one’s resources. This flow of resources and money is what sustains us and what has sustained our Midgard existence for generations. It’s a sacred thing. I think we often think of money in this culture as dirty or debased or un-spiritual. Fehu takes that attitude and says “this is not so. This understanding and respect for wealth, the hard work it takes to acquire it, for proper resource management is a connection to your honored dead. It is the lifeblood of Midgard existence, that which enables one generation to survive and pass on its wisdom to the next.”

Fehu is all about proper resource management. It’s about understanding that those resources, and working wisely and well with those resources is just as sacred as whatever spiritual journey we think we’re going to go on. It’s about the sacred in the world and working well in the world. It’s about being joyfully productive, and acknowledging value in the work at hand, no matter how menial. Fehu is about knowing to the last inch what is yours by absolute right and knowing conversely what you have only by luck or fate, and what you are holding with an obligation to pass on. It’s about acknowledging your place in the Wyrd, and standing up and claiming it. I’ve never seen it before this, but as I think about this in order to respond here, I can see a touch of Frau Holle’s insight in this rune. It’s got a side to it that is all about management.

Of course it is also a rune of opportunities, and judiciously applied can create opportunities and help one to see them. Fehu can also be used to bring someone’s wyrd home to roost if one has behaved in a way offensive to all that fehu holds dear. I’d be very careful even contemplating this though, because to use this rune in this way safely, requires an exquisitely balanced understanding of what constitutes “lawfulness” on a wyrd-level. Going back to the connection between fehu and money, we get our English word “Fee” from this rune. Fehu is also about knowing your own worth and moreover knowing the value of what you do. It is knowing to the core of your being the value of your time, energy, resources, and attention. It is not devaluing yourself for any reason.

I have recently heard someone dismiss the traditional association with cattle. I would caution against this. There is a reason that fehu is associated with cattle. Domesticated cattle were the lifeblood of our ancestors. We would not be here save for the careful management of resources like cattle (which were wealth in those days). Fehu is about wealth — on all levels: physical, spiritual, emotional, mental. It’s about wealth and knowing what to do with it. It’s about respecting wealth and because of its connection to hamingja, it’s also about understanding the sacrifices our ancestors made for us: for the future. Fehu is the fine thread connecting the deeds and sacrifices and yes, even the mistakes of the past, through us in the present, our understanding and acknowledgement, into the future which we cannot see but with every action are helping to create.

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