Nook of Names

Hægl is the ninth letter of the Runic Alphabet. As with others, its name varies depending on which Runic Alphabet is being used:

• Eldar Futhark: *Hagalaz
• Anglo-Frisian: Hæʒl (Hægl)
• Marcomannic: Hagale
• Younger Futhark: Hagall

In all cases, it means “hail,” and the poems focus on its cold, hard nature, though the Old English one does offer a kind of hope when it points out that it melts away to water.

Every cloud has a silver lining, and all that.

Even today, hail can be devastatingly destructive; I can remember a storm in Lincolnshire about ten years ago when hailstones as big as golf-balls fell, smashing greenhouses and damaging cars.

But to people in the past, a bad hailstorm could destroy crops — and that might mean the difference between life and death. In one — sometimes brief — storm, people’s lives could be overturned.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, Hægl is a rune which symbolizes destruction, but the vicissitudes of fate, and of sudden, unavoidable change, and the raw power of nature. Coming after jolly old Wynn, it feels a bit like a bolt from the blue — and that’s deliberate.

Just when everything’s going well, life’s good — all it takes is something unexpected to happen, your world is turned upside down, and you’re left running for whatever cover you can find.

Hægl reminds us who is really boss — Mother Nature.

As a name, I think all the variants could work, as well as Hagel, the Modern German, Dutch and Swedish form, or Hagl, the Norwegian and Dutch. There’s also, of course, the plain English Hail, and its Middle English variants Hayl and Hayle.

There are also many other weather phenomena which share same wild, untamed, raw spirit of Nature:

• Blast
• Blizzard
• Blow
• Bluster
• Blustery
• Bolt
• Cyclone
• Deluge
• Flash
• Flurry
• Gale
• Gust
• Hurricane
• Lightning
• Monsoon
• Rain
• Rainstorm
• Sleet
• Snow
• Snowstorm
• Squall
• Storm
• Stormy
• Surge
• Tempest
• Thunder
• Tornado
• Torrent
• Twister
• Typhoon
• Whirlwind
• Wind

Many of these present interesting options in other languages:

• Aëlla — Greek: “stormy wind,” “whirlwind” (source of Aëllo, the name of a harpy)
  
• Aëma — Greek: “blast,” “wind”
• Aëtes — Greek: “blast,” “gale”
• Anemos — Greek: “wind” (source of Anemone, the “wind-flower”)
• Angin — Indonesian, Malay: “wind”
• Aquilo — Latin: “North Wind”
• Asterope, Sterope – Greek: “lightning”
• Astrape — Greek: “lightning”
• Audra – Lithuanian: “storm”
• Aura — Latin: “wind,” “blast,” “breeze”
• Awel — Welsh: “wind,” “breeze”
• Blesk — Czech: “lightning”
• Bö — German: “squall”
• Boreas — Greek: “North Wind”
• Breshër, Breshëri — Albanian: “hail”
• Broche – Greek: “rain”
• Bronte — Greek: “thunder”
• Chimon — Greek: “wintry weather,” “storm”
• Chion — Greek: “snow” (source of Chione, the name of a number of characters in Greek mythology)
• Chioni — Modern Greek: “snow”
• Corwynt –  Welsh: “hurricane”
• Dilyw — Welsh: “deluge”
• Eira — Welsh: “snow”
• Elur, Edur — Basque: “snow”
• Erë — Albanian: “wind”
• Eriole – Greek: “hurricane,” “whirlwind”
• Eső — Hungarian: “rain”
• Euri — Basque: “rain”
• Flamen — Latin: “wind,” “gale,” “blast”
• Fulger — Romanian: “lightning”
• Fulgor, Fulgur – Latin: “lightning”
• Fulgora — Roman Goddess of lightning
• Fulmen – Latin: “lightning”
• Fulmine — Italian: “lightning”
• Furacán — Galician: “hurricane”
• Grad — Croatian, Polish, Russian: “hail”
• Grêle – French: “hail”
• Grando — Latin: “hail,” “hailstorm”
• Granizo — Portuguese, Spanish: “hail”
• Grom — Russian: “thunder”
• Guntur — Indonesian: “thunder”
• Gwynt — Welsh: “wind”
• Haize — Basque: “wind”
• Helicias — Greek: “forked lightning”
• Hóvihar — Hungarian: “blizzard”
• Hyeteria — Greek: “rainy weather”
• Hyetia — Greek: “rain”
• Hyetos — Greek: “rain”
• Hysma — Greek: “rain”
• Imber — Latin: “heavy rain”
• Lailaps — Greek: “hurricane,” “furious storm”
• Lauso — Basque: “sleet storm”
• Lietus — Latvian, Lithuanian: “rain”
• Lluvia — Spanish: “rain”
• Löök — Estonian: “blow”
• Lumi — Estonian, Finnish: “snow”
• Lyn — Danish, Norwegian: “lightning”
• Molinya — Russian: “lightning”
• Mvua — Swahili: “rain”
• Neige — French: “snow”
• Nevasca — Portuguese: “blizzard”
• Neve — Portuguese: “snow”
• Nieve — Spanish: “snow”
• Nimbus — Latin: “pouring rain”
• Ningor — Latin: “fall of snow”
• Nipha — Greek: “snow”
• Nivalis — Latin: “snowy”
• Nix — Latin: “snow”
• Ombria — Greek: “rain,” “rainy”
• Ombros — Greek: “heavy rain”
• Ondée — French: “heavy shower”O
• Orkan –Danish: “hurricane”
• Ouragan — French: “hurricane”
• Pagi — Estonian: “squall”
• Petir — Indonesia: “lightning”
• Pluie — French: “rain”
• Pluvia — Latin: “rain”
• Prahara — Indonesian: “tempest”
• Prester – Greek: “hurricane”
• Procella — Latin: “violent storm”
• Radi — Swahili: “thunder”
• Rafală — Romanian: “gust”
• Rafale — French: “flurry,” “squall,” “blast”
• Raffica — Italian: “gust,” “flurry”
• Rahe — Estonian: “hail”
• Rhagden – Greek: “in torrents”
• Rhyax – Greek: “torrent”
• Sade — Finnish: “rain”
• Salama — Finnish: “lightning”
• Snežana — Croation: “snowy”
• Szél — Hungarian: “wind”
• Taran — Welsh: “(peal) of thunder”
• Tempesta — Italian: “gale,” “tempest”
• Thunor – Old English: “thunder”
• Thyella — Greek: “gale,” “tempest”
• Topan — Indonesian: “typhoon”
• Tourbillon — French: “whirlwind”
• Trono — Galician: “thunder”
• Trovão — Portuguese: “thunder”
• Trumoi — Basque: “thunder”
• Tuono — Italian: “thunder”
• Tuule — Estonian: “wind”
• Tuuli — Finnish: “wind”
• Tximista — Basque: “lightning”
• Tymestl — Welsh: “storm,” “tempest”
• Umeme — Swahili: “lighning”
• Uragan — Albanian, Romanian: “hurricane”
• Vánice — Czech: “blizzard”
• Vėjas — Lithuanian: “wind”
• Vējš — Latvian: “wind”
• Vētra — Latvian: “storm”
• Vihar — Hungarian: “storm”
• Villám — Hungarian: “lightning”
• Viscol — Romanian: “blizzard”
• Xita — Maltese: “rain”
• Zale — Gree: “squall,” “storm,” “driving rain”

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