(Aurochs)

Strength; Primal strength, courage, Overcoming Obstacles

The auroch was a huge wild, very fierce ox, much like the Longhorn cattle of modern times. The horns of these creatures were worn on the Viking helmets, engraved with the UR rune to transfer by associative magic the strength of the auroch to warriors. The last aurochs roamed the plains of Northern Europe about 1627.

Uruz is also associated with the primal creative force, since in Norse mythology, Audhumla, was the primal cow formed from the dripping rime produced from the union of Fire and Ice at the time of Creation. Her milk nourished the cosmic giant Ymir. She also licks into being out of a block of ice Buri, the producer and grandfather of Odin and his brothers.

The Norse and Icelandic Rune poems talk of poem talks of hardship for the herdsman and refinement by suffering using the images of iron and also drizzle and os create an image of hardships and objects to be overcome by strength and endurance. Throughout the Rune poems of the North are reminders of the cold, bleak world in which the Vikings lived and explains why so many of the runes use symbolism of the extremes of ice and fire, rough seas, mist and darkness.