*Ōþala

ᛟ is a rune that is transliterated as o and œ in the Elder Futhark and the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc writing systems respectively. It is known as ēþel ("inheritance, home, native land") in Old English, from which hypothetical Proto-Germanic names such as *ōþala have been reconstructed.

As with other Elder Futhark runes, the origins of ᛟ are unclear, beyond an ultimate ancestor in the Phoenician alphabet. Various intermediate scripts and characters have been proposed, including the Greek Ω, which closely resembles it. Even more similar to the rune are some symbols representing "o" sounds in Etruscan and Alpine scripts. The rune may in turn be the origin of the Gothic letter 𐍉 ("utal"), used by Wulfila in the 4th century CE for his Gothic Bible, although Greek letters may also have been used as a source.

As ᛟ does not occur in Younger Futhark, it largely disappears from the Scandinavian record around the 8th century, but its usage continued in England into the 11th century, where alongside inscriptions was also used in manuscripts as a shorthand for the word ēþel, similarly to how other runes were could be used at the time.

Knowledge of the English form the rune continued into the 17th century due to manuscripts preserving the Old English rune poem and efforts of collectors who published copies of these. It features in the J.R.R Tolkien's writing system of the dwarves in The Hobbit, first published in 1937. Also beginning in the 1930s, ᛟ was appropriated by Nazi occultists during the 1930s and 1940s, along with many other historical European symbols, including other runes. This Nazi-symbol, is now used by neo-Nazis and far-right groups. ᛟ also continues to be used in popular culture, including in video games and Tolkien's other works, and by adherents of the new religious movement, Heathenry.