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Alruna

female given name

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ1135144 ↗
Source-derived summary

Alruna (Old Norse Ǫlrún, Old High German Ailrun, Modern German Alruna, Alraune) is a Germanic female personal name, from Proto Germanic *aliruna (or possibly *agilruna), which is formed from runa "secret, rune" and a debated prefix that may be ali-, agil-, or alu-.

In German, Alruna was also used as a short form of Adelruna, a different name with a first element *athal- "noble".

In Germanic mythology, Ailrun is the wife of Agilaz, the legendary archer. In the poem Völundarkviða, Ölrun (possibly Old Norse "ale rune") is identified as a valkyrie, and as a daughter of Kiár of Valland.

Alruna of Cham was an 11th-century Bavarian recluse, the Roman Catholic patroness of pregnancy. It is also the name for the Mandragora or mandrake, a plant belonging to the nightshade family, in a number of Germanic languages: alruna in Swedish, alrune in Danish and Norwegian, and Alraune in German.

See also

Albruna

Notes

References

Simek, Rudolf (2007) translated by Angela Hall. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. D.S. Brewer.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Alruna” is female given name. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Alruna, female and given, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2007—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Alruna, female and given is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “female given name” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1135144. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2007.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Alruna”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Alruna primary sources, Alruna archive and Alruna research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Alruna”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Alruna” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.