Cirth
The runes of Beleriand, cut into wood and stone
Certar — The appendix gives Certar and Cirth side by side and renders both as 'runes'. (K1, Source: The Lord of the Rings, Appendix E, Writing) the Alphabet of Daeron — The name of their richest and most ordered form, ascribed in Elvish tradition to Thingol's minstrel. (K1, Source: The Lord of the Rings, Appendix E, Writing) Angerthas Moria — The Dwarvish form kept in Moria; the appendix translates the name as the Long Rune-rows of Moria and says the tomb-inscription is written in it. (K1, Source: The Lord of the Rings, Appendix E, Writing)
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The Cirth are runes, and their shape follows from what they were for: the Sindar devised them in Beleriand and long used them only to cut names and short memorials into wood or stone, which is where the angular forms come from. In their older, simpler shape they travelled east in the Second Age and were taken up by Men, Dwarves and even Orcs, each altering them to suit themselves. Before the First Age ended they were rearranged in Beleriand under the influence of the Tengwar; that richest form is the Alphabet of Daeron. The Elves of the West largely abandoned runes, but Eregion kept the alphabet and passed it to Moria, where it became the Dwarves' own — the Angerthas Moria, in which Balin's tomb is inscribed. The Dwarves reassigned a number of the values, so a certh does not mean the same thing in both rows.
These are the certar of the Angerthas Moria — the values Tolkien used for Balin’s tomb. The table is measured from the same transcription that sets the names in this register, so the two cannot drift apart. A certh often carries more than one letter.
- pCerth 1
- bCerth 2
- fCerth 3
- vCerth 4
- mCerth 6
- mbCerth 7
- tCerth 8
- dCerth 9
- thCerth 10
- dhCerth 11
- rCerth 12
- chCerth 13
- jCerth 14
- shCerth 15
- zCerth 17
- kCerth 18
- gCerth 19
- khCerth 20
- ghCerth 21
- nCerth 22
- lCerth 31
- ndCerth 33
- hCerth 34
- ngCerth 37
- iCerth 39
- yCerth 40
- uCerth 42
- wCerth 44
- eCerth 46
- aCerth 48
- oCerth 50
- sCerth 54
- psCerth 57
- tsCerth 58
Sources
- The Lord of the Rings — Appendix E, Writing
- The Lord of the Rings — Appendix E, Writing
- The Lord of the Rings — Appendix E, Writing
- The Lord of the Rings — Book II, ch. 4, A Journey in the Dark
Cite this page
Legendarium (2026): „Cirth“. Last updated August 30, 2026. https://www.legendarium.page/languages/cirth/
APA
Legendarium. (2026). Cirth. Last updated August 30, 2026. https://www.legendarium.page/languages/cirth/
MLA
„Cirth“. Legendarium, 2026, https://www.legendarium.page/languages/cirth/. Last updated August 30, 2026.
BibTeX
@misc{legendarium-cirth-en,
title = {Cirth},
author = {{Legendarium}},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://www.legendarium.page/languages/cirth/}},
note = {Last updated August 30, 2026}
}