Cirth Runes: The Angerthas, Dwarf Runes and Moria Explained

Quick Answer: The Cirth (singular certh) are Tolkien's runes. According to Appendix E of The Lord of the Rings they were invented by the Sindarin Elves for carving, extended by Daeron of Doriath into the Angerthas Daeron, and adopted by the Dwarves, whose form is the Angerthas Moria. Balin's tomb is written in Cirth. The Doors of Durin are not: they use Tengwar. The runes on Thror's map in The Hobbit are English (Anglo-Saxon) runes, not Cirth.

Search for "elvish runes" or "dwarf runes lotr" and you will find three different things mixed together: Tolkien's own invented runes, the real-world Anglo-Saxon runes he used in The Hobbit, and the flowing Tengwar letters that are not runes at all. This guide separates them, using what Tolkien actually wrote in Appendix E and in the books themselves.

What the Cirth are

Cirth is Sindarin for "runes"; one rune is a certh. Tolkien describes them in the second half of Appendix E to The Lord of the Rings, after the Tengwar.

Their defining feature is the shape. The Cirth were made for cutting and scratching: into wood, stone or metal. A knife or chisel makes straight lines easily and curves badly, so every certh is built from a vertical stem with straight branches. That is the same practical logic that shaped the real runic alphabets of northern Europe, and it is why the Cirth look so much like them.

The Tengwar are the opposite. They were designed for a brush or pen, so they are full of bows, loops and curling stems. When you compare the two scripts, the difference between carving and writing is visible at a glance.

Who invented the Cirth

Appendix E tells the history in a few dense paragraphs. In summary:

1. The Sindar of Beleriand devised the first Cirth in the First Age. At first they were used only for names and short memorials carved on wood or stone.
2. Daeron, the minstrel and loremaster of King Thingol in Doriath, rearranged and enlarged them. His fuller system is called the Angerthas Daeron.
3. The Dwarves learned the runes. The Dwarves of Moria in particular took the Angerthas over and used it widely, changing some values to suit their own language. Their form is the Angerthas Moria.
4. The Eldar largely abandoned the Cirth once the Noldor brought the Fëanorian letters (the Tengwar) into Middle-earth. The runes survived mainly among Dwarves and among peoples who had learned them from Dwarves.

This is why fans call them "dwarf runes" even though their inventors were Elves. By the Third Age the Cirth were, in practice, the Dwarves' script.

What "Angerthas" means

Angerthas means a "long rune-row": the complete, ordered set of runes, the way "alphabet" names the full ordered set of letters. Appendix E presents the Cirth in a numbered table, and the table is arranged as the Angerthas.

Tolkien distinguishes two main forms of that row:

• Angerthas Daeron — the Elvish system as Daeron extended it.
• Angerthas Moria — the Dwarvish use of it, in which some runes were given new values and some new runes were added for sounds in Khuzdul.

Appendix E also mentions a further Dwarvish variant associated with Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, which differed again in a few places.

The practical point for a reader: the same rune shape does not always carry the same sound. Which value a certh has depends on which Angerthas the inscription follows.

How the runes are organised

We are not reproducing a rune-by-rune value table here, because the values shift between the Angerthas Daeron and the Angerthas Moria and a simplified chart would teach errors. What Appendix E makes clear about the system as a whole:

• Around sixty runes are listed in Tolkien's numbered table.
• The shapes are systematic. Like the Tengwar, the Cirth were partly arranged so that related sounds have related shapes. Adding a stroke to a branch, or mirroring a rune, often marks a related consonant. The system is more regular in Daeron's arrangement than in its earliest form.
• Vowels have their own runes. Unlike the most common Tengwar modes, where vowels are small marks above consonants, the Cirth write vowels as full runes in the line.
• Dwarvish changes are deliberate. The Moria Dwarves reassigned some values and introduced runes for sounds their language needed.

If you want to read an actual inscription, work from the table in Appendix E itself, and check which Angerthas the text uses. That is how every serious transcription of Balin's tomb is done.

Balin's tomb: the Cirth on the page

The most famous Cirth inscription in the books is in Book II, chapter "A Journey in the Dark". In the Chamber of Mazarbul the Fellowship finds a white stone slab carved with runes. Tolkien prints the runes in the chapter, and Gandalf reads them.

The words are Khuzdul, the secret language of the Dwarves:

Balin Fundinul Uzbad Khazaddumu

The book gives the meaning as "Balin son of Fundin, Lord of Moria". Notice what that sentence contains:

• Balin — a name.
• Fundinul — Fundin plus a patronymic ending, "son of Fundin".
• Uzbad — "lord".
• Khazaddumu — Khazad-dûm, the Dwarvish name of Moria, in a form meaning "of Khazad-dûm".

The script is the Angerthas Moria, and the language is Khuzdul. It is a short text, which fits what runes were for: names, titles, memorials. For more on the language itself, see our Khuzdul guide.

The same chamber holds the Book of Mazarbul, the battered record of Balin's colony. Gandalf says it is written in runes, partly in Dwarvish style and partly in the runes of Dale, and the readable fragments he gives are in the Common Speech (rendered as English). The final, desperate line Gandalf reads is the one readers remember: the Dwarves could not get out. The Book of Mazarbul shows that the Cirth were not only for carved names; the Dwarves also wrote ordinary records with them, in ink, on pages.

The Doors of Durin are Tengwar, not runes

This is the most common mistake in "elvish runes" searches. The West-gate of Moria, where Gandalf has to work out the password, is not a runic inscription.

The arch over the doors carries the words:

Ennyn Durin Aran Moria: pedo mellon a minno.

Two facts about it:

• The language is Sindarin, the Elvish tongue of Middle-earth, not Khuzdul. The doors were made by Narvi the Dwarf, but the spell and the lettering were the work of Celebrimbor of Eregion, an Elf, and the inscription speaks to Elves.
• The script is Tengwar, in the Mode of Beleriand, the arrangement in which vowels are written as full letters rather than as marks above consonants.

So the two great inscriptions of Moria use two different scripts and two different languages. The gate is Elvish letters, Elvish language. The tomb is Dwarvish runes, Dwarvish language. Reading them side by side is the clearest possible demonstration of the difference between Tengwar and Cirth. Our full breakdown of the gate is in Speak Friend and Enter in Elvish.

Thror's map: English runes, not Cirth

The Hobbit is the book most people picture when they think of dwarf runes, and it is the one place where the runes are not Cirth.

Thror's map, and the runes around the border of Tolkien's own dust-jacket design, are written in Anglo-Saxon runes, the Old English futhorc, spelling out modern English words. Tolkien explained the choice in the note printed at the front of The Hobbit: the Dwarves' own runes were represented by English runes, so that readers could decode them with a little effort. He even gives a simplified key.

That means:

• If you transcribe Thror's map, you are reading English in real historical runes.
• The moon-letters on the map, the hidden writing Elrond finds, are a story device in the same rune style; their in-world nature is that they are visible only by the light of a moon of the same shape and season as when they were written.
• None of this is the Angerthas. Tolkien developed the Cirth properly for The Lord of the Rings and its appendices.

When someone shows you a "Dwarvish rune alphabet" with one rune per English letter, it is almost always the futhorc from The Hobbit, not the Cirth from Appendix E. Both are legitimate Tolkien material, but they are different systems.

Other places runes appear

A few more references are useful for fans hunting runes in the books:

• Andúril. When Narsil is reforged for Aragorn, the blade is described as bearing seven stars, a crescent Moon and a rayed Sun, "and about them was written many runes". Those are runes in the narrative sense, not a Tengwar text. Our Tengwar modes guide addresses the common claim that the inscription is Classical-Mode Tengwar.
• Gandalf's mark. Gandalf's sign scratched on Bilbo's door in The Hobbit, and the G-rune he leaves at Weathertop in The Lord of the Rings, are runic marks rather than Tengwar writing.
• The Dwarves generally. Appendix E notes that the Dwarves used the Tengwar too when they needed to, but kept the Cirth as their characteristic script.

Cirth vs. Tengwar at a glance

The One Ring inscription is the other famous non-Elvish text in Tolkien's lettering, and it too is Tengwar, not runes. Its language is the Black Speech of Mordor. See The One Ring Inscription.

Can you write English in Cirth?

You can, in the same way people write English in Tengwar: by choosing a rune for each English sound and spelling consistently. Tolkien did not leave a published, authoritative English mode for the Cirth the way he left English Tengwar samples, so any English Cirth chart is a modern convention built on Appendix E values. Treat one as a fan system, and say which Angerthas values it follows.

If what you want is your name in Elvish lettering, Tengwar is the better-documented choice. Our free Tengwar name generator writes an English name in Tengwar, and the Tengwar alphabet guide explains how the letters work.

Why the Dwarves kept the runes

Appendix E and the books give a consistent picture of Dwarvish culture that explains their attachment to the Cirth:

• Dwarves are stone-workers. Their halls are carved, their memorials are carved, their gates are carved. A script built for the chisel suits them.
• They are secretive about their language. Khuzdul was not taught to outsiders, and Dwarves used their outer names among other peoples. A script they had made their own, and adapted to their own sounds, fits that habit.
• They are conservative. Long after the Elves had moved on to the Tengwar, the Dwarves kept the older Elvish runes, reworked for Khuzdul, much as a tradition of stone-cutters might keep an older letter-form.

The result is the irony at the heart of the subject: the "dwarf runes" are Elvish in origin, and the "elvish letters" on the Moria gate were carved for a Dwarf-kingdom. Our overview of Dwarves of Middle-earth covers Durin's Folk, Moria and Erebor in more depth.

How to start reading Cirth

1. Get Appendix E. Every edition of The Return of the King or the one-volume Lord of the Rings includes it. The Cirth table is there.
2. Learn the principle, not just the shapes. Notice how branches and strokes mark related sounds; it makes the table far easier to memorise.
3. Pick one Angerthas. Start with Moria, because Balin's tomb uses it and you can check your reading against the book's translation.
4. Transcribe Balin's tomb. Four words with a translation Tolkien gives in the text: the ideal first exercise.
5. Keep Thror's map separate. Practise it with an Old English futhorc key, not with Appendix E.

If you would rather practise writing Tengwar by hand, our Tengwar Scribe lets you draw letters and have the AI read them back.

People Also Ask

What are the Cirth? The Cirth (singular certh) are the runic alphabet Tolkien describes in Appendix E of The Lord of the Rings. In the story they were devised by the Sindarin Elves of Beleriand for carving in wood and stone, which is why they are made of straight strokes.

Are the runes on Thror's map in The Hobbit Cirth? No. They are Anglo-Saxon runes (the Old English futhorc) spelling modern English. Tolkien's note to The Hobbit explains that he represented the Dwarves' runes with English ones.

Is the Doors of Durin inscription written in runes? No. The West-gate of Moria is written in Tengwar, Mode of Beleriand, in Sindarin. The runic inscription in Moria is Balin's tomb, in Cirth and in Khuzdul.

What does Balin's tomb say? Balin Fundinul Uzbad Khazaddumu, translated in the book as "Balin son of Fundin, Lord of Moria". It is Khuzdul written in the Angerthas Moria.

Related Reading

• Tengwar Alphabet: Complete Guide to Tolkien's Elvish Writing System
• Khuzdul — Tolkien's Dwarven Language Complete Guide
• Dwarves of Middle-earth: Aulë, Durin's Folk, Moria and Erebor
• Speak Friend and Enter in Elvish: Pedo Mellon a Minno Explained
• Tengwar Modes Complete Guide — Beleriand, General Use, Classical
• The One Ring Inscription: What It Actually Says (And Why It's Not Elvish)