is the rune denoting the soundp in the Elder Futharkrunic alphabet. It does not appear in the Younger Futhark. It is named peorð in the Anglo-Saxon rune-poem and glossed enigmatically as follows: The name is not comprehensible from Old English, i.e. no word similar to peorð is known in this language. According to a 9th-century manuscript of Alcuin, written using the Gothic alphabet in Britain, the letters p and q are called "pairþra" and "qairþra", respectively. One of these names clearly is derived from the other. However, the names are not comprehensible in Gothic either, and it is not clear which is derived from which, although it is known that the Elder Futhark had a p, but no q rune. In any case, it seems evident that peorð is related to pairþra. The Anglo-Saxon futhorc adopted exactly the same approach for the addition of a labiovelar rune, cƿeorð, in both shape and name based on peorð, but it is not known if the Gothic runes already had a similar variant rune of p, or if the labiovelar letter was a 4th-century creation of Ulfilas. The Common Germanic name could be referring to a pear-tree. Based on the context of "recreation and amusement" given in the rune poem, a common speculative interpretation is that the intended meaning is "pear-wood" as the material of either a woodwind instrument, or a "game box" or game pieces made from wood. From peorð, Proto-Germanic form *perðu, *perþō or *perþaz may be reconstructed on purely phonological grounds. The expected Proto-Germanic term for "pear tree" would be *pera-trewô. The Oghamletter nameCeirt, glossed as "apple tree", may in turn be a loan from Germanic into Primitive Irish. The earliest attestation of the rune is in the Kylver Stonefuthark row. The earliest example in a linguistic context is already in futhorc, in the Kent II, III and IV coin inscriptions, dated to ca. AD700. On St. Cuthbert's coffin, a p rune takes the place of Greek Ρ. The Westeremden yew-stick has op hæmu "at home" and up duna "on the hill". Looijenga speculates that the p rune arose as a variant of the b rune, parallel to the secondary nature of Ogham peith. The uncertainty surrounding the rune is a consequence of the rarity of the *p phoneme in Proto-Germanic, itself due to the rarity of its parent-phoneme *b in Proto-Indo-European. The rune is discontinued in Younger Futhark, which expresses /p/ with the b rune, for example on the Viking AgeSkarpåker Stone, for Old Norse
