At first, Old English was written in runes (futhorc)

The Runic alphabets were a set of related alphabets using letters (known as runes), used to write Germanic languages before and shortly after the Christianization of Scandinavia and the British Isles

OE shifted to the Latin alphabet after the Anglo-Saxons' conversion to Christianity

However, certain additions were made to the Latin alphabet: the letter yogh  was adopted from Irish; the letter eth was an alteration of Latin "d"; and the runic letters thorn and wynn are borrowings from futhorc

Certain special symbols were also used: a symbol for the conjunction 'and', a character similar to the number seven (called a Tironian note)

A symbol for the relative pronoun 'þæt', a thorn with a crossbar through the ascender ('')