Rune Carvers in Military Campaigns

Runic inscriptions, such as those found in the probable Varangian contexts of Hagia Sofia and Piraeus, as well as on the Black Sea island of Berezan, where the origin of the carver is less obvious, show that some of the Scandinavians in such contexts knew how to write runes. Domestic Scandinavian runestones also display traces of martial activities, as in the inscription about the carver Ulfr, who participated in the taking of giald in England. In addition, a number of objects inscribed with runes have been found in the Garrison at Birka. Previously, runestones have figured in debates regarding conflict, tribute, and political expansion within Scandinavia. One of the questions that has been addressed deals with runestones in certain parts of Scandinavia – Bornholm, Gotland and Öland – and whether they were produced by locals, or by carvers from other parts of Scandinavia. Runestone characteristics that were earlier attributed to mainland Swedish influences on Gotland and Bornholm can in fact also be dependent on chronology, or be seen as regional eastern Scandinavian features. One of my queries has been whether it is possible to reach a more profound understanding of such phenomenon by analysing carving techniques, since my results indicate that some runestones on these islands were produced by travelling and visiting carvers, and could be indicators of the status of cross-regional relationships.

Thralls in Runic Inscriptions

Runes are the indigenous writing system in Viking-Age Scandinavia, and therefore a very important source for this, otherwise, oral society. There are around 3,000 runic inscriptions, but the mentioning of thralls are extremely rare. Only a handful examples can be discussed, such as the words bryti and fostri/fostra, and a couple concerning freed slaves, løysar. This should not be surprising, since there probably was no cause for commemorating a slave in a runic inscription.

Gold, Gods and Women

Women in lron Age Scandinavia were not passive homemakers. Instead they had considerable interest in and occasional influence over events outside the domestic sphere. Through a study of the gold bracteates - their function, runic inscriptions and iconography —the role of women will be investigated. Gold bracteates were not artefacts with exclusively male associations, but rather, they demonstrate the influence of women in political matters.

Kenningar in den metrischen Runeninschriften der Wikingerzeit und des Mittelalters

There are several reasons why it is of great importance to include the kennings of the metrical runic inscriptions in thorough investigations of kennings, albeit their number is not particularly high. One reason for this is that there are Viking-Age metrical inscriptions with kennings attested from Eastern Scandinavia, and mostly in eddic metres. Further, some of these kennings belong to the oldest kennings we know at all from Scandinavia, e. g. the kennings of the Theoderic-stanza on the Swedish Rök stone are older than the work of Bragi Boddason. To make it easier for further research to include these kennings, this article gives a short overview of this material. It is worth considering the kennings of the metrical runic inscriptions, for they show a great variety and they are highly developed. Beside the use of tvíkennt and rekit kennings, they testify the knowledge of half-kennings and the poetic device of ofljóst in medieval Norway.

Runic alu and laukaz on Objects of the Germanic Migration Period

The identification of characters in some prophylactic runic inscriptions as representative not of their names or as loan words from other magic traditions but as abbreviations based on initial sounds of other early Germanic words not previously adduced in the interpretive context resolves problems associated with the signification and encoding practice of such Migration Age forms as alu, laukaz, and the stand-alone uses of the L- and N-runes.

Die frühe voraltsächsische und voraltfriesische Runenüberlieferung

This paper deals with two runic inscriptions that are highly relevant to language history. 1. The runic sequences on the three Weser rune bones, which date to the first half of the 5th century, are not entirely clear. However, West Germanic (Pre-Old Saxon) linguistic features such as gemination by j (kunni ‘kin, clan’) and loss of -a < *-az (hari ‘army’) are obvious. By far the most interesting linguistic form is the preterite deda ‘did’ that reflects PGmc. *-dai (cf. PNorse talgi-dai ‘carved’ on the Nøvling fibula) as opposed to PGmc. *-dǣ(d) (PNorse -da, OHG -ta etc.). Apparently, we are dealing with two distinct endings, *-dai deriving from an PIE middle in *-(t)ó(i̯). 2. The legend ska 2 nomodu (a 2 = ᚪ) on a solidus of unknown provenance (ca. 600) renders the dithematic anthroponym Skānɔmōdǝ̣ (or *Skānɵmōdǝ̣), presumably the name of the moneyer. It seems that medial o stands for [ɔ] or [ɵ], an allophonic variant of the linking element /a/ before a labial consonant; parallels can be found in Old Germanic naming. Two linguistic features, viz. ā < WGmc. au and the nominative ending -ǝ̣ < WGmc. -a < PGmc. *-az, indicate that the language of the inscription is Pre-Old Frisian.