Runic Archives, Oslo
Runes and runic inscriptions
Runes are the letters of the alphabetic writing system, termed the futhark (after the first six signs), created by the Germanic peoples on the basis of Mediterranean models (most likely Roman) sometime after the birth of Christ and used by them in disparate variants for writing, especially in Scandinavia, c.150–1500/1600. Runic inscriptions are epigraphic occurrences of runes.
1. Older runes
The older futhark included 24 runes in a special
order, their forms characterized by vertical staves and/or diagonal strokes.
The earliest runic inscriptions appear c.160 on artefacts deposited in
Danish lakes (now bogs), and most of the 370 known inscriptions with older
runes—up until c.700—are found in Scandinavia, where they occur on
weapons, jewellery (including numerous amuletic gold bracteates, mainly from
Denmark), stones, and some everyday items. Texts are usually short, frequently
only a name, a formulaic word, or a simple statement (e.g. the alliterative
maker's formula on the gold horn from Gallehus in Jutland, Denmark). Some 35 of
the 50 memorial runestones from this period come from Norway. Runes appear on
the Continent in connection with the Germanic tribal migrations
(3rd/4th–6th centuries), usually as singular finds, although there is a
striking concentration, mainly on jewellery among grave goods, during the 6th
century in southern Germany. Scandinavian inscriptions c.550/600–700
exhibit linguistic and graphic innovations and are termed transitional.
2. Anglo-Frisian runes
The Frisians and the Anglo-Saxons developed
their own version of runes around 500, expanding their 'futhorc' to 26 runes in
Friesland and 28 in England (eventually 31) by introducing new signs for novel
sounds in the vernacular. There are some 20 Frisian inscriptions and 90
Anglo-Saxon non-numismatic inscriptions, all mainly from the 6th to 9th/10th
centuries; runes are found on weapons, jewellery, ecclesiastical items, stones,
and numerous coins (only names). Most notable are the Ruthwell stone cross,
Scotland, with part of the OE poem 'Dream of the Rood', and the Franks casket
of carved whale's bone. In several Insular and Continental manuscripts
Anglo-Saxon runes are presented (runica manuscripta). Among manuscript
runic evidence is also the mnemonic 'Rune-Poem', which consists of riddle-like
descriptions of the names of the individual runes (and for which there are
Scandinavian counterparts).
3. Viking Age runes
The Scandinavian language underwent great
changes during the 6th and 7th centuries, and a reform of the futhark c.700
resulted in the younger runes, numbering only sixteen, many simplified in form
and several representing multiple sounds. There were two initial form variants,
but mixtures arose and later even a new variant: formally simplified staveless
runes. The vast majority of Viking Age inscriptions are on stones, the most
famous, and longest with 750 runes, from the 9th century at Rök in
Östergötland, Sweden, where the text includes a stanza about
Theodoric the Great and other sections in code. (Runic code usually employs the
traditional tripartite division of the futhark.) A growing runestone tradition
in Denmark led to the erection in the mid-10th century of two stones at Jelling
in Jutland, the largest put up by King Harald Gormsson. This ornamented royal
stone apparently started a fashion in Denmark, where some 220 runestones are
recorded for the entire period c.700–1125. The fashion spread via the
Danish provinces in present-day southern Sweden to central Sweden, especially
Uppland. Over 2500 runestones, most of them clearly Christian and from the 11th
or early 12th century, are known from Viking Age Sweden, where professional
rune-carvers usually ornamented the stones with the outline of a serpent in
which the runes were placed, and often a cross. A typical inscription runs
something like: 'X erected this stone in memory of Y, his good son'.
4. Scandinavian medieval runes
The Christianization of Scandinavia
c.950–1050 brought with it the Roman script, but indigenous runes
continued to be used. The sixteen-rune younger futhark was expanded by adding
diacritics to runes or by giving new values to variant forms such that by the
13th century the medieval Scandinavian runic inventory was equivalent to the
Roman alphabet. Nearly 2700 runic inscriptions are known from the period
c.1100–1500, over half of them from Norway; they occur mainly in churches
(carved into the building itself, or on ecclesiastical inventory or
gravestones) or on archaeological finds from medieval towns (particularly
Bergen), where they were generally used for more ephemeral communication on
whittled sticks and bones: merchant's ownership tags, 'futhorks'/alphabets,
carver's signatures, personal messages, love-poetry, nonsense. Nearly 10% of
these texts, especially on wood or lead amulets, are in Latin (e.g. Ave Maria).
The Vikings had taken with them runes to their settlements in Russia, the
British Isles (the Danelaw, Scotland, Dublin, Man), the Faeroes, Orkney,
Iceland, and Greenland, and particularly in Iceland and Greenland runic
traditions continued or revived. Following the Black Death in Scandinavia
c.1350 the use of runes declined, and few inscriptions (mainly from Gotland)
are known from the 15th century.
JEK [James E. Knirk]
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