Strängnäs stone

The Strängnäs stone (Swedish: Strängnässtenen) or runic Inscription Sö Fv2011;307 (formerly Sö ALLHSÖDERM;77) is written in Proto-Norse with the Elder Futhark on a piece of sandstone that was discovered in 1962, when a stove was demolished in a house at Klostergatan 4, in Strängnäs, Sweden.[1] The stone is of jotnian sandstone and measures 21 cm in length, 13 cm in width and 7,5 cm in thickness.[2]

The runestone

It contains two words of note in the study of Germanic languages and of such almost mythical character that it is understandable that its authenticity is questioned:[3] Erilaʀ and Wodinʀ[4] (or Erilaz and Wodinz, ʀ and z being interchangeable[5]). The first word is compared to that of the Heruls, a Germanic tribe with a traditional homeland in Scandinavia, and to the title jarl and its anglo-saxon form earl.[6] The second word is a late Proto-Norse, and otherwise unattested, form of Odin.[1] In spite of international interest from prominent scholars in the field, it took 49 years before the stone was formally described by runologists.[4]

It may originally have come from the island Selaön east of Strängnäs. The island was historically an important settlement, and the Old Norse Ynglinga saga tells that Selaön (ON: Sila) was where the legendary king Granmar of Södermanland went to a feast at one of his farms.[3] An important estate on this island was Tuna, at Kolsundet strait.[3][7]

Gustavsson and Swantesson remark that the poor documentation concerning the discovery of the inscription creates uncertainty about its authenticity, but four independent geological and technical analyses support that it is an authentic Proto-Norse inscription, in addition to linguistic and runological support.[8] The Scandinavian Runic-text Database records the stone as Proto-Norse ("U"), but adds the possibility that it is a late inscription.[5]

Discovery

Strängnäs

Curator Carl Gustaf Blomberg reported to National Antiquarian Sven B. F. Jansson that the stone had probably been inserted among bricks when an iron stove had been installed in the end of the 1870s.[1] The district antiquarian Ivar Schnell was in the midst of finishing a publication and asked Jansson for a picture and a description of the inscription. Jansson reported that stone consisted of the inscription …rila͡ʀ •wodinʀ • and stated:[1]

Vi möter här två välkända ord. Det första är det i flera urnordiska inskrifter belagda, dunkla ordet erilaʀ, det andra ordet är otvivelaktigt Oden. Denna inskrift kommer att sätta myror i huvudet på oss runforskare.[1]

Here we encounter two well-known words. The first one is attested from several Proto-Norse inscriptions, the nebulous word erilaʀ, and the other word is doubtlessly Odin. This inscription is bound to puzzle us runologists.[9]

Schnell published a picture of the stone with a caption that agreed well with Jansson's and a tentative dating to the 5th century.[1][10]

International interest

Otto Höfler

In 1968, Otto Höfler at Vienna asked Jansson if the inscription was authentic and when it would be published. Elisabeth Svärdström at the Swedish National Heritage Board answered him that it was by appearance Proto-Norse, but both she and Jansson considered it to be a recent inscription. Höfler was at the time working on erilaz inscriptions and protested in defense of the inscription, and he remarked that a presumed forger would have had to be rather sophisticated in his method and also be remarkably well-versed in phonological developments. He again insisted that the inscription be formally discussed and published. Svärdström answered that the National antiquarian intended to publish it formally in Fornvännen, but was delayed due to other commitments. It had taken several months before a proper study could be performed on the circumstances surrounding the find, and so information was lacking, and moreover the iron stove was of a type that was produced no earlier than 1910. Also Wolfgang Krause at Göttingen was involved, being sent copies of the correspondence. However, in spite of two prominent foreign scholars showing interest in the find, there was no publication.[1]

Linguistic analysis and context

In one of his later letters in 1968, Otto Höfler reacted that if the inscription would be a forgery, the forger must have been so sophisticated that he knew about the historic loss of final vowels after long vowels in Proto-Norse times (»…in einer Zeit, in der … der Endungsvokal nach den langen ō in wodinʀ schon geschwunden gewesen wäre.»). It can also be added to that a forger needs to have known that an Elder Futhark inscription could go from right to left instead of from left to right. Moreover, in the end of the 19th century when the stone was placed in the wall, there were not yet any scholarly discussions about erilaʀ och wōðinaʀ that could have inspired a forger.[3]

The word erilaʀ was not known until 1918 when Erik Noreen made the academic world aware of his interpretation of the Järsberg runestone in Värmland. Neither could the fake inscription Wodana hailag on the Kerlich buckle from Rheinland-Pfalz have inspired the inscription from Strängnäs.[3][11][12]

Wodinʀ

The Proto-Norse morpheme *wōð- (from PIE *wāt-), is the origin of OWN u-stem óðr used as an adjective meaning "raging", "wild" and "possessed", and as a noun in the senses "mind", "thought", "poetry" and "poem", and to this morpheme the name of the Norse god Óðinn also belongs. The Germanic morheme *wōð- has different derivations formed with n-suffixes, i.e. the suffix -ana- in Óðinn and the variant -ina- in Middle English Wednesdei (with i-umlaut ō > ē).[3][13][14] Historically, wodinʀ would represent a relatively late stage of Proto-Norse with syncope of the last vowel, to compare with the inscription hAriwolafʀ on the Stentoften Runestone and hAerAmAlAusʀ on the Björketorp Runestone.[6] The PN *wōðu- is found in the male name Wōðurīðaʀ in the dative case form woduride (with i-stem derivation) on the Tune stone, and with the prefix un- in unwodi͡ʀ on the Gårdlösa fibula, which would mean "not raging". The reason why the Norse god was called both Óðinn and Óðr in Old Icelandic literature is possibly due to Óðr representing an older version of the god.[15] The theonym Óðinn is unattested in runestone inscriptions with the Elder Futhark, but appears in the form Wodan on the Nordendorf I fibula from the second half of the 6th century,[16] and on the Ribe skull fragment from c. 725.[3][17]

Wodinʀ in the inscripton may be a formation with the suffix -na- (PIE -no-), i.e. -ana-, -na- or -ína-, and with all those three alternative variants, syncopization may lead to the form wodinʀ. The use of long vowel before the last suffix may have served to distance the derivation from the root *wōðuz.[18] In Proto-Germanic, the suffix -īna- served to form adjectives denoting state and kind.[19] Later the meaning "of a certain kind" evolved into "propensity" and "talent", like ON heppinn ("lucky") from happ ("luck").[20] It is consequently possible that the man who wrote the inscripton called himself the "Eril with a talent for (divine?) possession" (ON øðinn). This can be compared with other words derived from øð-, like øðifullr ("crazy") and øðimaðr ("man with a temper").[6][21]

Erilaʀ

The Järsberg Runestone.

Parts of the inscription are missing, but in the erilaʀ inscriptions, the phrase "I the Eril" appears in at least four, and possibly six cases. If the Strängäs inscription is authentic, it should have contained that phrase too, and wodinʀ would not have referred to the god Odin, but be the name of a person. The commonly discussed word erilaʀ, which is also associated with the tribe Heruls and the title Jarl, appears with some variations in nine or ten inscriptions: 1KJ 16 Bratsberg, 27 Kragehul, 29 Lindholmen, 156 Veblungsnes, 169 Rosseland, 70 Järsberg, 171 By, 128 Väsby and Äskatorp, and in a recent find from Trollhättan 2009. The find from Strängnäs is the first one from the Mälaren Valley. The inscriptions are dated to the 5th and 6th centuries, and are from Norway, Sweden and Denmark, which suggests that the word is a formula. Gustavsson and Swantesson consider that the word probably does not denote an ethnicity (Heruls) or a title (jarl/earl),[22] but that it may instead refer to cultic activities.[6][23]

Runographically it is notable that the bind rune a͡ʀ is used in the Erilaʀ of the inscription. Among the five Proto-Norse inscriptions where it is found, two are in the word erilaʀ,[24] viz. in KJ 16 Bratsberg och 27 Kragehul, and a third find is a bracteate that was found in Trollhättan in 2009. Striking is also the existence of bind runes in the ek erilaʀ/irilaʀ inscriptions, which according to Mindy Mac Leod may be to catch the attention of the readers.[25] It is remarkable that the Strängnäs inscription was engraved in a closed frame, and that there are two dividing signs in the form of dots. That kind of dividing sign is rare but is found on the Kalleby stone. Frame lines are rare and this is a unique case of a closed frame.[26]

Geological studies

Several geological studies have been made of the inscription, all of them in favour of it being authentic.[8]

As early as the fall of 1962, restorer Arne Strömberg, head of the Heritage Board's techical department, performed a geological analysis of the stone. In his evaluation he stated that the inscription clearly showed no signs of being recent, but that it was not possible to establish its age. There had been a faint erosion that had removed all remains of crushed quartz and which had also somewhat coarsened the granular relief in the grooves. He also deemed that the stone had been larger when the inscription was made and that the stone later had been broken apart.[27]

Runo Löfvendahl at the Heritage Board studied the stone in 2002, and noted that no traces could be found of vegetal growth, and that there were tar stains, although not in the grooves. He stated that it is to be expected that the grooves are lighter in colour than the surface of the stone, as they were engraved in quartzite, and that the inscription probably is authentic.[2]

Gustavsson and Swantesson comment that the inscription looks recent, but remark that that it is not unusual that inscriptions done in quartzite look recent since erosion of quartzite is very slow in Scandinavian conditions. Three petroglyphs in another type of quartzitic sandstone from the Nordic Bronze Age in Järrestad near Simrishamn have been naturally preserved in an almost pristine and untouched state. In spite of the fact that the petroglyphs are considerably older than the runic inscription, they have been preserved without any noticeable traces of erosion.[3]

In 2007, Laila Kitzler-Åhfeldt created a model with an optical 3D scanner,[2] for a pilot study in preparation for the formal publication of the inscription that would take place in 2011, in Fornvännen, many years after the discovery. She studied the traces of the cutting technique of parts of runes 5 (w), 7 (d) and 10 (ʀ), as well as the two lines over and under the text. She intended to compare the Sparlösa, the Tunnerstad and the Rök runestones from the early Viking Age with five modern runestones made in the 1990s. According to the analysis, the Strängnäs stone is cut with an archaic technique and is most similar to the Sparlösa runestone, than the Tunnerstad, and finally the Rök runestone. These three stones can be dated on linguistic and runological bases to the 9th century. There is very little that resembles the technique in which the modern inscriptions were made.[28] Gustavsson and Swantesson caution, however, that the method is new and has not been tested on many inscriptions, and it is not known whether the differences in technique may be due to the nature of the stone.[3]

Notes

1. Gustavsson & Swantesson 2011, p. 307.
2. Gustavsson & Swantesson 2011, p. 308.
3. Gustavsson & Swantesson 2011, p. 309.
4. Gustavsson & Swantesson 2011, p. 307 ff.
5. Project Samnordisk Runtextdatabas Svensk - Rundata entry for Sö Fv2011;307.
6. Gustavsson & Swantesson 2011, p. 310.
7. Fischer 2009, p. 257
8. Gustavsson & Swantesson 2011, p. 311.
9. Translation done by Wikipedia editors.
10. Schnell 1965, p. 77
11. Krause & Jankuhn 1966, p.8.
12. Henning 1889, p. 156
13. Våre arveord 2007, p. 825 f
14. Íslensk orðsifja bók 2008, p. 684
15. Meid 1957, p. 86, 117
16. Düwel 2008, p. 63 f
17. Stoklund 2004a, p. 27 ff
18. Meid 1957, p. 88 f
19. Meid 1967, p. 110 ff
20. Wessén 1958, p. 42
21. Norrøn ordbok 2008
22. Düwel 1992
23. Hultgård 2009
24. MacLeod 2002, p. 40, 48
25. MacLeod 2002, p. 196
26. Gustavsson & Swantesson 2011, p. 310 f.
27. Gustavsson & Swantesson 2011, p. 307 f.
28. Kitzler Åhfeldt 2007

References

• Düwel, K., 1992. Zur Auswertung der Brakteateninschriften. Runenkenntnis und Runeninschriftenals Oberschichten-Merkmale. Hauck, K. (ed.). Der historische Horizont der Götterbild-Amulette aus der Übergangsepoche von der Spätantike zum frühen Mittelalter. Göttingen.
• Düwel, K., 2008. Runenkunde. 4. überarbeitete und aktualisierte Auflage. Stuttgart.
• Fischer, S., 2009. Narrative Trajectories between Nodal Points in the Cultural Landscape – The Eriksgata of King Ingjald. Ney, A. et al. (eds.). Á austrvega. Saga and East Scandinavia. Preprint Papers of The 14th International Saga Conference Uppsala, 9th–15th August 2009. Gävle.
• Gustavsson, Helmer & Swantesson, Jan O.H. 2011. Strängnäs, Skramle och Tomteboda: tre urnordiska runinskrifter, in Fornvännen
• Henning, R., 1889. Die Deutschen Runendenkmäler. Strassburg.
• Hultgård, A., 2009. Formules de théophanie de la Scandinavie à l’Iran. Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belle-Lettres (Janvier-Mars 2009). Paris.
• Íslensk orðsifjabók. Blöndal Magnússon 2008.
• Kitzler Åhfeldt, L., 2007. Huggspårsanalys av ett runfragment från Strängnäs. Rapport från Arkeologiska Forskningslaboratoriet 8. Stockholm.
• Krause, W. & Jankuhn, H., 1966. Die Runeninschriften im älteren Futhark. Göttingen.
• MacLeod, M., 2002. Bind-Runes. An investigation of ligatures in runic epigraphy. Uppsala universitet.
• Meid, W., 1957. Das Suffix –no- in Götternamen. Beiträge zur Namenforschung 8 (1957). Heidelberg.
• Meid, W., 1967. Wortbildungslehre. Germanische Sprachwissenschaft III. Wortbildungslehre. Berlin.
• Norrøn Ordbok. 5. utgåva ved Leiv Heggstad, Finn Hødnebø og Erik Simensen. 2008. Oslo.
• Schnell, I. & Holmström, R. (red.), 1965. Södermanland. Ett bildverk. Allhems landskapsböcker. Malmö.
• Stoklund, M., 2004. The runic inscription on the Ribe skull fragment. Ribe Excavations 1970–1976, vol. 5. Ribe.
• Våre arveord. Bjorvand & Lindeman 2007.
• Wessén, E. 1958. Svensk språkhistoria. II. Ordböjnings lära. Stockholm.