Vikings and runestones (part of 1)
I know nine things:
Good visitor,
Dash in game tavleynoy,
I am a skier and a scribe.
Bow, paddle and glorious
Warehouse runes are subject to me.
I am skilled in forging,
As well as in the Guzel.
(Ryognvald Kali. "The Poetry of the Skalds". Translation by S. V. Petrov)
Good visitor,
Dash in game tavleynoy,
I am a skier and a scribe.
Bow, paddle and glorious
Warehouse runes are subject to me.
I am skilled in forging,
As well as in the Guzel.
(Ryognvald Kali. "The Poetry of the Skalds". Translation by S. V. Petrov)
For thousands of years, mankind has done very well without writing. Well, it may have used pictures to convey information. But then, somewhere at the turn of the Bronze and Iron Ages, the volumes of information became so large that there was not enough human memory. It took the means of accounting and control more informative than pebbles and sticks, means of identification, in a word, everything that accurately conveys information over a distance and allows it to be saved.
The library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal died in the fire, but due to the fact that it consisted of “clay books”, it miraculously survived and reached our time. The same applies to the writing of the Scandinavian peoples, who possessed the so-called runic writing, that is, writing with the help of runes, signs similar to our alphabet, which were carved or carved on stone, metal, wood, and bone, and which therefore had a specific angular shape, convenient to cut.
Rune stones in the courtyard of the Church of Elling.
It is important to note that any written text is the most important source in studying the culture of the past, as it allows you to look into the spiritual world of a people who left behind their written signs and learn a lot about what to find out with the help of archaeological finds is very difficult. Therefore, it is not surprising that stones that have reached our time with runic inscriptions applied to them have become a real gift of fate for scientists.
The large stone in Jelling is a kind of “birth certificate” of Denmark. It has a height of 2,43 meters, weighs about 10 tons and is installed by King Harald I Sine Tooth no earlier than 965 of the year. The inscription on it reads: “Harald the king placed this stone in honor of Gorm, his father, and Tyura, his mother. Harald, who conquered all of Denmark and Norway, who baptized the Danes. ”
What historical time do they refer to? It is believed that the most ancient monuments of runic writing date back to the border of our era. But the place of origin and its very origin is still debated. The Elder Edda (or Edda Samunda, or Song Edda), a poetic collection of Old Norse songs about the gods and heroes of Scandinavian mythology, says that the supreme god Odin paid with his sufferings on the Yggdrasil tree just to learn the runes. But in the "Song of Riga" it is said that the runes belonged to the god Riga, who taught them the son of hevding, who became the ancestor of the first king of the Vikings. That is, even in Scandinavia itself, opinions on the origin of the runic writing were very different.
In any case, the runes have become a characteristic monument of the era of the Great Migration of Nations and the first barbarian kingdoms, and many things have survived that contain inscriptions made by runes. However, after the adoption of Christianity and its spread, they were gradually ousted from Latin use, although they were used in Sweden even in the XVIII - XIX centuries.
The first references to the ancient runes in the literature refer to the 1554 year. Then Johannes Magnus in hisStories ready and svevov "led the Gothic alphabet, a year later, his brother Olaf Magnus in the" History of the Northern Nations "published the runic alphabet. But since many runic inscriptions were made on stones, even then books appeared with their drawings, including the runic calendar found on Gotland. Interestingly, since a number of stones have been lost since that time, their images have become the only source of their study for modern researchers.
Interest in the stones with runic inscriptions broke out only in the second half of the XIX century, and many stones became known to specialists already in the twentieth century from photographs of 1920-30-s and scientific publications in the beginning of 1940-x. It is possible that the reason for this attitude to the Viking heritage was its widespread use in Nazi Germany as a means of promoting Aryan spirit and culture. Well, then on these monuments of Scandinavian culture, various mystics and occultists, who considered the rune stones as certain “places of power”, directly “attacked”. The fashionable fashion of Scandinavian neo-paganism and mysticism, which flourished in lush colors, also contributed to the dissemination of pseudo-knowledge about runes and runestones, subtracted from the occult literature of modern authors. The same can be said about the popularization of the runes and paganism in modern Scandinavian rock: its bright, old-fashioned forms, today are simply replacing the original folklore works of the past.
The situation changed only at the beginning of the 2000-ies, among scientists again revived interest in runestones. Research groups were organized in a number of Scandinavian universities, specialized databases began to be created, in particular, such a database was created in Norway at the University in Uppsala. The electronic library "Runeberg" was assembled - an impressive in its capacity container of world scientific rhinological literature. By 2009, the year finally managed to settle all the legal and technical issues related to the online publication of the information accumulated in it, which then became available to experts from all over the world. Now in this database there are more than 900 runic inscriptions, and it continues to expand. Moreover, it includes not only the inscriptions found on the runestones in Denmark, but also in Germany, Sweden and Norway and other Scandinavian countries. Together with rare 1920-40-s photos there are also presented those that were taken already in our time.
Photo 1936 of the year. Stone near the house in Herrestad. The inscription on it reads: "Gudmund made this monument in memory of Ormar, his son."
It is interesting that in the study of runic stones there are a number of specific difficulties. For example, because of the texture of the stone on which the inscriptions made on them are stamped, much when looking at them depends on the observer's angle of view and the degree of their light. The same can be said about the research methodology of these stones: it is interdisciplinary in nature and includes both textological and philological methods, data from archaeological research, as well as texts of ancient sagas and evidence of chroniclers. One method is one-sided and may adversely affect the results of the study.
Photo 1937 of the year. Men are dragging a stone on the island of Faringsho. The inscription reads: “Stenfast installed a stone in memory of Bjorn, his brother ... in memory of Bjorn and Arnfast.”
Well, and the reading of the runic inscription on the stone itself begins with the determination of the direction in which the carver placed his text. So, if the safety of the inscription is not very good, it can be a rather serious problem for the researcher.
There are three types of arrangement of lines in runic inscriptions: when they run parallel to each other (the most ancient inscriptions are oriented from right to left), along the contour of a stone or like the Greek busustrohedon — that is, the writing method, in which its direction alternates depending on the parity of the lines. That is, if the first line is written from left to right, then the second line is written from right to left. In addition to archaic Greece, this type of letter was distributed in the Western Mediterranean and the Arabian Peninsula. Well, the contour inscriptions were typical of stones, in which the drawings are combined with inscriptions. In them, runes fill the outline of the drawing, usually decorated in the form of the body of a giant serpent.
Photo 1944 of the year. Stone in Nebbelholm. The contents of the inscription: “Gunnkel installed this stone in memory of Gunnar, the father, the son of Rod. Helga put him, her brother, in a stone coffin in Bath, in England. ”
The fact that the lines of the early (IV - VI centuries) runic inscriptions are located from right to left, became the basis for the hypotheses about the Middle Eastern or even ancient Egyptian origin of the runic writing. Europe’s traditional writing from left to right occurred gradually, as a result of the contact of the Scandinavians with their southern and western neighbors. It is noticed that early runic inscriptions (made before 800 of the year) usually have no ornament and often contain magic spells.
The big problem of reading runestones was the language in which the inscription was made on them. Already by the 7th century, that is, by the time when the tradition of installing runic stones was widely spread in Scandinavia, dialectal features and differences in the languages of different Scandinavian peoples began to manifest themselves in them. Therefore, it is not surprising that many experts read many runic inscriptions on stones in quite different ways. First, they dealt with their poor-quality images and therefore mistakenly took some signs for others. And secondly, since it’s not easy to carve signs on a stone, their authors often resorted to abbreviations that were understandable at the time, but ... alas, incomprehensible in our day.
Today, 6578 runestones are known, of which 3314 are commemorative. More than half is in Sweden (3628), of which 1468 is concentrated in one of its regions, Uppland. In Norway, 1649 and very few in Denmark are 962. There are rune stones in Britain, as well as in Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. There are several such stones even in Russia, for example, on Valaam. But Russian runic stones have not been studied enough, due to the traditionally anti-Normanistic phobias that exist in our Russian historiography, as well as in public opinion, but they are honored by local mystics and occultists as "places of power".
Another extreme characteristic of our modern home-grown amateur runologists today is the attempt to “read” runic inscriptions on stones using the vocabulary of the modern Russian language: even if we assume that they, like the famous stone from Ryok, were put in no case could the texts be written in a language close to our modern Russian. Although the wide distribution of runes among Germanic tribes, including those living along the lower and middle reaches of the Dnieper, that is, ready, belonging to Chernyakhov culture, suggests that the hypothetical early Slavic writing, known as “cuts and cuts”, was formed on based on those runes that used goths.
Interestingly, in addition to real runestones, a number of their fakes are known. So, fakes, according to scientists, are Heivner and Kensington stones, which were found in the United States outside of any archaeological context that would at least say something about the Scandinavian presence in these places. This is explained by the “Viking Mania” that swept the USA in the 1960 of the last century. Also a fake is the discovery of two stones in 1967 and 1969, made by Oklahoma students. All of them turned out to be written on an artificial mixture of runes of the elder (II-VIII century) and younger (X-XII century) futars - that is, runic alphabets, which means they could not have been created by people of either era. Most likely, these schoolchildren, not understanding the specifics of various alphabets, simply copied them from some popular book about runes.
The inscription on this stone reads: “Sandar installed a stone in memory of Yuar, his relative. No one will produce a more talented son. May Thor protect. ”
One of the most frequent reasons for installing runestones was the death of their relative. Here, for example, about what the inscription on the Grenstensky stone says: “Toke put [this] stone after [death] Revle, the son of Esge, son of Björn. May God help his soul. ” At the same time, it is not at all necessary that such stones stand on the graves. Most likely, such stones were put not so much at the place of burial of this person, as in some significant places for him or for the whole community as a real “memory”!
The inscription on the Kollind stone testifies that they could have been placed in the homeland of the one who died in foreign lands and were buried there: “Toe put this stone after [death] Thue, who died in the eastern campaign and his brother Asveds, the blacksmith”. That is, runestones should not be considered monuments to the dead, but above all, commemorative stones.
For such memorial stones, the following manner of presenting information is characteristic:
1. X put this stone / cut out these runes after [death] Y.
2. Description of the circumstances of the death of Y, and enumeration of the feats accomplished by him.
3. Religious appeal to the gods, for example, "Thor consecrated these runes" or "God help him."
Here we must bear in mind that in the Scandinavian cult of the dead it was assumed that the soul of the deceased, if you mention it in the inscription, can move into this stone, receive sacrifices from living, talk with them and even fulfill their requests. It is not surprising that the Christian Church considered the runestones to be the creatures of the devil and fought them as best it could, with the result that many of them show signs of damage. On the other hand, in the national consciousness respect for these stones persisted until the late Middle Ages.
Photo 1929 of the year. “Alrik, the son of Sigrid, installed a stone in memory of his father Spyute, who was in the West and fought in the towns. He knew the ways to all the fortresses. ”
Now we do not know whether it was possible to put such a memorial stone in memory of any person, or it must be a “difficult person”, however, the structure of the text of these memorial stones is such that X (the person who installed such a stone) usually tried to indicate the merits of Y ( is the one who put it). This gives grounds for assuming that such stones were obtained only by certain exceptional personalities possessing “special power” capable of helping living people who turned to this person or this memorial stone for help.
It is also unknown what reward awaited the one who put this stone, not to mention the fact that it was quite expensive. Interestingly, in the inscriptions on runic memorial stones, people who put this stone are often listed, so it is quite possible that to get on the list of assistants allowed us to hope for some kind of blessing or to receive magical assistance.
Photo 1930 of the year. The inscription is carved on a rock by the road leading to the city of Södertälje. It says: “Holmfast cleared the way in memory of Inga ... to his good mother .... Holmfast cleared the road and made a bridge in memory of Gammal, his father, who lived in Nesby. May God help his spirit. Osten (cut). "
Runestone researchers identify several types of them. First of all, these are “long stones”, having a height of up to three meters or more, made in the tradition of menhirs. These include, for example, the richly ornamented Anundzhegsky stone set by Folkwidd for his son Heden. And in the inscription, this Heden is called the brother of Anund. Therefore, historians believe that this Anund is none other than the Swedish king Anund, who ruled at the beginning of the eleventh century. And let, according to historical chronicles, his father was Olaf Skhetkonung, and Folkweed is just a distant relative, this relationship was quite enough for his mention on this stone.
To be continued ...
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