The inscriptions: stones and bracteates

The four poems are the literary witnesses, and the physical ones stand beside them: stones and bracteates that carry the runes themselves, centuries older than any poem. Three are named here, each for what only it can show.

The Einang stone

fourth century · Valdres, Norway

The Einang stone stands on a burial mound in Valdres, where it was raised in the fourth century. It is the oldest rune stone still standing where it was first set. The writing runs right to left in the Elder Futhark row, in Proto-Norse.

Two readings stand side by side, and this site chooses neither. Sophus Bugge read dagaR þaR runo faihido, «Dag painted these runes». Eirik Moltke in 1938 supplied four lost signs before the first visible one and read ek (gu)dagastiR runo faihido, «I, Gudagastiz, painted the rune». The brackets stay visible: they mark what is reconstructed, not what is carved.

Two more facts earn the stone its opening place. The inscription seems to be the earliest surviving mention of the word runo, the first known place where runes name themselves. And its verb is faihido, painted: the runes were cut and then coloured, and that stands in the inscription itself, not in a reconstruction.

The Kylver stone

about AD 400 · Gotland

The Kylver stone in Gotland lists all twenty-four runes in order, carved around AD 400. It is the oldest surviving complete row, and it is the reason the order of the runes on this site is a fact rather than a choice.

The bracteates

third to eighth century

The bracteates are thin gold pendants, and they carry the most common early runic charm word. That word is alu: three runes on at least fourteen named objects from the third to the eighth century. The Undley bracteate carries the word gægogæ in bound runes. Both words have their own pages here, and neither has a settled translation.

Alu: the most common early runic charm word · Bind runes: what is attested, and what is new · The sources