Runestone from Eggja
The rune stone of Eggja (also Eggjum No. N KJ101, Norwegian: Eggjasteinen ) is a Norwegian rune stone . It bears the longest known runic inscription of the elder Futhark .
Site and dating
The 160 cm long stone was found in 1917 while plowing near the Eggja farm in Sogndal on the Sognefjord . Judging by the additions, the stone covered a man's grave, with the runes pointing downwards. The site is on a natural hill that can be seen from the fjord .
The grave goods and the style of the horse drawing on the stone can be dated around the year 700, which is confirmed by the language of the inscription. The latter is at the transition between Urnordisch and Old Norse . The inscription, written in Old Norse, contains some Umordian phrases. The runic alphabet used is the elder Futhark, just before the transition to the younger Futhark. The stone is now in the Bergen University Museum .
inscription
The inscription consists of 192 runes in three lines. According to today's reading habit, line II comes first, then line III follows to the left and upside down and lastly line I, through which a horse drawing runs. It has prevailed to read the lines, according to their content, in the order below, above, middle. Some runes are weathered and therefore illegible (marked by x in the following text).
- I. ni's solu sot uk ni sąkse stąin skorin. ni xxxx maR nąkdan isnx (x) rxxR, ni wiltiR manR lągi
- II. To wąrb naseu maR, mąde þaim kąibą i bormoþą huni. huwąR ob came hąrisa hi a lat gotną fiskR oR fxxnąuim suwimade, Fokl i fxaxx xxx gąlande.
- III. ąlu misurki
Translation into German according to Krause:
- I. “It is not struck by the sun and the stone is not cut by a sax . Let no one lay down (the stone) naked; not like cornered, not misguided men to put away (the stone). "
- II. “The man pelted this (stone) with corpse lake ( kenning for blood) and rubbed the oarlocks in the boring (= drilled through, ritually rendered unusable) bear (= ship). - Who (= in what form) did the army Aze (Odin) come here on the land of warriors? - Fish swimming out of the torrent, birds screaming in the flock of enemies. "
- III. " Spell the wrongdoer (the man who did the digging or the revenant)!"
History of interpretation
The first runologist who tried to interpret the inscription was Magnus Olsen. Since then, many runologists (including Lis Jacobsen, Gerd Høst, Ottar Grønvik) have given very different interpretations. The interpretation given here by Wolfgang Krause is only one of many.
The inscription, which is already difficult to read, contains (especially in line II) many illegible runes. These spaces can only be filled if the inscription is placed in a context that differs from runologist to runologist. There is largely agreement on the first line ( ni's solo sot ... ), both in the reading and in the interpretation. The second line will probably never be interpreted unanimously.
Roughly speaking, the inscription can be understood as a warning that is directed both against possible grave robbers and against the buried person himself. The stone slab lay with the rune side down so that the dead are prevented from visiting the living as revenants . This form of use of runes is particularly suggested by the formula ąlu , which appears more often on stones e.g. B. at the stone of Elgesem , often to the left.
literature
- Wolfgang Krause: The language of the urnordian runic inscriptions. Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1971, pp. 143-144.
- Klaus Düwel: Runic lore. 3. Edition. Metzler, Stuttgart Weimar 2001, ISBN 3-476-13072-X .
- Gerd Høst: Eggja. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Volume 6. 2nd edition. Berlin, New York 1986. pp. 460-466
- Terje Spurkland: I begynnelsen var Runer. 2nd Edition. Cappelen, Oslo 2005.
Individual evidence
Web links
- Per Ditlef Fredriksen: Runene i den tomme grava , on Norgeshistorie.no ( University of Oslo ) (Norwegian)
- Pictures N KJ101 Eggja (at the bottom of the page)
Coordinates: 61 ° 14 '22.2 " N , 7 ° 3' 8.6" E