Runestone from Vester Tørslev
The runestone from Vester Tørslev (No. DK 124 - DK MJy 52) has stood in the Karnhaus of the church of Vester Tørslev , a small village in central Jutland , equidistant but south of Hobro and Mariager in Denmark since 1870 . The rune stone of granite was probably originally west of the village on the road between Vester Tørslev and Gettrup, north of Glenstrup lake. The stone is 1.54 m high, 0.8 m wide and 0.45 m thick at the bottom.
The three-line, vertically applied inscription reads:
The language is Old Danish and the text was written in what is known as the short or younger Scandinavian Futhark . Several characters in this 16-character alphabet have more than one meaning. Therefore it is not possible to decide whether the brother was called Asulv or Aslef. Because of the runes, the stone can be dated to the 10th or the first half of the 11th century. However, it is not a tombstone but a memorial “to the eternal praise” of the deceased and the person who built it. A stone erected by a friend or relative is a so-called friendship stone. The custom is shown in a song by Hávamál (Odin's speeches 75 and 76), which is a collection of rules of conduct from the 9th or 10th century.
The cattle die, the friends die,
At last you die yourself;
But the fame that
won the good may never die .
The cattle die, the friends die,
At last you die yourself;
But there is one thing I know that always remains:
The judgment on the dead.
Such rune stones were erected in the places where many people frequented.
literature
- Karen Marie Christensen: Archaeological sites and Monuments in the Mariager Area . 1994, ISBN 87-90099-08-7 .
- Karsten Kjer Michaelsen: Politics bog om Danmarks oldtid . Copenhagen 2002 ISBN 87-567-6458-8 , p. 94.
Web links
- Vester Tørslev-sten in the project Danske Runeindskrifter of the Danish National Museum (Danish)
- the Hávamál translated by Karl Joseph Simrock (1802–1876)
Coordinates: 56 ° 35 '54 .5 " N , 9 ° 54' 0.7" E