Runestones at the Husby Sjuhundra Church
The rune stones U 539, U 540 and U 541 are rune stones at the Husby-Sjuhundra church in Husby-Sjuhundra west of Norrtälje in Uppland in Sweden .
U 539
U 539 is in the south-west corner of the church. It was found in the church wall during construction in 1728, has the shape of a column and is made of granite . He has runes in the RAK style on three of his four sides , which date him to 980-1015 AD. The stone bears a cross and is one of the 30 England rune stones .
The inscription reads:
“Djärv and Orökna and Vige and Joger and Gerhjälm, all these brothers had this stone made after Sven (Sveinn), their brother. He died in Jutland . He should go to England. God and the Mother of God help his soul more than he (it) deserves ”.
The hope that the dead man would be treated better than he deserved it is a formula that appears on several rune stones. It is not taken as an expression that he had a bad character. It is an appeal that he should be preferred more after death than in life.
Omeljan Pritsak (1919-2006) assumes that Sveinn died at the Limfjord in Jutland , as the fjord was the starting point for the Danish campaigns against England. Sven Birger Fredrik Jansson (1906–1987) dated Sveinn's death to the year 1015, when the invasion fleet Knuts the Great , which included many young warriors from Uppland, was assembled in the Limfjord.
U 540
U 540 is next to U 541 on the north side of the church. The rune stone is a fragment. Part of the top and the right side are missing. It is about 1.5 m high and 1.13 m wide. When the stone was first mentioned in 1638 by Johannes Bureus (1568–1652), it served as a threshold stone in the atrium of the church. That was still the case when Richard Dybeck (1811–1877) ordered the entire inscription to be made visible in order to make a copy in 1871.
The inscription reads:
“Erik and Håkon and Ingvar and Ragnhild, who ... He died in Greece. God and the Mother of God help his soul. ”In the preserved part of the inscription, it remains unclear who Erik, Håkon and Ingvar as well as Ragnhild wanted to honor with the rune stone, because the name and the degree of relationship were in the lost part of the serpentine ribbon. The person was killed in Greece , a fate that is repeated on several rune stones in Uppland. The stone is one of the 30 Greece rune stones .
In the church of Rimbo, about 8.0 km to the west, is U 513, which was built by the brothers Erik, Håkon and Ingvar together with the fourth brother Anund for the fifth brother Ragnar. Since Anund is not mentioned on U 540, he could be the one who died in Greece.
The rune design is similar to inscriptions by the rune master Åsmund Kåresson , who created and signed around 20 stones in the rune stone style Pr 4. Typical of his inscriptions is a form in which the end rune of a word is also the first in the following word.
- Runestones at the Husby Sjuhundra Church
U 539
U 540
U 541
Husby Sjuhundra Church
U 558 is nearby in Prästgården
U 541
U 541 is next to U 540 on the north side of the church in Husby-Sjuhundra. U 541 is made of sandstone and is 1.45 meters high. The inscription in the younger Futhark is carved into a ribbon of snakes that follows the edge of the stone and then tangles in the center of the stone. There is a cross near the inscription. The stone is classified in the runestone style Pr5 known as the Urnes style . The style is characterized by slender, stylized animals woven into tight patterns. The animals are usually shown in profile with slender almond-shaped eyes and rolled up appendages on the noses and necks. The stone is considered an excellent representative of an inscription in the Pr5 style.
It is not in its original position. It was mentioned as part of the church during a rune stone recording in the 19th century. In 1887 the community decided to take U 540 and U 541 out of the church wall and place them on the north wall of the church.
The inscription was carved by the rune master Øpir , who worked in Uppland in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. The text does not follow the formula normally used for late Viking rune stones.
It reads: "Here lies SigræifR / SæræifR, brother of ... And Øpir scratched the runes."
The use of “Here lies” shows that the stone originally stood on the deceased's grave. It was noted that the term "lies here" is a translation of the Latin term "HIC IACET" which was widely used in medieval tombs. Another rune stone that begins with this sentence is U 559 in Malsta.
The phrase “And Øpir scratched the runes” was also used on U 118 in Älvsunda, U 181 in Össeby-Garns, the now lost U 262 in Fresta, U 287 in Vik, U 462 in Prästgården and U 566 in Vällingsö.
literature
- Signe Horne Fuglesang: Swedish Runestones of the Eleventh Century: Ornament and Dating. In: Klaus Düwel , Sean Nowak (Ed.): Runic inscriptions as sources of interdisciplinary research (= supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Vol. 15). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1998, ISBN 3-11-015455-2 , pp. 197-208 .
- Birgit Sawyer: The Viking Age Rune Stones. Custom and Commemoration in Early Medieval Scandinavia. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2000, ISBN 0-19-926221-7 .
Coordinates: 59 ° 44 ′ 25.2 " N , 18 ° 31 ′ 47.8" E