#bracteates

Dr Scott Shell returns to Jive Talk this Friday night to discuss his findings in relation to Heathen iconography on bracteates of the Germanic Iron Age.

The single oldest attested full rune-row is probably the one on the Kylver stone, estimated to be from around 400 A.D. on the basis of the grave it was found near (although it isn’t beyond a shadow of a doubt that the stone and the grave go together, it’s still likely the oldest). This stone has the futhark ending do:

However on bracteates the order of the last two runes is reversed. Below are the Grumpan-C and Vadstena-C bracteates, respectively (there is also the Motala-C bracteate, but it was struck from the same die as Vadstena). On Vadstena the d rune is covered but it’s clear where it is meant to be.

Images from Hauck, Karl et al. 1986. Die Goldbrakteaten der Völkerwanderungszeit. vol. 2.2. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, pages 47 and 157 respectively.

I don’t know the Anglo-Saxon corpus very well but George Hickes’ edition of the rune poem has od like the bracteates:

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rune_poem_Hickes_1705.png)

…while Codex Sangallensis 878 has do:

For further reading I’d suggest:

Looijenga, Tineke. 2003. Texts & Contexts of the Oldest Runic Inscriptions. The Northern World, 4. Brill: Leiden.