#karlevistenen

Karlevistenen, Runsten 900 e.kr

Viking "Runestone" Öland Sweden

By: Thomas Olsson

Location: Kalmar Län

Taken: 2017-08-30 21:52

Source: Flickr

https://flic.kr/p/YfRKCM

Karlevi Runestone, Sweden (No. 3)

Karlevistenen, with the sign Öl 1, is Öland 's oldest and one of Sweden's most remarkable rune stones. It stands on a field in Karlevi village's lake fields in Vickleby parish and near Kalmarsund.

The stone is a 130 centimeter high moving block of gray quartz porphyry , probably from the area west of Oskarshamn. It was erected around the year 1000, probably at the end of the 10th century, after a Danish chief, Sibbe the Good or Sibbe the Wise, Foldar's son. The stone stands in its original place and a drawing from the 17th century shows that it stood between two now cultivated burial mounds . According to the inscription, the dead man has been buried in one of them. That the stone stands in the distance on a deserted beachindicates that Sibbe died on the way past and was raised on the hillside by his entourage. Some believe that the stone was erected by Danes who were on their way home after participating in the battle of Fyrisvallarna outside Uppsala around the year 985 . Söderberg comes to the conclusion that the inscription belongs to the end of the 1000s; the stone is erected in memory of a Danish chief who has been placed next to the stone; and the inscription is engraved by a Norwegian poet, who was in the company of the Danish chief.

The poem is written on the verse measure dróttkvætt and the poem on Karlevistenen is together with the Sigtunadosan and the runic inscriptions from Bryggen in Bergen one of the few poem stanzas on this verse measure that have been preserved in the original. There are several theories in the poem . Trud is the name of a goddess , and "the warrior of Trud" means chief or army commander . Vidur is one of Odin's names, which is used here about the dead chief, and the carriage you travel on is the ship . Vagn-Vidurshall thus be interpreted as ship captain. "The sea king's vast land" is the sea .

Under the runic inscriptions there is a short medieval inscription on the stone with an unknown meaning: (NINONI + EH +). Possibly this could mean "in the name of Jesus".