#rune text

x

[the pictured lion is a copy of the original. the copy is located at historiska museet in stockholm. the original statue is today located in venice, because of war looting reasons.]

the runes on the original lion has by now been almost destroyed. but the rune writing was discovered by a swedish diplomat in venice during the 18th century, when the tale at least claim that the runes were much more visible for the naked eye.

the destruction the runes has gone through has made reading the rune text very difficult. from what i could understand in a quick google, so is the message(s) of the text still unclear.

although, the source at historiska webpage, says that it is now believed there were several different hands that wrote the different texts across the statue, because they have different carving styles.

x

a drawing of some of the rune text made during the 1850s

x

the original statue in venice

x

= interpret this!

thanks, you viking age trolls you, writing cyphers which messages can be summed up to

“nah nah nah, you tried to understand the text, but the text was just: I bet you can never figure out the message of this text!” *makes viking age fart noises*

to be fair the text got a side B, which says:

thanks, long dead rune carver, for that message. some runes which might be a name, or something. who knows. thanks. i understand now.

source

Tyr Tyr Tyr

Tyr Tyr Tyr Tyr

ELK ELK ELK

elk elk elk elk

elk elk elk elk

hill, hill, hill,

tyr tyr tyr

elk! ELK! ELK!

PROTECT

ELK!

at last my stuff are protected enough! puh, good I remebered the importance of bringing up that elk, and the hill!

A Noewegian article explain that the rune text is using fuð, which is female genitals. But later it also mention that pik/pig and kuse is old norse words for penis and vulva. It is pretty interesting. We are still using these words.

thought i would show a lesson in rune text writing with the source the swedish heritage found (riksantikvarieämbetet) written by Magnus Källström. direct link to original text.

i am in this text summing up what he wrote in english.

this rune stone with name: “Sö 194″ in Ytterselö parish, Södermanland, Sweden look like this.

read the text from the head and you get:

transliterate them to the latin alphabet and you get:

still not how they actually spoke old norse!

wherehas one THEN do a transcribtion of the previous text which become:

then! to modern swedish:

“Ingemund och Tjälve de reste denna sten efter Torkättil, sin fader.“

english translation:

“Ingemund and Tjälve has risen this stone after Torkättil, their father”.

the writer of the article also mention that with personal names, they in sweden has as praxis to, when writting the name in modern swedish, has as a praxis to change the names to modern swedish names form.

that is, to write them as if the names survived to modern swedish, even if they did not. therefore this happens with the 3 names mentioned in this text.

translation names: ekimunr, þalfi,  þurktil

transcribed names: Ingimundr, þalfi, þōrkætl

modern swedish: ingemund, Tjälve, Torkättil

the writer of the article, Martin Källström, explains the reasoning behind this changing the spellings of the names, is to foremost go to preserved names forms that are still in use. ingemund is a name still in use during modern times and torkättil, while a archaic form of the modern name torkel, have still been in use when the latin alphabet did its breakthrough in sweden. therefore we already have a standard for how to spell those names.

tjälve on the other hand, we do not have version preserved with latin letters, wherehas the rune text interprenter most decide how to write those names themselves.

just to give some more background to how i believe he thinks when translating names to modern swedish.

this are just from my guesses as a native swedish speaker, magnus källström do not go deeper into exactly why the names are spellt so differently in modern swedish.

but just some general notes on modern swedish vs old norse, to understand why some of these differences are logical.

modern swedish, in oppisition to old norse, is that modern swedish has (almost) no dipthongs (in most dialects). æ, which originally was a dipthongs consisting of a and e, with time became the non-diphtong ä (well for people who do not speak my stockholm accent lmao. we stronly do not believe ä exist, and hardly prounance it like that).

we also do not anymore þ sounds, which has been changed to T in most words. therefore magnus källströms translated. with æ= ä and þ=t þōrkætl= Torkättil

also the two tt in torkättil har there because of modern swedish spelling rules. 2 tt= a short vowel before it.

Source