The runestones of Medelpad

I have been back from Sweden for a while now, but hadn’t got round to sorting through my runestone photos yet. The reason, though, is a good one – I just finished a first full draft of my PhD thesis. Now I’m getting round to looking through all the photos I took in Medelpad, and want to share some of the beautiful local runestones with you. I’m giving the signum for each stone, so those readers who are inclined to learn more about them, can look them up in the Scandinavian Runic Database or use the Swedish wikipedia – and the soon-to-be-published scholarly edition of the runic inscriptions of Medelpad, not to forget.

This is M 1, from Nolby:

M 2, now next to the church at Njurunda, is sadly only a fragment. We spent quite a while there, discussing the name on it, because it could be both male or female.

M 11 stands in the impressive grave field of Högom. As you can see, its edges are broken off, but luckily only to such an extent that almost the entire inscription remains readable.

These two, M 4 and M 5, are now both found next to the churchyard fence in Attmarby. The smaller stone, now only a fragment, is M 4 – and could be the most northerly Invar-stone (discussing the fatal journey to the east by Ingvar the Far-Travelled) that is currently known.

M 7, the fragment below, is built into the church wall at Tuna. Our lucky groups of field runologists was treated to some excellent organ music while inspecting the inscription.

M 8 now stands at Sköle, the Hembygdsgård of Tuna commune. And yes, it has its own little roof. It also demonstrated that not all runestones were carved with equal aesthetic skill.

These two, M 15 and M 16, now stand next to the church at Skön. Both rune animals’ heads on these are shown in the birds’ eye perspective, which makes these potentially some of the older runestones in the area.

 

In addition, a report about the 2019 Gender and Medieval Studies Conference in Durham, which I co-authored with Dr Rebecca Merkelbach has been published in the current issue of Kyngervi Journal. It’s worth checking out the other contributions, too, if you have an interest in Norse culture: Kyngervi Journal

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Challenges for 21st century runologists

Last November, I attended a conference at the University of Malmö with the theme “Medievalism, Public History, and Academia: the Re-creation of Early Medieval Europe, c. 400-1000”. In my paper, I discussed various challenges for runologists in the 21st century, and I was asked to write a blog post based on this. It is by no means a definite account covering all of current runology and the public perception of runes but it is intended as food for thought, reflecting about my own place as an academic working on something that has been and is being abused in politics and that has a religious connotation or meaning for some.

The post can be found here. If you have any interest in medievalism, I recommend all the other posts, too – ranging from the Lombards to Viking warrior woman stereotypes, there is something for everybody.

A runic trip to Uppsala

Last month, I left Orkney for a field trip to Sweden. My co-supervisor, Prof. Stefan Brink from the Centre for Scandinavian Studies at Aberdeen, had organised a three day trip for his PhD students to Uppsala where we toured the local Viking sites with his expert guidance and had a symposium with PhD students from Uppsala and Stockholm to present our research to each other.

After a long journey on boat and planes, I managed to arrive at Uppsala without any luggage, but at least my clothes rejoined me the next day. On our first day, our group got to see the Uppsala cathedral with the magnificent tomb of Gustav Vasa, the runestones in the city centre, then we headed to the Carolina Rediviva library, where we got to see the Uppsala Edda. This manuscript of the Prose Edda from about 1300 is the oldest surviving manuscript of the Eddas, and it was amazing to see it directly in front of me. Later, we took a train into Stockholm to visit the Viking collection at the national museum – and there were more runestones! I was glad to discover that I could indeed read them, so all my practise has not been in vain. I was surprised to even see a runestone fragment built into the corner of a house in Gamla Stan, Stockholm’s old town.

The next day was the major runestone-day. We went on a car trip around Uppland, visiting many major Viking Age sites I had so far only read about in books or heard about in lectures. We went, among others, to Sigtuna, the first bishop’s seat in medieval Sweden, Gamla Uppsala with its impressive mounds, and – admittedly one of my favourites – the famous bridge of Jarlabanki, one of the most prolific sponsors of runestones you could imagine. On our route, we encountered a huge amount of runestones, as you would expect in the region with the highest runestone density in the world. It made me reflect on how different runic writing developed at the time in different regions from the same roots.

On the final day, we had the PhD student symposium at the Gustav Adolfs Akademi in Uppsala. It was great to hear about research going on at Aberdeen, Uppsala and Stockholm, and I made some useful contacts to fellow medievalists.

This trip has really expanded my way of thinking of runes, particularly as Prof. Brink showed us how in the Uppland landscape everything is interconnected: runestones are only one part and integrated within a landscape of telling placenames, gravefields, early church sites and so forth. Without looking at every aspect of the monumental landscape, it would be impossible to fully grasp the significance of the runestones. I believe such an integrated approach is also the right way forward for my own research.