Kragehul I (DR 196 U) is a migration period lance-shaft found on Funen, Denmark. It is now in the collection of the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark. The spear shaft was found in 1877 during the excavation of the classic war booty sacrificial site Kragehul on southern Funen. The site holds five deposits of military equipment from the period 200 to 475 AD. The spear shaft probably belongs to the latest deposit.
The Elder Futhark inscription reads:
The first part is normalized as:
Interpreted as "I, the erilaz of Āsugīsalaz, am called Muha, ga-ga-ga!", where "ga-ga-ga" may be some sort of ritual chant or battle cry.[ citation needed ]Āsugīsalaz is a Germanic compound name, consisting of ansu- , "god", and gīsalaz, "hostage". [2] Muha also appears to be a personal name. The runes of gagaga are displayed as a row of three bindrunes based on the X-shape of the g-rune with sidetwigs attached to its extremities for the a. A similar sequence gægogæ is found on the Undley bracteate.
The gagaga and the remaining part of the inscriptions have prompted varying interpretations.
Schneider (1969) opts for bull sacrifice, reading g-a as "gift, god!" and the remaining as
Düwel (1983) reads the thrice repeated g-a as g[ibu] a[uja] "I give good fortune". For the second part of the inscription, he has
Pieper (1999) reads g-a as g[ebu] a[nsu] "gift to the god [Odin]", with following
MacLeod and Mees (2006) read gagaga as an onomatopoeia related to forms like the Undley bracteate's gægogæ, and read the expression as a metrical charm
A bracteate is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age. Bracteate coins are also known from the medieval kingdoms around the Bay of Bengal such as Harikela and Mon city-states. The term is also used for thin discs, especially in gold, to be sewn onto clothing in the ancient world, as found for example in the ancient Persian Oxus treasure, and also later silver coins produced in central Europe during the Early Middle Ages.
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised purposes thereafter. In addition to representing a sound value, runes can be used to represent the concepts after which they are named (ideographs). Examples of this are often referred to as Begriffsrunen by academics. The Scandinavian variants are also known as futhark or fuþark ; the Anglo-Saxon variant is futhorc or fuþorc.
The Elder Futhark, also known as the Older Futhark, Old Futhark, or Germanic Futhark, is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a writing system used by Germanic peoples for Northwest Germanic dialects in the Migration Period. Inscriptions are found on artifacts including jewelry, amulets, plateware, tools, and weapons, as well as runestones in Scandinavia, from the 2nd to the 10th centuries.
The Kylver stone, listed in the Rundata catalog as runic inscription G 88, is a Swedish runestone which dates from about 400 AD. It is notable for its listing of each of the runes in the Elder Futhark.
Proto-Norse was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic in the first centuries CE. It is the earliest stage of a characteristically North Germanic language, and the language attested in the oldest Scandinavian Elder Futhark inscriptions, spoken from around the 2nd to the 8th centuries CE. It evolved into the dialects of Old Norse at the beginning of the Viking Age around 800 CE, which later themselves evolved into the modern North Germanic languages.
A runic inscription is an inscription made in one of the various runic alphabets. They generally contained practical information or memorials instead of magic or mythic stories. The body of runic inscriptions falls into the three categories of Elder Futhark, Anglo-Frisian Futhorc and Younger Futhark.
The Nordendorf fibulae are two mid 6th to early 7th century Alamannic fibulae found in Nordendorf near Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany.
Seeland-II-C is a Scandinavian bracteate from Zealand, Denmark, that has been dated to the Migration period. The bracteate bears an Elder Futhark inscription which reads as:
Erilaz or Erilaʀ is a Migration period Proto-Norse word attested on various Elder Futhark inscriptions, which has often been interpreted to mean "magician" or "rune master", viz. one who is capable of writing runes to magical effect. However, as Mees (2003) has shown, the word is an ablaut variant of earl, and is also thought to be linguistically related to the name of the tribe of the Heruli, so it is probably merely an old Germanic military title.
The Lindholm "amulet", listed as DR 261 in Rundata, is a bone piece, carved into the shape of a rib, dated to the 2nd to 4th centuries and has a runic inscription. The Lindholm bone piece is dated between 375CE to 570CE and it is around 17 centimeters long at its longest points. It currently resides at Lund University Historical Museum in Sweden.
The sequence alu is found in numerous Elder Futhark runic inscriptions of Germanic Iron Age Scandinavia between the 3rd and the 8th century. The word usually appears either alone or as part of an apparent formula. The symbols represent the runes Ansuz, Laguz, and Uruz. The origin and meaning of the word are matters of dispute, though a general agreement exists among scholars that the word represents an instance of historical runic magic or is a metaphor for it. It is the most common of the early runic charm words.
A bind rune or bindrune is a Migration Period Germanic ligature of two or more runes. They are extremely rare in Viking Age inscriptions, but are common in earlier (Proto-Norse) and later (medieval) inscriptions.
The Thorsberg chape is an archeological find from the Thorsberg moor, Germany, that appears to have been deposited as a votive offering. It bears an Elder Futhark runic inscription, one of the earliest known, dating to roughly 200 CE.
The Ring of Pietroassa or Buzău torc is a gold torc-like necklace found in a ring barrow in Pietroassa, Buzău County, southern Romania, in 1837. It formed part of a large gold hoard dated to between 250 and 400 AD. The ring itself is generally assumed to be of Roman-Mediterranean origin, and features a Gothic language inscription in the Elder Futhark runic alphabet.
The Undley bracteate is a 5th-century bracteate found in Undley Common, near Lakenheath, Suffolk. It bears the earliest known inscription that can be argued to be in Anglo-Frisian Futhorc.
The Möjbro Runestone is a runestone that is designated as U 877 in the Rundata catalog and is inscribed in Proto-Norse using the Elder Futhark. It was found in Möjbro, which is about 8 kilometers north of Örsundsbro in Uppsala County, Sweden, which is in the historic province of Uppland. The runestone is on display at the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm.
Runic transliteration and transcription are part of analysing a runic inscription which involves transliteration of the runes into Latin letters, transcription into a normalized spelling in the language of the inscription, and translation of the inscription into a modern language. There is a long-standing practice of formatting transliterations in boldface and transcriptions in Italic type, as the two forms of rendering a runic text have to be kept distinct.
The Kyrkogården Runestones are three Viking Age memorial runestones located at the cemetery of St. Mary's Church in Sigtuna, Stockholm County, Sweden, in the historic province of Uppland. One of the runic inscriptions documents the existence of a Viking Age mercantile guild in Sweden.
The Bergen rune charm is a runic inscription on a piece of wood found among the medieval rune-staves of Bergen. It is noted for its similarities to the Eddaic poem Skírnismál ; as a rare example of a poetic rune-stave inscription; and of runes being used in love magic.
Södermanland runic inscription 140 is a Viking Age runestone inscribed in Old Norse with the Younger Futhark runic alphabet. It and Sö 139 stand close together on the south side of the road next to the brook at Korpbro, between Lid and Aspa in Ludgo parish, Nyköping Municipality, in Södermanland, but Sö 140 was found broken and has been re-erected. A cross in the centre of the stone formed by five bind runes has been variously interpreted as an invocation of Thor or as part of the inscription.