The Tjängvide image stone, listed in Rundata as Gotland Runic Inscription 110 or G 110, is a Viking Age image stone from Tjängvide (Swedish pronunciation: [ɕɛŋviːdɛ] ),[ tone/stress? ], from c. 700-900 CE, which is about three kilometers west of Ljugarn, Gotland, Sweden.
The inscription on the Tjängvide stone is carved on a flat slab of limestone which measures 1.7 metres in height, is 1.2 metres wide and 0.3 metres thick. The stone was discovered in 1844 on the farm of Tjängvide, and is located in the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm. [1] The stone is probably pagan in origin as no trace of any Christian elements has been found on the inscription. [1]
The stone is decorated with several figures in an upper and a lower field, which are separated by a braided pattern that resembles valknuts.[ citation needed ] In the upper field, there is a large eight-footed horse and a small rider who is offered a drinking horn by a woman, and there are also some other figures, such as a quadruped animal and some less discernible images. [1]
The rider on his horse is usually identified with Odin on his eight-legged horse Sleipnir, or a dead man who is arriving at Valhalla on Odin's horse. [1] [2] [3] The female figure is identified as a valkyrie. [1] The images of the rider on the horse is used as the logo of the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities. [2]
There are also alternative interpretations of the imagery. One interpretation, based upon the Volsunga saga , is that the rider is Sigurd who is riding on Grani (an offspring of Sleipnir) and that the welcoming woman is either Brynhild [4] or Grimhild who is welcoming Sigurd to the court of the Gjukungs. This story was popular during the Viking Age and is depicted on other runestones and image stones known as the Sigurd stones. It is also possible that the eight legs symbolize the high speed of the horse and that the rider is a living man who is welcomed by his wife. The man behind the woman appears to carry a bow and he may represent the dead man who is hunting and the quadruped may be his dog. [1]
The lower field of the stone is almost completely filled with the image of a longship with tall aft and stern. The sail is almost as wide as the ship is long. [1]
It has been noted that the Tjängvide image stone has a phallic shape, and that similar combinations of death with erotic symbology occur on other Gotland rune and image stones. [5]
The runic inscription to the left of the field is the runic row, but several of the runes are lost. In the runic inscription to the right of the lower field, half of the runes may be lost. The runic inscription does not separate the words from each other and the runes are short-twig runes. [1] The name Hiorulf in the text translates as "sword wolf." [6]
Below follows the inscription as it is presented by the Rundata project: [7]
In Norse mythology, Sleipnir is an eight-legged horse ridden by Odin. Sleipnir is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. In both sources, Sleipnir is Odin's steed, is the child of Loki and Svaðilfari, is described as the best of all horses, and is sometimes ridden to the location of Hel. The Prose Edda contains extended information regarding the circumstances of Sleipnir's birth, and details that he is grey in color.
In Norse mythology, a valkyrie, is one of a host of female figures who guide souls of the dead to the god Odin's hall Valhalla. There, the deceased warriors become einherjar. When the einherjar are not preparing for the events of Ragnarök, the valkyries bear them mead. Valkyries also appear as lovers of heroes and other mortals, where they are sometimes described as the daughters of royalty, sometimes accompanied by ravens and sometimes connected to swans or horses.
A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition began in the 4th century and lasted into the 12th century, but most of the runestones date from the late Viking Age. Most runestones are located in Scandinavia, but there are also scattered runestones in locations that were visited by Norsemen during the Viking Age. Runestones are often memorials to dead men. Runestones were usually brightly coloured when erected, though this is no longer evident as the colour has worn off. The vast majority of runestones are found in Sweden.
In Scandinavian heroic legend, Grani is a horse owned by the hero Sigurd. He is the horse that Sigurd receives through advice from Odin. Grani is a descendant of Odin's own steed, Sleipnir.
A picture stone, image stone or figure stone is an ornate slab of stone, usually limestone, which was raised in Germanic Iron Age or Viking Age Scandinavia, and in the greatest number on Gotland. More than four hundred picture stones are known today. All of the stones were probably erected as memorial stones, but only rarely beside graves. Some of them have been positioned where many people could see them at bridges and on roads.
The Ardre image stones are a collection of ten rune and image stones, dated to the 8th to 11th centuries, that were discovered at Ardre Church, in Ardre, Gotland, Sweden. The principal edition is by Sune Lindqvist.
The Scandinavian Runic-text Data Base is a project involving the creation and maintenance of a database of runic inscriptions. The project's goal is to comprehensively catalog runestones in a machine-readable way for future research. The database is freely available via the Internet with a client program, called Rundata, for Microsoft Windows. For other operating systems, text files are provided or a web browser can be used to interact with the web application Runor.
The Sparlösa Runestone, listed as Vg 119 in the Rundata catalog, is located in Västergötland and is the second most famous Swedish runestone after the Rök runestone.
The Varangian Runestones are runestones in Scandinavia that mention voyages to the East or the Eastern route, or to more specific eastern locations such as Garðaríki in Eastern Europe.
The Sigurd stones form a group of eight or nine Swedish runic inscriptions and one picture stone that depict imagery from the Germanic heroic legend of Sigurd the dragon slayer. They were made during the Viking Age and constitute the earliest Norse representations of the matter of the Völsung cycle that is the basis of the Middle High German Nibelungenlied and the Sigurd legends in the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, and the Völsunga saga.
The Viking runestones are runestones that mention Scandinavians who participated in Viking expeditions. This article treats the runestone that refer to people who took part in voyages abroad, in western Europe, and stones that mention men who were Viking warriors and/or died while travelling in the West. However, it is likely that all of them do not mention men who took part in pillaging. The inscriptions were all engraved in Old Norse with the Younger Futhark. The runestones are unevenly distributed in Scandinavia: Denmark has 250 runestones, Norway has 50 while Iceland has none. Sweden has as many as between 1,700 and 2,500 depending on definition. The Swedish district of Uppland has the highest concentration with as many as 1,196 inscriptions in stone, whereas Södermanland is second with 391.
The Manx runestones were made by the Norse population on the Isle of Man during the Viking Age, mostly in the 10th century. Despite its small size, the Isle of Man stands out with many Viking Age runestones, in 1983 numbering as many as 26 surviving stones, which can be compared to 33 in all of Norway. So many of them may appear on the Isle of Man because of the merging of the immigrant Norse runestone tradition with the local Celtic tradition of raising high crosses.
Odin is a widely revered god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, victory, sorcery, poetry, frenzy, and the runic alphabet, and depicts him as the husband of the goddess Frigg. In wider Germanic mythology and paganism, the god was also known in Old English as Wōden, in Old Saxon as Uuôden, in Old Dutch as Wuodan, in Old Frisian as Wêda, and in Old High German as Wuotan, all ultimately stemming from the Proto-Germanic theonym *Wōðanaz, meaning 'lord of frenzy', or 'leader of the possessed'.
This Viking Age runestone, designated as G 181 in the Rundata catalog, was originally located at a church at Sanda, Gotland, Sweden, and is believed to depict the three Norse pagan gods Odin, Thor, and Freyr.
The Sønder Kirkeby Runestone, listed as runic inscription DR 220 in the Rundata catalog, is a Viking Age memorial runestone that was discovered in Sønder Kirkeby, which is located about 5 kilometers east of Nykøbing Falster, Denmark.
The Ålum Runestones are four Viking Age memorial runestones which are located at the church in Ålum, which is 9 km west of Randers, Denmark. One of the stones refers to a man with the title drengr and two of the other stones were raised by the same family.
English runic inscription 2 is a Viking Age runic inscription from the early 11th century, in a coffin of limestone in Saint Paul's Cathedral in London. The stone is in style Pr2, also known as Ringerike style. It has remains of dark blue and red colour. The stone is placed in the Museum of London.
The Gotland Runic Inscription 207 is a Viking Age runestone engraved in Old Norse with the Younger Futhark runic alphabet. It is from c. 1100 and is located behind the organ in the tower room of Stenkumla Church on Gotland. It is raised in memory of a man who had been south with his comrades selling pelts, but he was killed in Ulvshale on the Danish island of Møn.