Västergötland Runic Inscription 8

Last updated April 22, 2019

Västergötland Runic Inscription 8 or Vg 8 is the Rundata listing for a Viking Age memorial runestone located at the church at Hjälstad, which is about one kilometer west of Moholm, Västra Götaland County, Sweden, and in the historic province of Västergötland.

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 and ASCII text files for other operating systems.

The Viking Age is a period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, following the Germanic Iron Age. It is the period of history when Scandinavian Norsemen explored Europe by its seas and rivers for trade, raids, colonization, and conquest. In this period, the Norsemen settled in Norse Greenland, Newfoundland, and present-day Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Normandy, Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, Isle of Man, the Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and Italy.

A memorial is an object which serves as a focus for the memory of something, usually a deceased person or an event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or art objects such as sculptures, statues or fountains and parks.

Description

The inscription on Vg 8 consists of runes carved in the younger futhark on a serpent that runs up one edge of the runestone, across its face, and then down the other edge. On the face of the stone is a large cross, and a second cross is located above the end of the serpent's tail. The inscription is classified as being carved in runestone style Fp. This is the classification for inscriptions with runic bands that have attached serpent or beast heads depicted as seen from above. The stone was discovered in the north wall of the church in 1890. Before the historic nature of runestones was understood, they were often reused as materials in the construction of buildings, churches, and bridges. The stone was removed from the church wall in 1937 and raised in the churchyard.

The Christian cross, seen as a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus, is the best-known symbol of Christianity. It is related to the crucifix and to the more general family of cross symbols, the term cross itself being detached from the original specifically Christian meaning in modern English.

The runic text states that the stone was raised by a man possibly named Geitingr in memory of his brother Geirmundr. Geirmundr is described as being þegn goðan or "a good thegn," a phrase that is also used on runestone DR 143 from Gunderup and, in its plural form, on Sö 34 from Tjuvstigen. A thegn was a class of retainer, and about fifty memorial runestones in Denmark and Sweden mention that the deceased was a thegn. The runic text ends with a short prayer, which is on the serpent's tail below the smaller cross.

The term thegn, from Old English þegn, ðegn, "servant, attendant, retainer", "one who serves", is commonly used to describe either an aristocratic retainer of a king or nobleman in Anglo-Saxon England, or, as a class term, the majority of the aristocracy below the ranks of ealdormen and high-reeves. It is also the term for an early medieval Scandinavian class of retainers.

The Gunderup Runestone, or DR 143, is located in Gunderup, North Jutland County, Jutland, Denmark. It is notable because it is one of few runestones raised in commemoration of a woman.

Inscription

Transliteration of the runes into Latin characters

kitikr × risti × stin × þena × eftiʀ × kimut × bruþur × sin × þen × kuþaa × kuþ albi ×^[1]

Transcription into Old Norse

Gæitingʀ(?) ræisti stæin þenna æftiʀ Gæiʀmund, broður sinn, þegn goðan. Guð hialpi.^[1]

Translation in English

Geitingr(?) raised this stone in memory of Geirmundr, his brother, a good thegn. May God help.^[1]

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References

1 2 3 Project Samnordisk Runtextdatabas Svensk - Rundata entry for Vg 8.

Coordinates: 58°36′27″N14°00′41″E / 58.6075°N 14.0114°E / 58.6075; 14.0114

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[Rundata-1] 1 2 3 Project Samnordisk Runtextdatabas Svensk - Rundata entry for Vg 8.