1.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
2.
Runemaster
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A runemaster or runecarver is a term for a specialist in making runestones. More than 100 names of runemasters are known from Viking Age Sweden with most of them from 11th century eastern Svealand, many anonymous runestones have more or less securely been attributed to these runemasters. During the 11th century, when most runestones were raised, there were a few professional runemasters and they and their apprentices were contracted to make runestones and when the work was finished, they sometimes signed the stone with the name of the runemaster. Many of the runic inscriptions have likely been completed by non-professional runecarvers for the practical purposes of burial rites or record-keeping. Due to the depictions of life, many of the nonprofessional runecarvers could have been anything from pirates to soldiers, merchants. The layout of Scandinavian towns provided centers where craftspeople could congregate, after the spread of Christianity in these regions, and the increase in runic literacy that followed, runes were used for record-keeping and found on things like weapons, ivory, and coins. Most early medieval Scandinavians were probably literate in runes, and most people probably carved messages on pieces of bone, however, it was difficult to make runestones, and in order to master it one also needed to be a stonemason. A number of historians have theorized that there may be a connection between the word erulaR, in the priesthood and the old Norse title jarl. This suggests that it is possible that those who were versed in runic arts formed their own secular upper class of learned runemasters. This claim is corroborated by the distribution of runestones throughout Eastern Norway. This continued with the prominence of runestones that accompanied the rise of Christianity. Many of the runic inscriptions carved during this time were done so for the pleasure of God, runes were often erected by long-distance explorers seeking to document their visits or memorialize their fallen comrades. Runecarvers on commission or on their own carved memorials and gravestones more than anything else, in addition, memorial runes could provide additional details about an individuals death with more accuracy than oral tradition. Additionally, based on the texts recovered, it appears that the families who raised runestones often had as many as six sons. This is most likely due to the practice of female infanticide, notable runemasters of the 11th to early 12th centuries include, Åsmund Kåresson Balle Fot Frögärd i Ösby Gunnborga Halvdan Öpir Torgöt Fotsarve Ulf of Borresta Visäte
3.
Runic transliteration and transcription
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Every step has its challenges, but most Younger Futhark inscriptions are quite easy to interpret. Most Scandinavians can learn to read runic inscriptions with a little training, the Elder Futhark inscriptions, however, are much more challenging and they demand a great deal of knowledge in historical linguistics. Standard works such as Sveriges runinskrifter contain extensive presentations of the inscriptions have been interpreted throughout the centuries. It is practically impossible to render the runes in all the ways that they appear in the inscriptions. Transliteration means that the runes are represented by a corresponding Latin letter in bold, no consideration is given to the sound the rune represented in the actual inscription, and a good example of this is the ansuz rune, which could vary greatly in shape. In the oldest Younger Futhark inscriptions, it represented a nasal a, as in French an. However, some continued to use the ansuz rune for an a phoneme. Sometimes the runes are dotted which means that a dot has been added, dotted u, k and i are transliterated as y, g and e though they are rather variations of the non-dotted runes than runes in their own right. Bind runes are marked with an arch, some bind runes look in a way that makes it impossible to know which rune preceded the other, and then the scholar has to test the various combinations that give a comprehensible word. Thus all transliterations of bind runes are scholarly interpretations, runes that are known from older depictions but that have since disappeared are rendered within square brackets. The runes are transcribed into normalized spellings of the languages the runes were written in, since a single rune may represent several different phonemes, normalizations can differ greatly from transliterations. The þ rune can represent both the Old Norse letter ð or þ
4.
Runestone
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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, 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 tradition of raising stones that had runic inscriptions first appeared in the 4th and 5th century, in Norway and Sweden, the earliest Danish runestones appeared in the 8th and 9th centuries, and there are about 50 runestones from the Migration Period in Scandinavia. Most runestones were erected during the period 950-1100 CE, and then they were raised in Sweden. —The Ynglinga saga What may have increased the spread of runestones was an event in Denmark in the 960s, King Harald Bluetooth had just been baptised and in order to mark the arrival of a new order and a new age, he commanded the construction of a runestone. The runestone has three sides of two are decorated with images. On one side, there is an animal that is the prototype of the animals that would be commonly engraved on runestones. Shortly after this stone had been made, something happened in Scandinavias runic tradition, scores of chieftains and powerful Norse clans consciously tried to imitate King Harald, and from Denmark a runestone wave spread northwards through Sweden. In most districts, the fad died out after a generation, but, in the central Swedish provinces of Uppland and Södermanland, there are about 3,000 runestones among the about 6,000 runic inscriptions in Scandinavia. The runestones are unevenly distributed in Scandinavia, Denmark has 250 runestones, 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, outside of Scandinavia, the Isle of Man stands out with its 30 runestones from the 9th century and early 11th century. Scattered runestones have also found in England, Ireland, Scotland. Runestones were placed on selected spots in the landscape, such as locations, roads, bridge constructions. In medieval churches, there are often runestones that have been inserted as construction material, in southern Scania, runestones can be tied to large estates that also had churches constructed on their land. In the Mälaren Valley, the appear to be placed so that they mark essential parts of the domains of an estate, such as courtyard, grave field. Runestones usually appear as single monuments and more rarely as pairs, in some cases, they are part of larger monuments together with other raised stones. However, although scholars know where 95% of all runestones were discovered, the remainder have been found in churches, roads, bridges, graves, farms, and water routes
5.
Runes
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The Scandinavian variants are also known as futhark or fuþark, the Anglo-Saxon variant is futhorc or fuþorc. Runology is the study of the runic alphabets, runic inscriptions, runestones, runology forms a specialised branch of Germanic linguistics. The earliest runic inscriptions date from around 150 AD, the characters were generally replaced by the Latin alphabet as the cultures that had used runes underwent Christianisation, by approximately 700 AD in central Europe and 1100 AD in northern Europe. However, the use of runes persisted for specialized purposes in northern Europe, until the early 20th century, runes were used in rural Sweden for decorative purposes in Dalarna and on Runic calendars. The three best-known runic alphabets are the Elder Futhark, the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, and the Younger Futhark, the Younger Futhark is divided further into the long-branch runes, short-branch or Rök runes, and the stavlösa or Hälsinge runes. The Younger Futhark developed further into the Medieval runes, and the Dalecarlian runes, historically, the runic alphabet is a derivation of the Old Italic scripts of antiquity, with the addition of some innovations. Which variant of the Old Italic family in particular gave rise to the runes is uncertain, suggestions include Raetic, Venetic, Etruscan, or Old Latin as candidates. At the time, all of these scripts had the same angular letter shapes suited for epigraphy, the process of transmission of the script is unknown. The oldest inscriptions are found in Denmark and northern Germany, not near Italy, a West Germanic hypothesis suggests transmission via Elbe Germanic groups, while a Gothic hypothesis presumes transmission via East Germanic expansion. The runes were in use among the Germanic peoples from the 1st or 2nd century AD, no distinction is made in surviving runic inscriptions between long and short vowels, although such a distinction was certainly present phonologically in the spoken languages of the time. Similarly, there are no signs for labiovelars in the Elder Futhark The term runes is used to distinguish these symbols from Latin and it is attested on a 6th-century Alamannic runestaff as runa and possibly as runo on the 4th-century Einang stone. The name comes from the Germanic root run-, meaning secret or whisper, in Old Irish Gaelic, the word rún means mystery, secret, intention or affectionate love. Similarly in Welsh and Old English, the word rhin and rūn respectively means mystery, secret, secret writing, or sometimes in the sense of the word. Ogham is a Celtic script, similarly carved in the Norse manner, the root run- can also be found in the Baltic languages, meaning speech. In Lithuanian, runoti means both to cut and to speak, according to another theory, the Germanic root comes from the Indoeuropean root *reuə- dig. The Finnish term for rune, riimukirjain, means scratched letter, the Finnish word runo means poem and comes from the same source as the English word rune, it is a very old loan of the Proto-Germanic *rūnō. The runes developed centuries after the Old Italic alphabets from which they are historically derived. The formation of the Elder Futhark was complete by the early 5th century, specifically, the Raetic alphabet of Bolzano is often advanced as a candidate for the origin of the runes, with only five Elder Futhark runes having no counterpart in the Bolzano alphabet
6.
Runology
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This article is about the philological discipline, not to be confused with occultist concepts like runosophy. Runology is the study of the Runic alphabets, Runic inscriptions, runology forms a specialized branch of Germanic linguistics. Runology was initiated by Johannes Bureus who was interested in the linguistics of the Geatish language. However, he did not look at the runes as just an alphabet, the study of runes was continued by Olof Rudbeck Sr and presented in his collection Atlantica. The physicist Anders Celsius further extended the science of runes and travelled around the whole of Sweden to examine the bautastenar, another early treatise is the 1732 Runologia by Jón Ólafsson of Grunnavík. The various runic scripts were well understood by the 19th century, wilhelm Grimm published his Ueber deutsche Runen in 1821, where among other things he discussed the Marcomannic runes. In 1828 he published a supplement, titled Zur Literatur der Runen, sveriges runinskrifter was published from 1900. The dedicated journal Nytt om runer has been published by the Runic Archives of the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo from 1985, the Rundata project, aiming at a machine-readable catalogue of runic inscriptions, was initiated in 1993. Runic transliteration and transcription List of runologists
