Talk:Sæbø sword

Runic inscription

it's difficult to find any references to this younger than 80 years, but I seriously doubt that Stephens' reading would still be accepted today. --dab (𒁳) 15:26, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I searched everywhere for some more recent discussion of this sword, as it was the only good example of a runic-inscribed Viking blade that I could find, and I was astonished (and a little worried) that there did not seem to be any original discussion of the inscription in any modern sources. BabelStone (talk) 15:53, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. The only other sword I am aware of that has runes on the blade (as opposed to the hilt) is the Schretzheim sword, which has four runes arranged in a cross. It is from a completely different context (7th century Alemannia as opposed to 8th century Norway). Even runes on sword hilts are rather rare (maybe three or four examples?).

The only "modern" source I could find that discusses the sword is this (1991), accessible only in snippet view. The "a swastika and five rune-like characters" to me seems to indicate skepticism towards Stephens' reading. Looking at the inscription, I must say only the o and u are clearly runes. The H may as soon be Latin, and the M and "Thorn" to me look like a latin M and D more than anything else. We then have "O - H - Swastika - M - U - D". Reading this as "Thurmuth owns me" is rather speculative to say the least. --dab (𒁳) 16:51, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there nothing on Rundata about this? :bloodofox: (talk) 16:56, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that I looked unsuccessfully there. I agree with dab that the reading is suspect -- the reading of the swastika as "thur" does not seem to be supported by anything, and although I can accept the leftmost letter as a thorn, the supposed runic M is really weird. BabelStone (talk) 17:04, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

DYK

I have nominated this article for DYK. BabelStone (talk) 01:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Iron

One of the few (and old, and dodgy) sources I found for this is Wilson's Swastika (1894)[1]. Wilson states that the sword is made from bronze. This is quite apparently a mistake, as Petersen mentions the sword just as a regular type C sword, which he would never do if it was just a "mock sword" made from anything other than steel. So I have tacitly omitted the "bronze" item. But I must admit that I have used other information from Wilson, such as the Budapest conference. And that the "bronze" claim is the only positive statement on the material of the sword (now glossed as "iron" in our article). --dab (𒁳) 08:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

It's a typical steel sword. There is a metallurgical analysis of the sword (B 1622) in Alan Williams, A Metallurgical Study of Some Viking Swords (GLADIUS XXIX (2009) pp. 121-184) page 136. He reads the inscription as "... B R T" for the name "[VLF]B[E]R[H]T". I'm not getting a good feeling about this sword. BabelStone (talk) 11:51, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

this goes to show that Wilson's book, as most of the late 19th to early 20th century swastika cruft is completely unreliable pseudoscholarship. --dab (𒁳) 14:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

oh?

even granting, for the sake of argument, the 卍muþ = Thurmuth reading, I would be rather interested in how oh can be conceived as translating to "owns me". --dab (𒁳) 08:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know Old Norse, but I assumed that Stephens must have been reading oh as a variant form of á, the 1st person singular of the ON verb eiga "to own", but the word order is odd as X á mik "X owns me" is the usual formula (cf. S[I]GEBEREHT ME AH "Sigebereht owns me" in OE on the Sittingbourne Seax where the OE ah is apparently cognate with the Thurmuth oh). But it now seems likely that Stephen's reading is at best overly imaginative, and that his drawing should not be relied on. Unfortunately, the photo on page 174 of the Gladius article shows no legible inscription. BabelStone (talk) 11:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

o dear. I could live with the interpretation being bogus, but if even the drawing of the inscription itself is dreamed up, we might as well trash this article and make it into a footnote of the "swastika considered a symbol of Thor" part at swastika.

The inscription not being runic at all would explain the lack of recent interest in the sword. This leaves the Schretzheim sword as the only "runic blade" I am aware of. --dab (𒁳) 14:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

ᛟᚺ=Oh=á=own?
Own is quite describing of OH I think, but provided own as a word means to "take possession of" or "take inheritance of". But remember we are actually talking about ᛟᚺ. The rune ᛟ is called Odal, and the meaning of odal/odel is inheritance (still is in norwegian). ᛟ is the last rune in the futhark, (naturally since death is assosiated with initiating inheritance). The rune ᚺ is called Hagl/hail, like in "hail to the king" or "it hails on me". It is the first rune in the second sequence of runes in the futhark, that is the first rune on level of adulthood, the first step on becoming a grown man (when you inherit the farm from your father?). Since I have brought it up:

ᚠ ᚢ ᚦ ᚨ ᚱ ᚲ ᚷ ᚹ = Childhood

ᚺ ᚾ ᛁ ᛃ ᛇ ᛈ ᛉ ᛊ = Adulthood

ᛏ ᛒ ᛖ ᛗ ᛚ ᛜ ᛞ ᛟ = Old age

Basically it equates the trinity I quess, but enough with the flaky runes.

I think these two wiktionaries gives a fairly good summary of the OH etymology (I provided som highlight below):
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A1
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A5
á - Etymology, long Old Norse /a/. often written as ā or normalized á or even aa, compare Swedish, Danish, Norwegian å.

Nouná n./f.

1.a monophthong or dipthong, 2nd letter in the Faroese alphabet (called [ɔa])

1.brook, stream, river

Preposition, Old Norse

á (‘on, onto, in, at’). Svabo: aa.

1.on, onto, to, near, beside

2.(with fjords, bays, harbours) to

1.on, in, at

2.(with certain place names) in

3.(with fjords, bays, harbours) at, in

4.(with seafaring and fishery) at

Onomatopoeia, Interjectioná!

1.oh!

2.animal sound of the puffin (lundi). Usage noteslundin sigur á á á - the puffin makes “oa oa oa”

Verb (Norse), Old present form of 'at eiga' (own) á

å - Etymology, from Old Norse á (“ow!”). Alternative spellings åh

Interjection å

1.oh

2.O

3.well

Preposition

å = obsolete variant of på (= at/on)

Letter Å, å

The last letter of the Norwegian alphabet.

From Old Norse á, related to Latin aqua ("water").

If I could add my opinion I would say that OH is an exclamation to recieve something related to the rest of the text on the sword. The question then is what the rest of the text comprises? When i say "exclamation to recieve something" I mean that it probably translates as a prayer, like "give me rain X" or "let it flow X", . Oh=á=aqua also ó=á=å=åh=ah. Á litteraly means flowing water, rain, river, stream, and I do not think it is pure water we are talking about her ... Something flow TO me, ON me, ONTO me or similar preposition. Moving liquid (also air) is traditionally related to lifeforce. Is this too much of a heavy load for a wikitalk?
Vegard Vike (talk) 23:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

No, Vegard, the h-rune is not "hail" as in "hail to the king". It is "hail" as in "ice dropping from the sky". Now, in principle, if we already read "卍" as "Thor", there is no reason not to take other runes as ideographs, but at the end of the day we need quotable references to support such readings, no matter how plausible or fantastic they may be. As Babelstone pointed out, this is about forms of the verb eiga which lose the g. It has nothing to do with your interjection. What the h is doing in this verb I don't know but perhaps there are Old Norse parallels for this. Is Old Norse á "I own / he owns" from *ah by Grammatischer Wechsel? Are there any attestations of this form? And how would we get from ah to oh? These are the questions we would need to ask (perhaps Haukur can answer them?), but since I think the "Thurmuth" reading is fantastic anyway I don't really worry about the oh too much, personally :) --dab (𒁳) 11:57, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

NOh :-), I think I introduced too many consepts at once, total sidetracking. The hail bit is not that impotant really, and it was an of hand remark by me, but now checking up on it a bit I realise it seems to be a relation between hail (ice bits falling) and hail [to bring up, raise up something. (wæs)hæil=(be)healthy=wassail]. Haggle means to bargain (raising voices while doing so presumably). The old norse word for the rune is hagall (shortened form is hagl it seems). Hail (the ice bits) is called hagl in old norse (and used about falling tears also), and is still called hagl in norwegian. But... hagall actually does not mean hail (the ice bits) in old norse. Hagall means servicable, of good service, artfull (I assume that means raised in quality). Old norse haga is related to tending something (in old norse), to prepare, to care for. To take care of a hagi (guarden) for example. Hagi means an area fenced in and tended to develop it into a good ground for grassing, a place to raise animals. Hagall, Hail, hæil and heal/health? Based on your response, to give you grounds for accepting my arguments on this or other I would have to write pages of information and references, so no need to wast more time on this sidetrack unless you really want to discuss the assosiative nature and dichotomies of language. Vegard Vike (talk) 20:42, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear, visting this section again after a long time I see that I must have had a blast of lucy that week. One of those out of my brain experiences, sound and unsound ideas mixing freely :-) Some inspirational concepts there perhaps, but I must remember to be careful with that mytho-folklore-etymology drug :-) Vegard Vike (talk) 01:26, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I see no reason to doubt that oh equates á (and ah for that matter). á is a long a, similar to norvegian å. The english "Oh God, or O god" translates "Å Gud" in norwegian. In my mind at least we seem to have the options of translating OH with "in", "onto" (or similar preposition),"owns" or just "Oh!" as in calling to someone (a diety?).

Ah is not of directly relevance for the Sæbø sword, but the Sittingbourne seax is interesting for comparison, but remember it was produced on christian grounds. There is no I in the text on the seax, and the inscription is writen like this:

+S GEBEREHT MEAH. Arguments about a missing I is conjecture. The other side of the seax is inscribed:
+BIORHTELMMEÞORTE. I will not start a long argument about this text, but can just say that a better theory of the lacune after the S would be that +S stands for Xristos Salvator (Christ saviour). Latin MEA translates to-me, but seems to be lengthened to "belongs to me", for explanatory reasons. Notis that the + or X is often used for the cross in such inscriptions, at the start and end of a text. Vegard Vike (talk) 22:01, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you should read our Elder Futhark article. While you seem to be well informed on Viking swords, I must say you do not seem to have a sound idea of runes, or linguistics. Please let us leave aside the random etymological speculation. haggle has nothing to do with hail (any meaning), but even if it did this wouldn't be the place to discuss it. If you do come to Talk:Elder Futhark I would be interested where on earth you picked up the idea that the three aetts correspond to three ages of man. --dab (𒁳) 10:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Alternate reading?

It seems an alternate reading appeared in:

• Lorange, Anders Lund (1889). Den yngre jernalders svaerd. Bergen: Grieg.

There was also critical discussion of Lorange's reading in the periodical The Academy and Literature, Vol. 36, 1889. If one could locate that article, perhaps some clues as to why it has received little to no subsequent coverage would be revealed. If, that is, anyone is sufficiently interested to dig it up. I can find numerous volumes of The Academy online, but, alas, not vol. 36. --77.57.165.148 (talk) 15:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The article by Alan Williams states the Lorange's reading is "Thurmuth" which follows Stephens, so I am not too hopeful that he will be able to redeem the article. But it would be interesting to see what he has to say, especially if he made a new drawing of the inscription. BabelStone (talk) 19:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I located the Academy article, and it was rather enlightening. The article, written by George Stephens, is a review of Lorange's Den yngre jernalders svaerd (1889). As BabelStone noted, "Thurmuth" was Stephens' reading, which Lorange accepted upon Stephen's authority. However, the plot thickens. ;) As Stephens writes:

Now [...] without my knowledge and by whose authority I know not, this runic blade while in the Danish Museum was treated with strong acid. The result is that the inscription is nearly ruined and can no longer be deciphered. [...] It is my right and duty to mention this, as otherwise a reader who finds that no such inscription as that given in my name by Lorange is now to be seen on the colour-printed plate might think that in 1884 I was guilty of something like "falsarium" or "lively imagination".(George Stephens, Review of Den yngre jernalders svaerd by A. L. Lorange (1889), The Academy and Literature, Aug. 10, 1889, no. 901, Vol. 36, pp. 91-93.)

And there we have it - or, at least, we have Stephens' version of what happened. If it's true - and I see no reason to doubt him - this would explain why the sword was effectively dropped from the corpus shortly after the appearance of Lorange's book. Stephens notes that the drawing - which was carried out by an artist of the Danish Museum, and not by Stephens himself - was confirmed independently as accurate before the acid incident, so he is covered on that account.

I don't know whether earlier researchers were aware of this bit of trivia, but now that we know, I think that, in the interest of fairness, we should somewhat dull the barb currently directed towards Stephens in the article. At the very least, a mention of the incident is justified, in my opinion. Or do others think this "acid tale" is some story Stephens concocted to cover his ass? --77.57.165.148 (talk) 18:41, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I can't tell what the truth of the matter was, but certainly the acid story should be included in the article. BabelStone (talk) 21:12, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

How interesting! Note that the theft and/or destruction of priceless historical objects in Denmark is hardly unknown. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:43, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Continuing my research, I came across an article (Werner, Gunnel (1981). "Konservierung av tre vikingatida svärd med inläggningar". Fornvännen, no. 76, 1981, pp. 16-23 [2]) which has the following bit of information:

Stephens tyder tecknen på svärdet från Saebö som runor och skall läsas som "oh ÞurmuÞ" (Thormod äger). Samma inskrift tolkas av Magnus Olsen som en "efterlikning av främmande inskrift" utan särskilt betydelse. Antejn går inte in på tolkningsfrågan utan nöjer sig med benämningen "bokstavsliknande tecken". (pg. 22)

Magnus Olsen's "reading" is clearly notable, but the original source is not noted - merely a reference to Petersen's 1918 En norsk sverdtype fra vikingatiden. Oldtiden. Bind VII. Kristiania, in which, presumably, the Olsen reading is referenced. The full Antejn (1973) citation can also be found in Werner's article. Locating either or both of these could possibly yield more information. --77.57.165.148 (talk) 09:27, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I did look in the Oldtiden. Bind VII, article by Jan Petersen" some weeks ago, but no reading was written there on the Sæbø sword (otherwise I would have copied the article, and I didn't), only a dispute of it beeng a proper inscription.But on what grounds? Not noted. Could be the bad state of preservation. Vegard Vike (talk) 02:35, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Photograph

It may be the 5th sword from the left in this flickr photo of Viking swords at Bergen Museum -- the hilt looks the same as the b/w photo in Williams' article (fig.98) although that shows a large notch in the top end of the blade which is not seen in the flickr photo. BabelStone (talk) 22:36, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

(Of course it is the middle sword -- see "Would the real Sæbø sword please step forward !" below.) BabelStone (talk) 01:06, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

The flickr account (Arild Nybø) has now kindly changed the licence of the image so that it can be uploaded to Commons, which I have now done. The animated gif could now also be uploaded to Commons and used in this article if fellow editors think it is appropriate (I like it, but some may think it is a little distracting). BabelStone (talk) 01:06, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

excellent! if the animated gif is uploaded, I would not transclude it in the article (on grounds of its being distracting) but instead I would link it by "click here for an animated version" from the image caption. --dab (𒁳) 10:33, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Would the real Sæbø sword please step forward !

The Sæbø sword is Bergen Museum B 1622 right? At least that is what we thought. Alan Williams' A Metallurgical Study of Some Viking Swords gives Lorange's reading of "Thurmuth" for B 1622, which would seem to confirm the identification, but having taken a closer look, it is patently obvious that the sword shown in Fig. 98 is not the same as the sword drawn by Stephens (the hilts are completely different). In fact the Sæbø sword is clearly the long sword shown in the middle of this flickr photo (can we get him to change its licence?) where the last part of the inscription is quite clear and shows what looks like half of a swastika followed by the letters MUÞ, and faintly on the other side the letters O and N. This seems to redeem Stephens' drawing and transcription, and invalidates Williams' reading of "... B R T" which is obviously from a different sword. So back to the drawing board! BabelStone (talk) 21:02, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

BTW, having gone through Stephens' Handbook of Old Northern Runic Monuments again, I notice that his drawing of Anglo-Saxon runic inscriptions that I am familiar with appear to be very accurate, which makes me think that there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of his drawing of the Sæbø sword inscription. Perhaps we judged him too harshly too soon. BabelStone (talk) 21:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

very interesting. we need to pursue this. This seems to have been shrugged off altogether too lightly in recent runology. If it turns out that the drawing is accurate, we have restored an important runic inscription to its rightful place (quite regardless of whether we want to agree with the Thurmuth reading). --dab (𒁳) 21:28, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Excellent find on the flick photo, BabelStone. Out of curiosity, I made a two-layered animated gif of the original drawing on top of the photo with a fade from 0 to 250 opacity of the drawing layer, and it's quite helpful in identifying the remains of the "O" and "H". Having looked at it with the animated fade, the swastika jumps out at me now, even in the untreated photo. At this point, I'm fairly convinced the drawing was quite accurate. Sadly, this little experiment also makes clear how much of the sword has eroded. Stephens noted in the Academy article how, before being treated (it was cleaned and, as noted above, the inscription was treated with acid in preparation for the plates to be taken for Lorange's book), it was one of the best-preserved specimens he had examined. Pity. --77.57.165.148 (talk) 23:43, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Can you post the gif on the internet or email it to me? BabelStone (talk) 00:02, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Sure. You should be able to view the animated image here. (Perhaps view with Internet Explorer if the image doesn't load properly.) I apologize for the choppiness of the fade - I hadn't thought about showing it to others, so I was jumping at increments of 30 opacity for each frame. 20 or even 10 would make for a much smoother transition. --77.57.165.148 (talk) 00:36, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! That really does help visualise the inscription on the photograph. The last two letters are so similar on the two images that it does suggest Stephens' drawing was accurate. What a crime it was that they did to the sword. BabelStone (talk) 00:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. If you look closely at the drawing, making note of the dark patches (e.g. on the right side of the M, on the lower right of the swastika, between the H and O, etc.), and then watch the animation, you can see exactly how the acid ate away at these spots most, resulting in the holes now seen in the photo. This leads me to believe that the artist was using shading to accurately indicate very subtle differences in the material itself - solid, consciencious work, that. And if he's conscienscious enough to record that kind of detail, I don't think he would have fudged on the details of the inscription itself. The only minor discrepancies I have detected so far are (1) the center of the swatika in the drawing has been slightly "straightened" in comparison with the original, and (2) the H appears to have been drawn a few milimeters longer than it actually was. As for the upper portion of the blade beyond the fuller, it's just crumbled away to nothing, though you can see on the very right where the upper edge of the fuller lines back up again. It makes me wonder where the thing is still crumbling away, or whether they've developed better preservative techniques.

Interestingly, while researching this topic, I ran across a note to the effect that the Museum of Bergen was one of the leading centers in the development of methods of iron and steel preservation/conservation at the end of the 19th century. This particular piece, so it seems, was one of the unfortunate victims of the trial and error phase of that undertaking. :-/ --77.57.165.148 (talk) 01:27, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

...and of course, they did their preliminary tests on how to preserve steel by pouring acid on it (??) with the only Viking blade with an inscription found in all of Scandinavia... It's not like they had a few hundred plain uninscribed blades to experiment with :( --dab (𒁳) 06:29, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

ah wait, I see Stephens says "while in the Danish museum". So it would seem the Norwegians are blameless. --dab (𒁳) 08:28, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Fascinating. Kudos all around! Haukur (talk) 18:20, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Iron inlays not silver (and some additional corrections)

I do so like the Wiki for the Sæbø sword, and espesially this Talk page. I discovered it while finishing of some research on this exact sword during the current month, at the same time as this wiki was created and forming. I had not read George Stephens review of Lorange's "Den yngre jernalders sværd" (1889) before, and must say that it does indeed strengthen the belief in the autencity and exactness of the 1884 drawing. I have made some adjustments to the Wiki, and will update it in the future also. This wiki was actually what motivated me to register as a user on wikipedia.
I made som brush ups on the Wiki.:

• Changed the inlay material from silver to iron. The writing on swordblades found in scandinavia dating to the 9th (and also 10th) century are more or less exclusively made with iron inlays (actually pattern welded iron letters in the 9th, and then by the late 10th simpler iron letters). This sword is of type C, and thus dated to the period 800-850 (See Lorange 1889, Petersen 1919, Peirce 2004 [Peirce, Ian, 2004. Swords of the Viking Age. Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-914-1] and others to verify this).
• I updated the Infobox some, added a link to the Bergen museums catalog information on the sword (unfortunately in norwegian only). The museums registration number is definitely B1622.
• I upgraded the reference list.
• I tried to add the color drawing of the sword from Loranges book from 1898, but have not been registered as wikipedian for four days yet, so I do not have the privileged.
  

Vegard Vike (talk) 01:59, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Glad to have you on the team, and I hope you enjoy editing Wikipedia. I don't have any problems with the improvements you have made to the article, although I was suprised about the iron-on-iron inlays. Stephens says that the inlays were made from twisted steel wire hammered into grooves chiselled into the blade, which is the same technique used on the Seax of Beagnoth, but with the help of Google I see that Viking sword inscriptions were usually made by welding on strips of iron. The other side of the blade, which we have largely overlooked, interests me because the criss-cross decorative pattern is so similar to the patterns on the Seax of Beagnoth which are made from inlaid twisted wire -- is this pattern also made from welded strips of iron or is it a different technique? and are such patterns found on other Viking swords? Also, we should mention in the article the Latin letters "HB" on the other side of the blade. BabelStone (talk) 01:26, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I have not had an opportunity to study the sword personally yet, but on Loranges drawing the criss-cross side is depicted in great detail, and is quite similar to the secondary side of most of the contemporary VLFBERHT swords (dated 800-950/1050). Loranges drawing does not show any latin letters HB, and non of the VLFBERHT swords seem to have letters on the criss-crossed side. On the Lorange drawing there seem to be some overlapping + signs at each end of the criss-cross, interconnection with it. Vegard Vike (talk) 02:15, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I would also be greatly interested the "Viking sword inscriptions" you refer to. I am not an expert, but I have spent some time looking for Viking swords with blade inscriptions, and I could not find any. Could we please compile a list of all known Viking swords with blade inscriptions any of you is aware of? By "Viking sword" I mean any sword made in Scandinavia between 700-1100 (and obviously any blade from before 700 would be of interest also). The Anglo-Saxon seaxes do not qualify on the two counts of being neither Scandinavian nor swords. The Ulfberht swords do not qualify because they are continentall --dab (𒁳) 12:47, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

"The Ulfberht swords do not qualify because they are continental" - Well then there are few left to make a list of :-) What a charming taunter you are dab. Anyway, on the VLFBERHT swords there are some systematic schematics in this article (it is very conservative on the understanding of the inscriptions, but it is interesting to see the range of variation within the VLFBERHT inscription type). I know of two swedish finds of viking age swords where the hilt is inscribed with runes, but not very readable. They seem to need consideration as magical/religious charms to give any meaning (you like that don't you dab :-) Then we have the Sæbø sword. Thats three... Still only one on the blade. We have a sword inscribed REX on the blade, thats latin so no good, we have all the INGELRI swords, imports too like the VLFBERHTs. That also exludes NISOMEFECIT, INNO ME FECIT, INLERURIETI, LEUTFRIT, LEUTLRIT, SIGBRHANI8, SIGVINΛIS, SIGVNIS, SHVΛIMIVΛHS, SINIMIΛINIΛIS, EROLT, CEROLT, BENNO, BANTO, ADALFRIID, ATALBALD og VLEN. Well that wasn't so hard actually, only the Sæbø sword with runic inscribed blad that I know of :-)

One of the two swedish swords, with runic inscription on silver foil from the hilt. Fornvännen 1936. The museum catalog for the sword, no. 20348 (press the small brown book icon to get to the PDF archive for that sword and leaf through the various pages and headers to find more pictures - they can be enlarged). The sword is Jan Petersen type L, that is a type of anglo saxon origin, datable to c.850-900. The runes can be both scandinavian and anglosaxon, that means more than one interpretation is possible for the runes. They seem to be ᚴᚴᚴᚴᚴ. One of the runes overlap two others. On this one, remember to read your Sigrdrífumál, stanza 6 (ouch, that translation is not all good but it will do for this sword.)

The other swedish sword is of type C like the Sæbø sword, but only the hilt remains, and they are of bone. It is from Gotland (I have not been able to identify its location and museum number yet, but have seen a drawing, not easy to read the runes on it though).

Vegard Vike (talk) 23:24, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I see you have spent some time researching this -- your information is valuable, do let us build a blade inscription article with it. Concernig runes, there is a second (or rather first) "runic blade", it is the Schretzheim sword, so (1) Schretzheim, (2) Sæbø, but that really seems to be the lot. --dab (𒁳) 09:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Sword inscriptions and their meaning

Still today I think that the main explanation for the inscriptions on "viking" swords is to call them a makers mark (like a factory mark), that is from the perspective of the archaeologists. Some inscriptions are found to be repeated on many sword (150-200+ VLFBERHT swords for example, the most common inscription), and that rules out a personal ownership explanation. My investigations points to the same function of the viking age inscriptions as some have concluded of the pre-viking and medieval sword inscriptions, calling on Gods grace, gods strength, godly power, or "cosmic powers", power of life-death (i.e. God) (this seems to be supported or at least not dispelled by people working from the language perspective Pernik sword, Le guerrier Russe [The rus warrior]). I would say that the inscription on the Sæbø sword seems to have deeply religious aspects (pre christian). This echoes the most easily read texts, clearly christian inscriptions, on some of the swords produced on the continent, but imported by the vikings. The most straight forward examples are:

IN NOMINE DOMINI "In (the) Name (of the) Lord"

Actually In Nomine Domini seems to mean selected/appointed by God to rule; "Ruler In (his) Name". To understand this look to the new rules instituted in the year 1059 by the papacy, for appointment of the pope (gods selected representative on earth.) This papal bull is actually named precisely IN NOMINE DOMINI.

This is a secondary inscription on the sword blades inscribed GECELIN ME FECIT, 11th century.

BENEDICTVSDNS Bene Dictus Dominus

"(the) Rightly Appointed (by the) Lord", or "Blessed (by the) Lord"

This is an inscription found on a few sword hilts in the 8th and early 9th century (sword type Mannheim).

The rest of the sword inscriptions are much more complex, but surprisingly not impossible to decipher, even the various crosshatchings (see backside of the sæbø sword, and many others variations) do seem to be "legible". But this I will have to publish before I disclose. No detailed translation of the Sæbø inscription from me yet then, unless someone else can come up with an attempt here that I can be tempted to comment and make arguments about ;-) Haukur could have an angle on it maybe? At first it must be said that a swastika written in a personal name would seems somewhat over the top...
Vegard Vike (talk) 01:58, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that we have no parallels of Viking Age sword blade inscriptions. There are none. (or do we?) This is why it was suggested that the inscription is in imitation of the continental (Frankish) blade inscriptions. If the Anglo-Saxon seax blade inscriptions are comparable (nb being from a different country, and from a Christian context), we should assume that it is most likely that such inscriptions identify either the maker or the owner of the blade. The suggestion that its meaning is religious is pulled out of thin air. We should discuss this at a separate blade inscription article. --dab (𒁳) 12:09, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Well of course the Sæbø sword inscription is inspired by the continental swordblades inscribed in latin letters. It must be, otherwise it would not be unique. That uniqueness also makes it difficult to make arguments for the texts intention. For many years people have translated ME FECIT markings on swords and seaxes as asserted to refere to the blademaker, or owner. Has it not occured to anyone that ME FECIT, my maker could also point to "God" my maker? Is this a gramatically incorrect way to read it, or refutable on other such grounds? What do you think the common sword inscription INGELRI ME FECIT reads like. Let me help you, IN(GEL)RI ME FECIT. I could be wrong of course, many people have been before me.

Is there any recorded inscriptions with a swastika as a "letter" in asserted personal names? I know of bracteats where the swastika is in the rune inscription at least, but I would be very interested in any example you could provide.

Vegard Vike (talk) 00:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

yes, it can be refuted on grammatical grounds. "me fecit" means "he made me", not "my maker". "Ingelri me fecit" means "Ingelri made me". If you mean to suggest that "INRI made me" should translate to "Jesus made me", that's a rather implausible hypothesis. "INRI" isn't a common abbreviation for "Jesus" at any point in time, the Christogram (XP) is. Of course it is possible to speculate, but there is such a thing as informed speculation vs. uninformed random speculation.

concerning the swastika, it is clear that it is a recurring symbol in Vendel era to Viking Age artefacts, so presumably it had some specific meaning. The idea that it symbolized Thor specifically afaik is just speculation and cannot be shown with any certainty. Examples where it is arranged as it were as a letter within a runic inscription are very rare, most of the time it is just placed somewhere alongside the inscription as an "extra". This is why I originally created this article, I was intrigued by the "swastika as a letter" idea. Perhaps we need an article where we collect all comparable instances. The website you link to seems like a good place to start. --dab (𒁳) 09:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I have now created Swastika (Germanic Iron Age) where the occurrence of the swastika in runic contexts can be discussed. --dab (𒁳) 10:22, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

offtopic, Eltang stone

This is getting eerie... Here I come across another seemingly very important runic inscription described by Stephens which apparently afterwards completely drops from the academic record. Has anyone ever heard of the "Stenderup stone" or "Eltang stone"? Well, google hasn't, except in Stephens' 1868 The Runic Hall in the Danish Old-Northern Museum (complete with drawing).

According to Stephens, this is a 9th century runestone with an inscription that can be read "ioþin þiki ioþin", "(W)odin receive (W)odin!", which is not only an excellent example of an early attestation of Odin, caught in the act of losing his initial w- (and I am not aware of any other explicit Viking Age runic mention of Odin, a bit poor for the god who discovered the runes in the first place), it also seems (to me) a rather clear reference to Odin's self-sacrifice. People writing about the history of Odin should be all over this inscription. Yet the only instance where I find this stone mentioned at all in the period of 1869 to present (!) is here (1985), where it is listed in passing as reading "imbik??". Without our Sæbø experience, I would disregard Stephens' reading as 19th century fantasy, but the inexplicable loss of interest in the Sæbø sword throughout the 20th century is a precedent that may make it worthwhile to look into this stone as well. --dab (𒁳) 09:50, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

There is a detailed description of the stone at http://runer.ku.dk/VisGenstand.aspx?Titel=Eltang-sten, with a photograph that confirms the accuracy of Stephens' drawing. The transliteration is given as "i--iæþik--" which fails to recognise the sam-staves noted by Stephens. I personally find the same-stave double Odin reading of Stephens convincing, but I must admit his translation "May Iothin thig Iothin" sent me scurrying to the dictionary. BabelStone (talk) 10:24, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

yes, it's a bit similar to the Thurmuth thing, isn't it... You do have a feeling he may have some sort of point, but it still doesn't seem entirely right :) Which is precisely why it would be important to have a more voluminous scholarly tradition to lean on and to cite from. --dab (𒁳) 10:27, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I've created the article. You are welcome to comment at Talk:Eltang stone. I would definitely support Stephens' "oþin" reading. The "i??iæþik??" is definitely a step backwards, apparently due to Moltke (1985), who was just doing a quick catalogue, he wasn't commenting on or interpreting the inscription. He also misplaced the stone to "North Jutland" when in fact it is from South Jutland. It seems nobody else found it worth their while to comment. --dab (𒁳) 12:37, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

no. 2605

Note, I found another Viking sword with an inscription in iron inlay over a pattern-welded core: Bergen Museum 2605. It's not runic, however. It just reads "K+X+XI". If it weren't for the "K", I would say it's a pattern of crosses more than an inscription. --dab (𒁳) 13:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC)