futhark journal (snow white woman)

8/11/2019 Futhark Journal (Snow White Woman)

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Futhark

Vol. 3 2012

International Journal of Runic Studies

Main editorsJames E. Knirk and Henrik Williams

Assistant editor

Marco Biani


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Contributing authors 2013

Tis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Aribution-NonCommercial-

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All articles are available free of arge at

hp://www.futhark-journal.com

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Editorial advisory board:

Miael P. Barnes (University College London), Klaus Dwel (University of

Gingen), Lena Peterson (Uppsala University), Marie Stoklund (National

Museum, Copenhagen)

ypeset with Linux Libertine by Marco Biani

University of Oslo

Uppsala University

ISSN 1892-0950


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Runes about a Snow-White Woman:

Te Lund Gaming-Piece RevisitedRikke Steenholt Olesen

Abstract

A small, well-preserved, wooden runic object was found in a well in the cityof Lund in Scania (Skne) in 2004 and has puzzled researers ever since. It ispresumably a gaming-piece for a board game. Te dating of the araeologicallayer in whi the object was found suggests that it ended in the well betweenc. 1220 and 1235. Te reading of the individual runes is in almost every casecertain. Te reading order of the lines, the interpretation of the linguistic contentand the provenance, however, have caused disagreement among those who havestudied the object. Te inscription was tentatively discussed in the authorsPh.D. dissertation from 2007, but many questions remained unsolved. Tis paperreviews the discussion so far, and offers a more coherent linguistic interpretation.It also suggests a probable provenance for the object.

Keywords: medieval runic inscription, Lund, gaming-piece, order of reading,rune-carver formula, love, love sorrow

Te runic find

Acircular piece of beewood ornamented and inscribed with runes cameto light in the spring of 2004 in the city of Lund. It was found in thecourse of an araeological excavation in the residential blo known as kv.Blekhagen 1012, in the filling of a well at a depth of about two metres. Te

object itself has not been dated, but tenical analyses have cast light on theage of the well and the layer of filling. Te woodwork in the well consistedof bee and reused oak. Te bee was felled in the years between 1202and 1214 (Swedish dendroronology nos. 6931647, household/phase 11).Te filling has been dated by araeological methods of stratigraphy to theperiod c. 122035 (household/phase 12; Ericsson et al. 2013). Tis means that

Steenholt Olesen, Rikke. Runes about a Snow-White Woman:Te Lund Gaming-Piece Revisited

Futhark:International Journal of Runic Studies3 (2012, publ. 2013), 89104.

2013 Rikke Steenholt Olesen.Tis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the

Creative Commons Aribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/


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90 Rikke Steenholt Olesen

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the runic object ended up in the well sometime between c. 1220 and 1235,and the dating of the filling provides a terminus ante quemfor the ornament

and the runic inscription of c. 1235. Since there are no significant traces ofwear and tear on the surface of the piece, the ornament and the runes wereprobably incised in the 122035 period. Te object is now kept at Kulturen(Museum of Cultural History) in Lund where it is registered with museumno. KM 86581:1624.

In form, the object resembles an ice-hoey pu in miniature (it isabout 5.15.2 cm. in diameter and 1.21.4 cm. in thiness), and that it iswhy it has been facetiously referred to as the rune-pu by the Swedisharaeological team involved in the excavation. Circular objects of this typeare referred to as discs by araeologists and are frequently found whenexcavating medieval towns. Discs are oen interpreted as gaming-piecesfor different types of board game, and gaming-pieces from medieval Lundhave recently been discussed as a part of a masters thesis (Spjuth 2012),whi includes individual detailed find-lists of discs of horn/bone, stone andwood. Te presumed gaming-piece from kv. Blekhagen is, however, notincluded in the list of wooden discs. It is not always possible to determinewith certainty whether discs should be interpreted as gaming-pieces or asother types of objects, e.g. amulets or spinning whorls, but there are severalsimilarities between the runic disc and other disc finds from Lund classified

as gaming-pieces, and therefore the bee piece is here and below referredto as a gaming-piece.

Ornamentation on discs from Lund consists typically of concentric circles(particularly common on lathed horn discs) or simple paerns of incisedlines or geometric shapes, though some are more exquisitely decorated (cf.illustrations of discs from Lund in Persson 1976, 380 f., and Spjuth 2012, 31).Te ornamentation of the gaming-pieces is mentioned, but not explicitlydiscussed, in the recent thesis by Spjuth. Notable is perhaps the fact that themajority of wooden discs from Lund are not ornamented (Spjuth 2012, 65 f.).

Te runic gaming-piece has an almost centred simple cross-shape incisedon the one flat face. Te cross arms are narrow at the centre and broaderat the perimeter. Tis particular type of cross is generally known as a crosspae. It is very common in (Christian) medieval art all over Europe andalso frequently depicted on Danish late Viking Age/medieval runestones.Te runic piece is comparable to another ornamented wooden disc fromLund also interpreted as a gaming-piece. Tat disc dates to the first half ofthe 1100s and is incised on both flat faces (KM 66166:1326; Persson 1976, 381[photo]). On the one face are two or more anthropomorphic shapes and on

the opposite face, a centred cross-shaped ornament. One of the anthropo-


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Runes about a Snow-White Woman 91

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morphic shapes seems to have a halo. Te depictions can be interpreted asreligious markers, though secular shapes were the preferred explanation in

Persson 1976.Te runic inscription on the Lund piece is spread over five rows separatedby framing lines. It is not customary for discs interpreted as gaming-pieces to bear runic inscriptions. Examples do, however, exist, e.g. a Nordicgaming-piece (lathed horn) from the early medieval period found in Kadusin Poland with the inscription !ionataf!!l, Jn tafl Jn owns the gaming-piece / the board game (Lere Nielsen 2004; here and below texts arenormalized as Old West Nordic unless otherwise stated). In this case therunic inscription explicitly confirms the function of the disc as a gaming-piece. Other runic discs interpreted as gaming-pieces come from Norwayand seem to be inscribed with personal names. Tree of them were foundin the Old own (Gamlebyen) in Oslo and date from the 1100s or 1200s. Onone of wood the text reads sigrit:htha, the first sequence of whi has beententatively interpreted as the feminine name Sigrr (A 319; Knirk 1991,16 f.). A second likely gaming-piece, also of wood, bears the runes sihu!r,probably the masculine name Sigurr(A 263; Steenholt Olesen 2007, 140,with references), and on the third piece, of antler, a circle and the runesarni, the mans name rni, are incised (A 300; Knirk 1989, 6). In addition, adisc from Bergen made of whalebone bears the inscription uikigr(followedby two verticals) interpreted as the mans name Vkingr(N 288;NIyR, 4:46 f.). Te damaged runes on a fragment of a wooden disc from nsberg,not necessarily a gaming-piece, might spell the masculine name Lurr(A50; Gosling 1989, 17577). In addition, a ess-piece finely cut out of walrusivory found in Helmond, Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands, and possiblyScandinavian workmanship, is also inscribed with runes (Stoklund 1987,194 f.), but since the ess-piece belongs to a different category of gaming-pieces it is le out of this discussion.

On account of the unique status of the Lund find it was with joy and

excited anticipation that in the spring of 2004 Marie Stoklund, curator andsenior researer at the National Museum in Copenhagen, along with threeother Danish runologists, accepted an invitation to aempt to interpret itsinscription. Te first examination was undertaken in April 2004 before thepiece was conserved by freeze-drying, by Miael Lere Nielsen, associateprofessor at the University of Copenhagen, and two doctoral students, LisbethM. Imer and the present author. Te second examination took place in June2005 ahead of a seminar held at the Institute for Language and Folklore,Department of Dialectology and Onomastics in Lund, where the piece was

described and discussed by the araeologist Conny Johansson Hervn and


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Miael Lere Nielsen. Te examination was this time undertaken by MarieStoklund, Miael Lere Nielsen and the present author. Te inscription

was never formally published but a linguistic discussion is to be found inSteenholt Olesen 2007, 13849.It is natural to consider a runic find from medieval Lund as East Nordic. It

is also fairly natural to expect a reading of a runic inscription like the one onthe Lund gaming-piece to proceed from the top and downwards. Te top anddownwards order was the one followed in Steenholt Olesen 2007. An orderof reading running from the boom and upwards was, however, discussedat the seminar in Lund. In the summer of 2007 the piece was examined onceagain, this time by Professor James E. Knirk of the Oslo Runic Arives, andthe question as to the order in whi the lines should be read was raisedagain with reference to among other maers the name-riddle in the oldur in B, elemark (A 104; Knirk 1986, 7680, and Louis-Jensen 1994),where the text ran from the boom and upwards. (Further argumentationin favour of this order is found below.)

Knirk has also argued in favour of a Norwegian provenance for the runeson the Lund piece. Since the inscription both linguistically and content-wise betrays elements that could suggest a West Nordic tradition, Professoremerita Jonna Louis-Jensen (Copenhagen) has been consulted about possibleliterary parallels. Te following exposition of the inscription builds on

earlier works and discussions and not least on the tentative interpretationof the inscription that Louis-Jensen put forward in e-mail correspondencewith Knirk in 2007.

Te runic text

ransliteration

Te reading here starts at the boom line, and the lines are numbered

upwards as shown in figure 1. Te inscription uses short-twig forms of a, t,n, sando( T N c ), whi is typical for the medieval period. Short-twigs-runes occur relatively rarely in the area where Old Danish was spoken butexamples are found, so that the shape of the s-rune is not a sufficient criterionfor declaring the inscription as non-Danish (different shapes of the s-runeare discussed in DR, ext, cols. 97274). From Lund itself there is a fragmentof a comb bearing the inscription: !lui:reist:runar:esar:at:k, wherethe short-twig form occurs in both reist(with a digraphic spelling unusualfor Old Danish) and esar. Tere is a discrepancy between the dating of the

comb-type to the late 900s or the 1000s and the runic inscription, whi in a


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Danish context gives the impression of being younger than the typology ofthe comb would imply (Stoklund 1998, 7 f.). It could perhaps be argued thatthe provenance of the comb inscription is uncertain, and that the diphthongin reistcombined with short-twig forms might indicate West Nordic origin.

On the Lund gaming-piece, the traditional runic orthographic principle ofnot writing the same rune twice in succession is disregarded in orkissunin line 2. However, the doubled s-rune would not be controversial (if con-troversial at all in a late medieval inscription) if the sequence were read astwo separate words: orkisfollowed bysun(further discussed below). Teansu-rune, with twigs facing le (as normally in medieval inscriptions, ),is employed in the inscription with the sound value o, while awould seemto occur in complementary distribution with the short-twig a-rune () andis therefore to be understood as denoting . Use is made of a colon or two-point punctuation mark (short strokes made by pressing the knife-tip intothe wood) whose purpose seems generally to be to divide up the text into

words. Te punctuation mark is, however, not employed consistently, forseveral sequences without separation marks must be assumed to consist ofmore than one word (the final sequence in lines 2 and 4, presumably alsoline 3). Te inscription displays three doed runes: an e-rune in line 1 (ani-rune with a strong point on the vertical just above the middle: e), a g-runein line 3 (a k-rune with a short stroke in the space between the vertical andthe bran: ), and a d-rune in line 4 (a doed t-rune with a weakly cutshort stroke in the space between the vertical and the twig: ). Tis last runewas first read as dby James Knirk in 2007. In line 3 the tenth aracter is

certainly a bind-rune 9an(hardly to be read with the unnatural order9na),

1

2

3

4

5

Fig. 1. Te Lund gaming-piece, face with runes and face with ornament. 1:1. Drawings byaritect Stine Bonde Bendixen.


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while the tenth aracter in line 4 is a certain -rune perhaps combined withan hthough this is more probably a correction than a bind-rune. Although

there is uncertainty on this point, the transliteration is given below as[


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Te spelling of the noun sonrissun, as would be expected in a high medi-eval Danish/East Nordic context, cf. the compound designation or2gils:sun

on a medieval grave-slab from Galtrup (DR 152). Te situation, however,is perhaps different in Norway, in that it has been argued that the use of au-rune for o-sounds in runic inscriptions from Bergen and rondheim canreflect Icelandic language (Hagland 1989, 9294). Runic spelling of the wordsonr(in the nominative case) varies, however, both as an individual word andas the second element in compound patronymic designations in Norwegianinscriptions, and the variation reflects both dialectal and ronologicaldifferences. Te element sunhas no visibly marked nominative form (i.e.no final -r), a well-known and widely discussed phenomenon (Peterson1993, 164). A runic spelling

sunin

orkissunwould, in my view, not reflect

any inconsistency with the medieval Norwegian runic corpus, supportedas it is by several sun spellings in compound patronymic designations.For example, the historically known Norwegian ieain Sigurr Jarlssoncarved his name as sigurr:ialssunin the famous inscription no. 1 fromVinje stave ur (N 170), dated to the 1190s (N 170; NIyR, 26468).

Te first element, wrien orkis, must reflect a Nordic, dithematic namewith the first element r-, i.e. the gods name Tor, whereas the runes -kismust reflect a genitive singular form. Formally the name element could beOld Danish -gr, identical with the noun meaning spear. Names in ODan.

-gr belong to the masculinea-stems, and the genitive singular shouldbe -grs(with anr). Te long , whi was developed from the CommonScandinavian diphthong i, was shortened at an early date to iin weaklystressed position so that the nominative form came to coincide with themasculine ija-stems nominative form in -ir. Tis led to a transition to thedeclensional paern of the ija-stems and hence a genitive singular form in-is(cf.GG, 1: 244 f.). A late Viking Age runic instance of this development isthe spelling askis, genitive singular of Old Danish Asgron the runestonefrom Grensten (DR 91).

Te element -kis may formally also represent a way of writing thegenitive singular of the element -gsl or of a form with metathesis -gils(concerning metathesis in this name, see Hagland 1990). A runic inscriptionon a sti from Bryggen in Bergen contains the sequence orkis, most likelythe nominative singular form of a mans name. Te runes are interpretedas a form of the masculine name orgsl(cf. the Scandinavian Runic extDatabase, signum N B307; cf. Seim 1998, 219). Tis interpretation appears topresume that the carver simply forgot an l-rune, and this would also have tobe the explanation of a runic spelling -kisof a form with metathesis -gils. A

genitive form of -gsl, i.e. -gsls, wrien -kiscan be explained linguistically


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as a loss of -l-between two consonants (the three-consonant rule, see Seip1955, 164; GG, 2: 301 f.). A name-form Torgiss (dated between 1396 and

1439, Mathias Torgiss) recorded in Danmarks gamle Personnavne under theheadword Torgerbut referred to eitherTorgerorTorgisl(DgP, 1: 1384),along with several other similar name-forms from the 1400s, corresponds toa possible primary patronymic orkissun. On a formal, linguistic basis itis not possible to make a definite decision as to whi name lies behind therunic spelling on the Lund gaming-piece.

Te demonstrative pronoun wrien eta must represent the neuteraccusative singular eathis, that and be understood as the direct objectof rist, the 3rd person singular preterite of ODan. rsta carve, wherethe spelling with a diphthong is a typologically araic feature in a Danishcontext. Gradually, as more and more examples of what have been explainedas digraphic spellings without a phonetic basis in East Nordic have appearedin the area where Old Danish was spoken, the perception of this feature asunambiguously foreign has had to be modified (Lere Nielsen 2001). Tedating of most of the inscriptions with digraphic spelling of the historicaldiphthong i indicates that su spellings belong typologically to theoldest strata of medieval inscriptions, and that does not fit very well witha dating to the 1200s for the Lund piece. Te only other example from thearea where Old Danish was spoken of the runic spelling ristis found inornby Chur, North Jutland (DR 169; NIyR, 5: 234 f.). Tat inscription hasseveral features whi suggest that the provenance is Norwegian amongothers the distribution of s-runes for s andz (C andsrespectively), anddiphthongs manifested in the spellings orstinand the formristitself.Tis inscription is probably from the 1200s. Tus, in conclusion, while lines12 of the Lund gaming-piece clearly contain a rune-carver formula with amans name, his national origin is as yet unclear.

Te sentence structure of the rune-carver formula on the Lund gaming-piece can play a role in establishing the order in whi the lines are to be

read, whi, as mentioned above, has been the focus of the discussion of theinscription. Te most frequent type of rune-carver formula in the MiddleAges has a subject-verb-object structure (SVO, with X here representinga name), X reist rnar essar, while in a few examples the formula showsinversion and verb-subject-object structure (VSO), Reist X rnar essar.Te object-verb-subject order (OVS), essar rnar reist X, is also recorded,and several instances are found in Norwegian runic inscriptions fromBryggen in Bergen. One of the finds (B 572), a triangular stone, displaystwo initial OVS rune-carver formulas corresponding precisely to the one

on the Lund piece: eta:rist:irrikr:baki:um:not f, ea reist Eirkr


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, literally Tis carved Eirkr , and etarist8arne,ea reist rni Tis carved rni , while another Bergen inscription (B 417) reads:

ettaristblindermaertilinh2y, ea reist blindr mar til n Tis carved (a) blind man for you . Tere is thus nothing aberrantabout an initial rune-carver formula with an OVS structure, whi is theorder in the inscription on the Lund gaming-piece when it is read from theboom and upwards. Unfortunately both inscriptions from Bryggen seemto be fragmentary. Still the OVS structure in all three instances appearsto serve as a prelude to a following text. Tis might also be the case inthe inscription from Lund. It is certainly very difficult to find parallels inmedieval runic writing to the SOV word-order (reading from the top anddownwards, as done previously)

rolfr:orkissun/

eta:rist, although if

the writer intended some kind of verse, he might conceivably have opted foran unusual sentence structure.

Te lyrical statement in lines 35

Te most significant linguistic argument in favour of an order of readingfrom the boom and upwards, however, is the possibility of linking theend of line 4 with the beginning of line 5. Te sequence sn/huitucanthen be read as a compound adjective, snhvtr snow-white, most likely

weakly declined in some oblique case. Te adjective would then modifythe following snot. It is first necessary to examine the runic spelling sn.Although an Old Danish form *snis not recorded, it can be postulated onthe basis of parallels (e.g. the alternative form sof ODan.solake;GG, 1:237 n. 2). Tus the runic spelling sndoes not constitute an argument fornon-Danish provenance. Nevertheless it is worth noting that the form doesnot need any special explanation in a Norwegian context.

Te last word in line 5, snot, is in all probability identical with the well-known poetic word snt(f.) woman (Sveinbjrn Egilsson 191316, 523),

also aested in Norwegian dialects, but not recorded in East Nordic sources.Te word appears in two medieval runic inscriptions from Bryggen inBergen. Te first (B 111) is in verse (the metre being drkv) but onlyfragmentarily preserved, and seems to refer to a situation in whi a womenhas in some way or other yielded to a man or lover (agreed to marriageor love-making?), but is still by men assumed to be a maiden or maybeby men is considered to be unmarried/a virgin; cf. Liestl 1964, 32 f.). Tesecond inscription (B 404) contains the wording snot*uliota, snt ljtaunugly woman, and this statement can be connected with that on a third

Bryggen sti (B 524): konouena,konu vnabeautiful woman, since the


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accompanying introductions on the stis (sisi*si*sissiandsesessseserespectively) must have their roots in the same formula. Te repetitive

formula is also known from the Greenlandic Narssaq sti, whi might be150200 years older than the two examples from Bryggen (cf. also MacLeodand Mees 2006, 6870, with references). Te word sntoccurs in manuscriptsources as a synonym of konawife, married woman andmr maiden,unmarried woman. Te term mris employed on the Narssaq sti, andthis word occurs in other places modified by the adjective white, e.g. hvtmr, en brhvta mr(eyebrow-white), en lnhvta mr(linen-white;these examples are taken from Sveinbjrn Egilsson 191316, 416). Te poemSlarlj, in Eddic metre, contains the formula () hvtu mr(the) whitemaiden, and there is no doubt that the adjective white combined with aword for a woman both in Slarljand in other poetic contexts has thepositive connotations of fair and beautiful (cf. Sveinbjrn Eigilsson 191316,302).

Te runes umin line 4 must be either the adverb or the prepositionum(+ accusative), and ais probably the feminine accusative singular formthis, that of the demonstrative pronoun, although formally the possibilitiesare several, e.g. the adverb then, the preterite of the verbiggjareceive,accept and a form of the noun (f.) thawed ground. It is, however,natural to analyse asn/huitu:snotas an alliterating, semantically andgrammatically concordant unit in the accusative feminine singular: snhvtu sntthe snow-white woman. Tis is probably governed by thepreposition umand forms the last part of the inscription (lines 35).

Line 3 begins with honom:uarand it seems reasonable to interpret thefirst word as the dative of the personal pronoun hannhe. Te expectedDanish runic form around 1200 would be hanumwith umlaut of the vowelof the first syllable unmarked, cf. that the oldest Scanian manuscripts havehanum, honumonly appearing in the late 1300s. Presuming the runic formhonomto reflect markedu-umlaut in the first syllable corresponding to themanuscript form honum, the oin the second syllable could be explainedas an example of vowel harmony u>ounder the influence of theoin thepreceding syllable. If, however, the first syllable is regarded as long, thelowering u >o could be explained as an example of vowel balance. Butwhereas vowel harmony can be demonstrated in Scanian manuscripts fromthe early 1200s (GG, 1: 402), vowel balance is not definitely aested in thearea where Old Danish was spoken, although it is assumed that it couldhave existed in Scanian in the 1100s and 1200s (GG, 1: 403; Bjerrum 1973[1952], 121). Te vocalic systems underlying the designation of vowels in

runic inscriptions from Scania and Bornholm during the period 10001250


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cannot be established with certainty, perhaps due to irregular variation,combinations of vowel harmony and vowel balance or other rules (Bjerrum

1973 [1952], 58). In a Danish/Scanian context the appearance of the formhonomas early as c. 1200 must be considered somewhat aberrant. In OldNorwegian manuscripts, however, both phenomena, vowel harmony andvowel balance, occur widely (Seip 1955, 12832) and runic inscriptions fromB, Atr and Bryggen show examples of the spelling honom(A 98, N 148, B181; all from the late 1100s or early 1200s). Te runes uarare probably the3rd person singular preterite of the verb vera to be, but it is not obviouswhat the subject of uaris.

Te runes following uar in line 3 have caused a good deal of troubleand not yet received a satisfactory interpretation. Te sequence

9angar

can hardly represent a known word, but if one accepts Jonna Louis-Jensens proposal (in the previously mentioned e-mail correspondence withJames Knirk in 2007) and reads the a-rune twice in the bind-rune 8an, two

individual units, aand9angar, can be separated. Te double reading of aisadmissible according to classical runic orthography, in whi the same runeis not normally wrien twice in succession. Te motivation for not carvingtwo adjacent a-runes in 9angarcannot be la of space since there is roomenough for another a-rune and a punctuation mark. With double reading ofthe a-rune the first unit would constitute a word, , for whi formally the

possibilities of interpretation are again many. Te remaining runes, 9angar,can be explained as a form of the noun angr(m./n.) sorrow wrien with asvarabhakti vowel. Tis would provide a subject for the verb uar, and awould then probably be best interpreted as the adverb of time then.Svarabhakti vowels are documented early in both East and West Nordictexts. In Norway svarabhakti a occurs frequently in texts from the southernand south-eastern parts of the country, while Icelandic texts have u(Seip1955, 137 f.). In Denmark, svarabhakti vowels between a consonant and final-rdevelop over the whole country in the medieval period. In manuscripts

the vowel is usually , but ais also employed in accordance with the systemof vowel harmony (GG, 1: 424 f.). Te translation of the middle line underthis interpretation would be For him was then sorrow. It is likely thathonomrefers to the carver, Hrlfr.

Te word blandat in line 4 is probably a typologically late, weaklyconjugated past participle of blandato mix. Te formblandatoccurs inthirteenth-century manuscripts containing early poetry (e.g. Hvaml),but is explained as a later form introduced by scribes (Sveinbjrn Egilsson191316, 50 f.). Te verb blandahas a long string of meanings, both concrete

and figurative. Te basic meaning is blend, mix, typically used of liquids,


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e.g. blood, poison and mead. According to Finnur Jnssons dictionary ofthe Icelandic rmurthe verbblandais used in that genre particularly when

describing the production of the poets drink, i.e. the mead of poetry (OldWest Nordic skldskapar mjr), and the noun bland(n.) occurs similarlyin kennings for the drink itself. In addition, the word appears in expressionssu as me blandinn ekka with sorrow-mixed mind (Finnur Jnsson192628, 29) and in constructions involving the mediopassive form blandask(viorme), whi can mean to mix/involve oneself in something and mayeven denote sexual intercourse. Te past participle can indicate opacity, bothin concrete terms (e.g. cloudy [liquids]) and figuratively as an expressionfor being unreliable (see further in ONP, 2: cols. 41115). Su connotationsare for instance reflected in Lokasennastanza 32 where Loki accuses Freyjaof being a sorceress mu mixed with evil: egi Freyia, ert forda,oc meini blandin mik(von See et al. 1997, 44749). Zoe Borovsky (2001)has dealt exhaustively with the meaning of the adjective blandinn whenused in insults of this kind directed at women. In su contexts blandinnisiefly employed in accusations of unreliability. Borovsky feels it possible toassociate the use of these accusations of being mixed with meta-narrativesconcerning the theme of imbalance between the masculine and the feminineelements in the Old West Nordic universe (Borovsky 2001, 10 f.). In theorythis could also be the theme of the inscription on the Lund gaming-piece.

Lines 35 of the Lund piece can thus be interpreted: honum var ang(a)r blandat um snhvtu snt. It is difficult to find precise parallelsto an expression blanda angr umbut it may be compared with expressionssu as bera angr um fljto bear sorrow about a woman (Finnur Jnsson192628, 5), baka einhverjum sorg prepare sorrow for somebody (SigfsBlndal 192024, [1:] 57), cf. bland iranarblend/mixture of repentance,i.e. repentance (Sveinbjrn Egilsson 191316, 50), and perhaps also but lessobviously brugga svk to brew/contrive fraud (Fritzner, 1: 198). Against thisbaground the entire inscription on the Lund gaming-piece can tentatively

be interpreted as follows: ea reist Hrlfr orgeirs/orgsls sun; honumvar angr blandat um snhvtu snt,Hrlfr, orgeirrs/orgsls son,carved this. For him sorrow was then caused concerning the snow-whitewoman. Within this text the word inhonum var angr, establishedabove by double reading of an ain line 3, is somewhat superfluous anddoes not read well so close to the in snhvtu snt(lines 45). Tevocabulary in the inscription is steaming with emotion and lyrical expression,and the statement could perhaps be considered poetic. However, apart fromthe carver-formula, whi could be an imperfect fornyrislag couplet or

a likewise imperfect first two short-lines of a ljahrstanza withreist


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and (H)rlfralliterating, and lines 45um snhvtu snt, whi wouldbe an acceptable third or full line of a ljahrstanza with alliteration

between snhvtu and snt, evidence for metrical structure is hard tofind. Te inscription could nonetheless be aracterized as an irregular orimperfect stanza in a mixed Eddic metre. Te imperfections may stem fromits being a garbled rendering of a quotation, or perhaps even a deliberate re-writing of su. Te inscription exemplifies a genre, poetry, that is meagrelyrepresented in Old Danish. Among the runic evidence from Lund we find,for example, the inscription on the rib-bone designated as Lund bone no. 4,from the residential blo known as kv. Glambe 5 (DR il5): bondi xrisxti xmal xrunu / arar xara xru xfiarar x, Bndi risti mlrnu;rar ara eru fjararBndi carved spee-rune(s); (the) oars of (the) eagleare (its) feathers. (Te final r-rune in ararandfiararis doed, probablyin an aempt to represent R.) Tis cannot be classified as poetry but has aproverbial aracter that illustrates the carvers acquaintance with learning.Similarly the carver Hrlfr was seemingly not a poet, but had intellectualskills over and above his ability to write in runes.

Te inscription on the Lund disc does not explicitly confirm the object asa gaming-piece as does the one on the Kadus find, but there is nothing init that conflicts with su an interpretation either. It is hardly likely that thewooden disc simply functioned as an inscription bearer since it is carefully

formed and decorated. If its function was not that of a gaming-piece, it mayhave been an amulet, since su a small object would have been easy tocarry around.

Provenance

With Lund as its find place and an araeological dating to the early 1200s,it is natural to assume that the language of the inscription on the gaming-piece is Old Danish/Scanian. It is questionable whether it is worth trying

to determine the provenance of medieval runic inscriptions from the areawhere Old Danish was spoken on the basis of the traditional parametersso long as these inscriptions display su great variation and have as theirbaground early urban environments that probably housed people frommany different places of origin. Linguistically the inscription seems inseveral respects to harmonise with the Scanian of the 1200s, although somefeatures appear to contradict this. For instance, it is possible to argue that theword sntis documented for the first time in East Nordic in this inscriptionand explain the la of other occurrences as the result of the different source

traditions in East and West Nordic.


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Te question of provenance is, however, important. aking runic typology,linguistic forms, vocabulary and genre into account it is mu easier to

explain the inscription as being in Old Norwegian. On the principle ofalways giving the greatest weight to the most straightforward explanationin linguistic analysis, it seems most reasonable to conclude that the Lundgaming-piece is of Norwegian origin.

Bibliography and abbreviationsA + number = preliminary registration number in the Oslo Runic Arives of runic

inscriptions found in Norway outside Bryggen in Bergen.B + number = preliminary registration number in the Oslo Runic Arives of runic

inscriptions found at Bryggen in Bergen.Bjerrum, Anders. 1973 [1952]. Te unstressed vowels in Danish runic inscriptions

from the period c. 1000c. 1250. In Linguistic Papers, Published on the Occasionof Anders Bjerrums 70th Birthday, 12th Mar 1973, ed. Niels Haastrup et al.,11629. Copenhagen. Originally published in Acta philologica Scandinavica21(1952), 5365.

Borovsky, Zoe. 2001. En hon er blandin mjk. In Cold Counsel: Women in Old NorseLiterature and Mythology, ed. Sarah M. Anderson, 114. New York and London.

DgP=Danmarks gamle Personnavne. By Gunnar Knudsen and Marius Kristensen,with the collaboration of Rikard Hornby. 2 vols. Kbenhavn 193664.

DR + number = inscription published in Danmarks runeindskrier, i.e. DR.DR =Danmarks runeindskrier. By Lis Jacobsen and Erik Moltke. 3 vols.:ext ;

Atlas;Registre. Kbenhavn 194142.Ericsson, Gertie, Gunilla Gardelin, Maias Karlsson and Ola Magnell. 2013. Kv

Blekhagen 10, 11, 12,Fornlmning nr 73, Lunds stad, Lunds kommun: Arkeologiskslutunderskning 20032004. Kulturens rapporter 5. Lund.

Finnur Jnsson. 192628. Ordbog til de af Samfund til udg. af gml. nord. lieraturudgivne rmur samt til de af dr. O. Jiriczek udgivne Bsarimur. Samfund tiludgivelse af gammel nordisk lieratur 51. Kbenhavn.

Fritzner = Johan Fritzner. Ordbog over Det gamle norske Sprog. 2nd ed. 3 vols.

Kristiania 188696. Vol. 4, Reelser og tillegg. By Finn Hdneb. Oslo 1972.GG = Gammeldansk Grammatik i sproghistorisk Fremstilling. By Johannes

Brndum-Nielsen. 8 vols. Kbenhavn 195073.Gosling, Kevin. 1989. Te Runic Material from nsberg. Universitetets

Oldsaksamling, rbok 198688, 17587.Hagland, Jan Ragnar. 1989. Islands eldste runetradisjon i lys av nye funn fr

rondheim og Bergen. Arkiv fr nordisk filologi104, 89102. . 1990. Kva tid vart orgsltilorgilsi nordiske sprk?Studia anthroponymica

Scandinavica8, 3546.


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KM + number = inventory number in Kulturen, Kulturhistoriske freningen frsdra Sverige, Lund.

Knirk, James E. 1986. Runeinskriene i B gamle kyrkje. elemark historie:idsskri for elemark historielag7, 7181.

. 1989. Arbeidet ved Runearkivet, Oslo. Ny om runer4, 69. . 1991. Arbeidet ved Runearkivet, Oslo. Ny om runer5 (1990), 1620.Kousgrd Srensen, John. 1984. Patronymer i Danmark.Vol. 1,Runetid og middel-

alder. Kbenhavn.Lere Nielsen, Miael. 2001. Swedish Influence in Danish Runic Inscriptions. In

Von Torsberg na Sleswig: Sprae und Srilikeit eines Grenzgebietesim Wandel eines Jahrtausends; Internationales Kolloquium im Wikinger MuseumHaithabu vom 29. September3. Oktober 1994, ed. Klaus Dwel, Edith Maroldand Christiane Zimmermann, 12748. Ergnzungsbnde zum Reallexikon derGermanisen Altertumskunde 25. Berlin.

. 2004. Om tolkningen af mandsnavnet p Kadus-spillebrikken. In Blandaderunstudier, vol. 3, ed. Lennart Elmevik and Lena Peterson, 5769. Runrn 18.Uppsala.

Liestl, Aslak. 1964. Runer fr Bryggen. Viking 27 (1963), 553. Issued alsoseparately, with a postscript, by Det midlertidige Bryggemuseum.

Louis-Jensen, Jonna. 1994. Norrne navnegder. Nordica Bergensia4, 3552. [Rpt.in her Con Amore: En artikelsamling udgivet p 70-rsdagen den 21. oktober 2006,ed. Miael Chesnu and Florian Grammel, 191207. Kbenhavn.]

MacLeod, Mindy, and Bernard Mees. 2006. Runic Amulets and Magic Objects.Woodbridge.

Moltke, Erik. 1985. Runes and Teir Origin: Denmark and Elsewhere. Copenhagen.N + number = inscription published in Norges innskrier med de yngre runer, i.e.

NIyR.NIyR=Norges innskrier med de yngre runer. By Magnus Olsen et al. 6 vols. to

date. Oslo 1941 ff.ODan. = Old Danish.ONP=Ordbog over det norrne prosasprog /A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose. Vol 2,

banda, ed. James E. Knirk et al. Kbenhavn: Den Arnamagnanske Kommission,2000.

Persson, Jan. 1976. Spel o dobbel. In Uppgrvt frflutet fr PKbanken i Lund:En investering i arkeologi, ed. Anders W. Mrtensson, 37982. AraelogicaLundensia: Investigationes de antiqvitatibus urbis Lundae 7. Lund.

Peterson, Lena. 1993. Assimilation eller bortfall? Eller: Vad menade egentligenWessn? In Studier i svensk sprkhistoria, vol. 3, 16182. Institutionen frnordiska sprk vid Uppsala universitet, Skrier 34. Uppsala.

. 2007. Nordiskt runnamnslexikon. 5th ed. Uppsala.Scandinavian Runic ext Database, Department of Scandinavian Languages,

Uppsala University (Samnordisk runtextdatabas, Institutionen fr nordiska

sprk, Uppsala universitet). hp://www.nordiska.uu.se/forskn/samnord.htm.


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von See, Klaus, Beatrice La Farge, Eve Picard and Katja Sulz. 1977. Kommentar zuden Liedern der Edda. Vol. 2, Gerlieder (Skrnisml, Hrbarsli, Hymiskvia,Lokasenna, rymskvia). Heidelberg.

Seim, Karin Fjellhammer. 1998. De vestnordiske futhark-innskriene fra vikingtidog middelalder form og funksjon. Doctoral dissertation, Dept. of ScandinavianStudies and Comparative Literature, Norwegian University of enology andScience (NNU), rondheim.

Seip, Didrik Arup. 1955. Norsk sprkhistorie til omkring 1370. 2nd ed. Oslo.Sigfs Blndal. 192024, Islandsk-dansk ordbog / slensk-dnsk orabk. 2 vols.

Reykjavk.Spjuth, Oskar. 2012. In Qest for the Lost Gamers: An Investigation of Board Gaming

in Scania, during the Iron and Middle Ages. Masters thesis, Department ofAraeology and Ancient History, Lund University. hp://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=24965&postid=2543901.

Steenholt Olesen, Rikke. 2007. Fra biarghrnar til Ave sanctissima Maria: Studieri danske runeindskrier fra middelalderen. Ph.D. dissertation, Faculty ofHumanities, University of Copenhagen.hp://nfi.ku.dk/publikationer/phd-aandlinger/rso-phd-aandling-20okt2008.pdf.

Stoklund, Marie. 1987. Runefund. Aarbger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie1986, 189211.

. 1998. Arbejdet ved Runologisk Laboratorium, Kbenhavn. Ny om runer13,411.

Sveinbjrn Egilsson. 191316. Lexicon Poeticum Antiqu Lingu Septentrionalis /Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog. Ed. Finnur Jnsson. Kbenhavn.
http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=24965&postid=2543901http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=24965&postid=2543901http://nfi.ku.dk/publikationer/phd-afhandlinger/rso-phd-afhandling-20okt2008.pdf/http://nfi.ku.dk/publikationer/phd-afhandlinger/rso-phd-afhandling-20okt2008.pdf/http://nfi.ku.dk/publikationer/phd-afhandlinger/rso-phd-afhandling-20okt2008.pdf/http://nfi.ku.dk/publikationer/phd-afhandlinger/rso-phd-afhandling-20okt2008.pdf/http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=24965&postid=2543901http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=24965&postid=2543901

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