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22-533: The runes are clear, and the transliteration of the runes is straight-forward (spaces between words not present in the original): kuril Gyrils sarþuara sārþvara far far þu þū nu nū! funtin Fundinn is eʀ tu þū! þur Þōrr uigi vīgi þik þik, ¶   þorsa þursa trutin drōttinn, iuril Gyrils sarþuara sārþvara. uiþr Viðr aþra uari aðravari. kuril sarþuara far þu nu funtin

44-422: A more “mundane” solution to the problem. His transliteration and translation of the whole inscription follow: x hiristik þiʀ birk / bufi meʀ fultihu / þis þeʀ uis in bral / tilu fran bufa þor keti h / ans miʀ þem hamri samhuʀ / hafikam fly fran iluit feʀ eki af bufa kuþ iʀu / untiʀ hanum auk yfiʀ han / um Here I may carve (or: I carved) protection for you, Bófi, with … is certain to you. And may

66-464: Is a demon of sickness. According to Westlund, Lindquist’s attempts at deciphering the “bind runes” at the beginning of the inscription are misguided. In Westlund’s opinion these are not complicated bind runes but elaborate forms of normal runes. To support his claim he compares the runes with an inscription found near Novgorod in 1983 and treated by the Russian runologist Elena Melnikova in 1987. This

88-447: Is a small hole, presumably used for hanging it around the neck. The inscription consists of some 143 runes, written boustrophedon , supplemented by an engraving of a fish; the relevance of the fish to the text is unclear. The inscription is one of the longest and best preserved for its time but it has proven hard to interpret. The “official” Rundata interpretation is: Here I carve(d) protection for you, Bófi, with/… … … to you

110-552: Is an invocation to the gods to protect Bove, especially while he is at sea.” This he bases on the carving of the fish, the mention of the sea in the text and the place where the amulet was found. Nilsson understands the mention of Thor and his hammer as a reference of the story of Thor's fishing; where he threw his hammer at the head of Jörmungandr , the Midgard serpent. Since Thor's hammer always returns to its thrower it might in this case be said that it ‘fled from evil’ and ‘came from

132-441: Is certain. And may the lightning hold all evil away from Bófi. May Þórr protect him with that hammer which came from out of the sea. Flee from evilness! You/it get/gets nothing from Bófi. The gods are under him and over him. There have been six other serious attempts to decipher the text. This article treats each in turn. Bruce E. Nilsson was the first to offer an interpretation of the amulet. Ignoring what seem to be bind runes at

154-548: Is found in continental inscriptions, while Scandinavian inscriptions have exclusively the single-barred variant. The Anglo-Frisian futhorc in early inscriptions has the Scandinavian single-barred variant. From the 7th century, it is replaced by the continental double-barred variant, the first known instances being found on a Harlingen solidus (ca,. 575–625), and in the Christogram on St Cuthbert's coffin . Haglaz

176-422: Is intended for use against a specific ailment, described as "blood-vessel pus." MacLeod and Mees note that while Thor is not revered in surviving sources for his medical abilities, he was well attested as harboring enmity towards giants and as a protector of mankind. MacLeod and Mees compare the charm to the 11th-century Kvinneby amulet (where Thor is also called upon to provide protection), the formula structure of

198-483: Is material not available to Lindquist and Nilsson. Westlund reads the first runes as “hiristikþirbirkbufi” and takes them to mean (in standardized West Norse) “Hér rísti ek þér björg Bófi,” which would come out in English as “Here I carve protection for you, Bófi.” This is a major change from Lindquist's interpretation. Instead of Bófi being the carver talking about himself we have a separate carver that addresses Bófi in

220-487: Is recorded in all three rune poems: Old Norwegian Hagall er kaldastr korna; Kristr skóp hæimenn forna. Hail is the coldest of grain; Christ created the world of old. Old Icelandic Hagall er kaldakorn ok krapadrífa ok snáka sótt. Hail is cold grain and shower of sleet and sickness of serpents. Anglo-Saxon Hægl bẏþ hƿitust corna; hƿẏrft hit of heofones lẏfte, ƿealcaþ hit ƿindes scura; ƿeorþeþ hit to ƿætere sẏððan. Hail

242-527: Is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the h - rune ᚺ , meaning " hail " (the precipitation). In the Anglo-Saxon futhorc , it is continued as hægl , and, in the Younger Futhark, as ᚼ hagall . The corresponding Gothic letter is 𐌷 [REDACTED] h , named hagl . The Elder Futhark letter has two variants, single-barred ᚺ and double-barred ᚻ . The double-barred variant

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264-412: Is tu þur uigi þik ¶ þorsa trutin iuril sarþuara uiþr {aþra uari} Gyrils sārþvara far þū nū! Fundinn eʀ þū! Þōrr vīgi þik, {} þursa drōttinn, Gyrils sārþvara. Viðr aðravari. Gyrill's wound-tap, you go now! You are found! May Thor hallow you, lord of the trolls . Gyrill's wound-tap. Against pus in the veins (blood poisoning). Similarly, the charm is translated by Macleod and Mees (2006) as: The charm

286-522: The Sigtuna amulet I , and the inscription on a then-recently discovered rib bone also from Sigtuna , Sweden . Kvinneby amulet The Kvinneby amulet ( Öl SAS1989;43 ) is an 11th-century runic amulet found in the mid-1950s buried in the village of Södra Kvinneby in Öland , Sweden. The amulet is believed to date from roughly 1050-1130 CE. The amulet is a square copper plate measuring approximately 5 cm on each side. Near one edge there

308-477: The amulet contains a solemn prayer to the Earth Goddess, referred to as ‘Erka’, ‘Fold’ and ‘Undirgoð’ (:the god beneath) and her ‘single son’ Thor. Two of Lindquist’s suggested interpretations are: Here I, in poetry am familiar with the god(dess) beneath, for me, Bófi, to save myself. Earth, I am known to thee! May the one son keep evil away from Bófi. May Þórr protect him with the hammer that smashes Ámr,

330-453: The heavy Ámr. Flee, foul ill-wight! Get nothing from Bófi. Gods are under him and over him. Also: I here to Erka, the undergod of the world, for me, Bófi, to save myself. Earth, I am known to thee! And may the lightning raiser help evil from Bófi. May Þórr protect him with the hammer that smashes Ámr. Go the sea, Ámr! Flee, foul ill-wight! Get nothing from Bófi. Gods are under him and over him. On etymological grounds Lindquist reasons that Ámr

352-426: The inscription. Westlund goes on to refuse Lindquist’s “prayer to Earth” in favor of a more magical interpretation. While he rejects Lindquist’s interpretation of “me R fultihuþis” (“with Earth in mind”) and Nilsson’s interpretation of “samhu R hafikam” (“that came from the sea”) he does not offer alternative explanations. On the whole he suggests that Lindquist read too much into the inscription and tries to go for

374-417: The lightning keep evil (away) from Bófi. Thor Protect him with that hammer … Flee from the evil being! It (?) gets nothing from Bófi. Gods are under him and over him. In his conclusion Westlund rejects Lindquist’s view of the amulet as a solemn heathen prayer. In his opinion the mention of Thor and ‘the gods’ reflects a post-conversion magical view of the heathen gods. He even goes as far as suggesting that

396-433: The meaning is based on the names of the runes; thus the amulet should give a björg from hagl and nauð or a “deliverance” from “hail” and “need”. He adds that this is “not at all certain”. Nilsson's interpretation is not treated critically by later authors. Ivar Lindquist took some 30 years to ponder the amulet. He offers a plethora of interpretations – all, however, within the same central theme. According to Lindquist

418-408: The sea’. Nilsson does not attempt to solve the first few runic symbols of the inscription. He ventures a guess that they might conceal the name or cognomen of a god. The fish looks more promising to Nilsson. He suggests that it might contain coded runes. The fins of the fish can, according to him, be represented graphically as: This might represent the runes ‘nbh’ in some order. Nilsson suggests that

440-407: The start of the inscription, he offered this transliteration: and the following translation into English: Glory to thee bear I, Bove. Help me! Who is wiser than thee? And bear all in (the form of) evil from Bove. May Thor protect him with that hammer which came from the sea, (and which) fled from evil. Wit fares not from Bove. The gods are under him and over him. Nilsson interprets: “[T]he amulet

462-582: The wearer of the amulet was probably a baptised Christian. In 1992 Ottar Grønvik offered a new interpretation which is essentially an attempt to rehabilitate Lindquist's work. Lindquist's bind-runes are brought back into play. In 2001 Jonna Louis-Jensen continued in the same vein as Grønvik with an interpretation involving a sickness demon named Ámr . She offers the following normalized text and English translation. As part of her dissertation “Viking-Age Runic Plates: Readings and Interpretations”, Sofia Pereswetoff-Morath discusses this find. She chooses to read

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484-461: The “bindrunes” at the start as a form of encryption which introduces meaningless staves to make reading more difficult, noting that bindrunes occur nowhere else in the inscription, even in places where they would have been useful. She advocates for a broad dating of 1050–1130. Her reading most closely resembles that of Bruce E. Nilsson, disregarding all speculation about a demon Ámr. Citations Bibliography Haglaz *Haglaz or *Hagalaz

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