Saturday, January 29, 2011

A long long time ago...



...three brothers lived at a farm at Tuna in Tungelsta. This is the Skogs Ekeby runestone in Tungelsta. The inscription reads: Vigils and Gerhjälm had this stone made after their brother Gudbjörn -björn cut the stone. The road here, Skogsekebyvägen, dates back to the Viking Age, as does of course the runestone itself. The three brothers lived at a farm at Tuna one thousand years ago. Something I always think about whenever I walk by here. Over the centuries the runestone has been moved around. The original position was probably on a field nearby Tuna. A little over a century ago in 1886 the runestone was found at a bridge where it had been used as foundation! The reason for that is most likely that the people who lived here a few hundred years after the inscription was made didnt understand the runic alphabet.

11 comments:

黄清华 Wong Ching Wah said...

Very interesting story and good find. Thanks.
Have a good weekend.

Randy said...

What a wonderful story and a great runestone!

CaT said...

i like the reflection of photographing you!

Geoff Steen said...

Wow, you can clearly see what Tolkien based his runes on in Lord of the Rings.

Anonymous said...

Just Great!!

Sharon Creech said...

Love the light and the stone and your shadow and the story--wow.

Scylla said...

Lite tafflig ristare, den gode Björn. (Och med risk för att vara överdrivet mopsig: heter inte brodern Gudbjörn? Det ser faktiskt ut som det står det)

Scylla said...

... fast alldeles oavsett, så är det alltid underbart med runstenar!

Stefan Jansson said...

Hoppsan, ibland blir det fel. Gudbjörn skall det förstås stå.

VP said...

You won't believe this, but we studied runes when I was at school. Obviously we learned barely the alphabet, just to learn that there were other ways of writing words.

Stefan Jansson said...

I did not know that. I don't read runes very well, but I have a friend who are a bit addicted to runestones and that sort of thing, so whenever I need a translation I will just ask him or check out his photos.