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Några gotländska runinskrifter i fornvästnordisk belysning

Abstract

In Rone church on Gotland there was once a runic inscription scratched into the inner wall of chancel (G 54C). The inscription is now lost, but it was documented and published by Hugo Pipping in the year 1900. According to Pipping the meaning was Ráð rún [e]pti[r] harm-b-raðum “Read the inscription after the sad lines”. Little attention has been paid to the inscription since then, but in 2002 Evert Salberger and Thor gunn Snædal independently of each other came up with new interpretations of this inscription, partly based on OWN word material. Salberger suggests “Read the runes after mischiefs” comprising a counterpart to the word harmbrǫgðom known from Atlakviða 15, whereas Snædal assumed a word harmbrāðr with the meaning ‘quick to grieve’. The present study is based on the discovery that the same text is recorded also in a plaster inscription in Lye church on Gotland (G 104Eg). By comparing this inscription with the documentation of the runes in Rone (a drawing and some photographs) it is possible to reconstruct the original text, which seems be: Rāð rūnir ok blīg(a), armbr, augum! “Read the runes and stare, wretched, with the eyes!”. According to this suggestion the inscriptions contain a direct counterpart to the OWN expression blígja augum “stare with a fixed gaze”. The aim of the text was probably to invite the readers to interpret the runes and then mocking them for foolishly staring into the wall.