Runes

RUNES, the oldest form of Germanic writing. This form of writing was in use in the Scandinavian North in the 3rd century, and in remote districts of Sweden almost down to our own times.

During the first centuries of their vogue runes consisted of

letters: the so-called older or all-Germanic runic staves (fig. I). Their peculiar forms appear first in inscriptions found all over Europe from Rumania and west ern Russia to the east of France and Friesland, but in greatest number in England and Scandi navia. Runes, which at first sight seem to betray derivation from the southern European alphabets, the Greek and the Latin, differ from these radically in their ar rangement, as we may see from some inscriptions which use the runic staves in their entirety, the most important being the Kylver Stone in Gothland (5th century), the Vadstena braktea from ostergotland, Sweden (fig. 2), the Charnay clasp from eastern France and the Thames sword from southern England. Moreover every rune had its special name which we know through the oral traditions recorded in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The 24 runes were divided up into three groups of eight each, each group com ing later to be called in Scandinavian an att, a word which prob ably meant "number of eight." The runic staves, at least at a later period, were called futhark, after their initial letters.

As regards sound values, it may be mentioned that th was pro nounced approximately as in the English thing; d like th in the English this; g had a sound corresponding to a fricative d; b in the same way, theref ore corresponding to b in the Spanish Habana; ijg like ng in England and R, finally, almost like s in the English is.

The oldest extant decipherable runic writings as to the origin of which we can speak with any certainty hail from discoveries in the bogland in south-western Denmark, Vi-mose in Fyn, and Torsbjaerg in Slesvig. Most archaeologists date the first-men tioned from the middle of the 3rd century, the second from the 4th. The inscriptions are few in number and brief. Those which can be deciphered contain one or two names of men. These earliest finds of runes in Denmark were supplemented by a whole series of others from the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries—inscriptions on single objects, arms, ornaments, and more especially gold brakteas. Archaeological research establishes the fact that south-western Denmark was really the cradle of the knowledge of runes, whence the use of runes spread to Norway and Sweden. It has been ascer tained, moreover, that from Slesvig it made its way in the 5th century along the southern coast of the North Sea to England and the Continent.

If then Slesvig and Fyn are the original home of the runes in northern and western Europe, our next question is : did the runes originate in Denmark or were they imported from elsewhere? It has been established that a number of runes which are con temporaneous with the oldest of those found in the Danish bog land have been discovered along a line of country passing through Pomerania, Brandenburg, Volhynia and Rumania. Moreover these discoveries include archaic objects the primary forms of which do not hail from western Europe but are found in south eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea and along the lower Danube. From this fact the Swedish archaeologist,

B. Salin, drew the conclusion a quarter of a century ago that the runes came to Scandinavia from south-eastern Europe. The east ern European runes are certainly Gothic in part, and it is certain that runes were known and used among the Goths in the first half of the 4th century, because Ulfilas, the Apostle of the Goths, constructed his Gothic writing on the basis of runes. It may be added that in the 3rd and 4th centuries there is no trace of the existence of runes in the western Teutonic world, i.e., south-west of the line Slesvig, Berlin, Bukarest.

This signifies that the runes originated with the Goths in south eastern Europe, in a milieu, therefore, in immediate touch with Greek and Latin culture. Greek was the prevailing language along the lower Danube ; Latin was the language of the Roman forces and colonists. Archaeological and historical discoveries indicate, therefore, that the runes had their source in one or other of the classical alphabets—or in both.

It remains to consider what the runes themselves have to tell about their origin. The Dane, L. Wimmer, has made it clear paleographically that they are derived from classical writing. It has been demonstrated by him that the runes have the same signs for the vowels a, e, o, as the Greek and Latin alphabets, but these letters in the Latin are the result of a Greek modification of the Semitic guttural signs. Wimmer has demonstrated, too, once for all, that at least the runes for f,h, and r, derive from the Latin alphabet. As quite a number of runes like a, i, b, t, m and n, may be traced typographically to the Greek and Latin alphabets, and as it undoubtedly would be natural to seek the source of the runes in a single alphabet, Wimmer seeks to trace all the runes back to Latin. In so seeking, however, he has been forced into assumptions and deductions which must be regarded as improbable and irrational. In February 1928, the Norwegian, C. J. S. Mars trander, in a very weighty treatise, seeks to show that the runes derive from a late Northern Etruscan alphabet, most of the let ters of which were made up out of the Latin but which in regard to sounds, not to be found in the Latin, preserved a number of Northern Etruscan letters. This alphabet was in use at the be ginning of our era in the region of the eastern Alps among Celtic tribes and it was through intercourse with these that the Teutons, probably the Marcomanni who lived in Bohemia, created the runes. Certain runes are more easily and naturally explained in the light of Marstrander's paper than in that of any other interpretation that has been put forward, but on the other hand new difficulties present themselves in regard to other runes. Archaeological and chronological facts seem also hard to reconcile with Marstrander's hypothesis. He has promised us a more exhaustive treatise on certain questions bearing upon the N ! c.ciP L X DM 0.19 1 2 3 # 5 6 7 8 9 10