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VII.—Some Account of Scandinavian Runic Stones which speak of Knut the Great, King of all the North
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
Extract
The “folk-wanderings” changed the face of Europe; the blended iron despotism and shameless vice of Rome fell before them, and free states, soon Christian, re-establisht something like right and morals, while our modern languages, “barbarian “dialects more or less mixt with the Roman elements among which they grew, took the place of the official Augustan or the vulgar lingua rustica. Most eventful among these folk-wanderings was that flood which gradually overwhelmed Roman Britain. Pouring in from various border-lands, chiefly Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia, from the third century downwards, in small peaceful settlements, large armed bands, still larger array under wikings and sea-kings, it was only really closed by that strange combination of crown-seeking and land-seeking commonly called “the Norman Conquest.”
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References
page 97 note a ⁂ At the particular request of the author of this paper, his peculiar orthography has been retained.
page 98 note a See particularly his Runa, separate publications in octavo and in folio, his Svenska Run-Urkunder, 8vo., and his Sverikes Runurkunder, folio; this last in many parts, a new one appearing every year.
page 99 note a Photoxylographt by J. F. Rosenstand from the woodcut in Worm's Monumenta, folio, Hafniæ, 1634, p. 493.
page 100 note a Later note. My learned friend Prof. Sophus Bugge, in a letter dated Christiania, July 13, 1870, gives very slight hopes. I translate the paragraph : “The Evjerno stone is still lying in a chimney ! I have several times written about it, and have offered 10 specie dollars to get it taken out, but as yet in vain. This chimney-fragment is the one copied by Lassen. There is no chance of our recovering the other bit, on which stood the name of King Knut.”
page 103 note a “P. A. Munch, Hist. Geogr. Beskr. over Kongeriget Norge i Middelalderen. 8vo. Moss, 1849, pp. 131–2.
page 105 note a Photoxylographt by J. F. Rosenstand from Dybeck's, E.Sverikes Runurkunder, folio (Stockholm, 1868)Google Scholar, section II., part 3, pi. 28, fig. 118.
page 106 note a See my remarks hereon in my Old Northern Runic Monuments, vol. i. pp. 87, 88.
page 107 note a Dybeck's Sverikes Runurhunder, folio, No. 13 ; re-engraved in my Old Northern Runic Monuments, p. 796.
page 107 note b Dybeck, 8vo. No. 41.
page 108 note a Photoxylographt by J. F. Rosenstand from the woodcut in Joh. Perinskiöld's Vita Theoderici, 4to. Stockholmiæ, 1699, p. 483, as corrected in one place from the stone by the Swedish antiquary P. A. Säve.
page 110 note a Photoxylographt by J. F. Rosenstand from No. 146, plate 34, in Richard Dybeck's Seerikes Runurkunder, folio, section 2, part 3.
page 114 note a A cast-away child was found wearing a silken cloth and golden rings tied with a particular knot (Knut). Hence the name given him by the Jutlandish under-king Gorm, who saved his life, took him as his own, and made him his successor. I translate a word or two on this head from P. A. Munch's paper on Scandian Proper Names (“Norskt Maanedsskrift.” 8vo. vol. iii. Christiania, 1857, p. 242): “However it may be with this old tale, certain it is that no Knut was ever heard of in the North till this Knut the Foundling, and that the name was long confined to the Danish royal house.”
page 116 note a The Rosås stone, Småland, Sweden, announces :
kuntkel sati sten þansi eftir kunar, faþur sin, sun hruþa. halgi lagþi han i stenþr, bruþur sin, a haklati, i baþum.
kuntkel set stone this after kunar, father sin (his), son of hruthi. halgi laid him in a-stone thruh (coffin, tomb), brother sin (his), A (on, in) england, in bath.
The usual order of the latter strophe would be : Halgi lend him (Kunar), brother his, in, &c.
Hruthi had issue at least two children, the above sons Kunar and Halgi. Kuntkel, a son of Kunar, appears to have remained in Sweden, but his father and uncle, Kunar and Halgi, went over to England. Here Kunar, who would seem to have embraced the Christian faith, died, and was buried by his brother Halgi in the city of Bath. As a mark of distinction his corpse was laid in a coffin of stone. At home in Sweden his son raises this rune-pillar to his memory. All this probably took place in the eleventh century. Both the simplicity of the carving and the absence of any Christian prayer-formula point to an early period.
The Valleberga block, Skane, Sweden, reads :
suin auk turgutr kiaurþu kuml þisi iftir mana auk suini. kuþ Hialbi siaul þira üel. ian þei: ligiai luntunum.
suin eke (and) turgut gared (made) cumbels (grave-marks) these after mani eke suin. god help soul their well. in (but) they lie in london.
This stone is probably from the first half of the eleventh century.
page 117 note a One other Swedish stone is known to me which mentions the Scandian legion (the Thingmanna-lid) in England, and the name of a guardsman serving in that “crack corps ”; but, as no king is spoken of, we cannot say whether it was in the time of Knut or of some earlier or later English sovereign. This piece is the Kolstad block, Upland, (No. 50 in Liljegren, No. 349 in Bautil, Dybeck's folio No. 21, and copied by Prof. Carl Säve). The following is the correct text in Roman letters:
sterkak auk hioruarþr letu reisa þesa stein at faþur sin keira, sum uestr sat i þikaliþie. kuþ hialbi salu. sterkar eke (and) hioruarth let raise this stone at (to, in minne of) keiri, father sin (their), sum (who)west (=in England) sat (=.in garrison) in the- thing-lid (body-guard), god help his soul!
Besides the Christian prayer this pillar bears the Christian cross, and is from about Knut's time.