The Sædinge Runestone or DR 217 is a

Viking Age The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Ger ...

runestone A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition began in the 4th century and lasted into the 12th century, but most of the runestones da ...

engraved in

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

with the

Younger Futhark The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet and a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, with only 16 characters, in use from about the 9th century, after a "transitional period" during the 7th and 8th centuries. The r ...

runic alphabet Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...

. It is in

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

and measures 174 cm in height, 79 m in width and it is 69 cm thick, and it is dated to the period 970–1020. The style of the runestone is the runestone style RAK.Scandinavian Runic-text Database
-

Rundata The Scandinavian Runic-text Data Base ( sv, Samnordisk runtextdatabas) is a project involving the creation and maintenance of a database of runic inscriptions. The project's goal is to comprehensively catalog runestones in a machine-readable way f ...

. It was discovered in 1854, during the plowing of a field near an old

ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

. However, it was split in nine pieces and spread around before it was noticed that there were runes on them. It took several searches to find all the pieces. Only the top piece is missing but it is known from an old drawing. The stone is presently located at the Stiftsmuseum in

Maribo Maribo is a town in Lolland Municipality in Region Sjælland on the island of Lolland in south Denmark. It was the municipal seat of the former Maribo Municipality, until 1 January 2007, and then it became the seat of the current Lolland Muni ...

Lolland Lolland (; formerly spelled ''Laaland'', literally "low land") is the fourth largest island of Denmark, with an area of . Located in the Baltic Sea, it is part of Region Sjælland (Region Zealand). As of 1 January 2022, it has 57,618 inhabitant ...

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

. In 2014, it was moved inside the building. The reading and the interpretation are problematic. The inscription is difficult to read and there are doubts about the message in the inscription and the theory about a Swedish dominion and a Swedish colonization as claimed by Niels Åge Nielsen (1983:132-135) and

Erik Moltke Erik Moltke (4 April 1901 – 19 October 1984) was a Danish runologist, writer, and editor. Through his leadership, the Runologist Section of the National Museum of Denmark became a world centre for the scientific study of runology.Moltke, Erik (19 ...

(1985:300f.). The interpretation of sutrsuia ("sunder-" or "south Swedes") and suþr ana'' ("south Danes") are contested by e.g. Lerche Nielsen 1993. Based on Kornerup's drawing of the missing top piece, Magnus Källström has read suþr m)ana'', is ''suðrmanna'' (gen. plur.) meaning "south men" as an opposition to ethnonym nurminum, ''norðmænnum'' (dat. plur.), i.e. "Norwegians", later in the inscription (Källström 2012). This interpretation is based on the reading of an m-rune, which earlier has not been previously discussed based on the various positions taken by the scholars in the ample literature on this runestone.Danske Runeindskrifter, Nationalmuseet
accessed December 29, 2020.

Inscription

Transliteration of the runes into Latin characters : §A þurui : kat : kauruan (:) ¶ stain : þansi : --(-) ¶ (k)(r)(u)(k) · : §B uiar (:) sin : ian : han (:) uas ¶ -- alra · triu--... : §C sutrsuia (:) au(k) (:) suþr ana ·¶ kuaul : at : ha- af nur¶minum som : §D baistr : han uas ¶ ... sutrsuia : (-)uk · Old Norse transcription: : §A ' : §B ' : §C ' : §D ' English translation: : §A "Þyrvé got this stone made ... Krókr," : §B "her husband, and he was

hen Hen commonly refers to a female animal: a female chicken, other gallinaceous bird, any type of bird in general, or a lobster. It is also a slang term for a woman. Hen or Hens may also refer to: Places Norway *Hen, Buskerud, a village in Ringer ...

?) the most resolute(?) of all" : §C "Sunder-Swedes and South Danes. Torment ate/ to(?) him/ the hero, the best of Northmen." : §D "He was here/ then?) the Sunder-Swedes end / yoke(?)."

References

{{reflist Runestones in Denmark Runestones in memory of Viking warriors 10th-century inscriptions 11th-century inscriptions

Inscription

See also

References