The Tullstorp Runestone 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 ...

memorial

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 ...

, listed as DR 271 in the

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 ...

catalog, that is located in Tullstorp (Community of Trelleborg), which is about twenty kilometers east of

Trelleborg Trelleborg () is a town in Skåne County, Sweden, with 43,359 inhabitants as of December 31, 2015. It is the southernmost town in Sweden located some west from the southernmost point of Sweden and the Scandinavian peninsula. It is one of the mo ...

Skåne County Skåne County ( sv, Skåne län, link=no ), sometimes referred to as Scania County in English, is the most southern county, or , of Sweden, basically corresponding to the traditional province Scania. It borders the counties of Halland, Kronobe ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, and in the historic province of

Scania Scania, also known by its native name of Skåne (, ), is the southernmost of the historical provinces of Sweden, provinces (''landskap'') of Sweden. Located in the south tip of the geographical region of Götaland, the province is roughly conte ...

Description

The inscription on the Tullstorp Runestone consists of runic text on a serpent band that frames a central image consisting of a ship and a beast, which has been described as being a wolf. The stone is granite and 1.7 meters in height, and the inscription is classified as being carved in

runestone style :''The term "runestone style" in the singular may refer to the Urnes style.'' The style or design of runestones varied during the Viking Age. The early runestones were simple in design, but towards the end of the runestone era they became increas ...

Pr1, which is also known as

Ringerike style Viking art, also known commonly as Norse art, is a term widely accepted for the art of Scandinavian Norsemen and Viking settlements further afield—particularly in the British Isles and Iceland—during the Viking Age of the 8th-11th centuries ...

. The original site of the Tullstorp Runestone is unknown. It was first noted in 1624 when it was installed in the wall of a church, and rediscovered when the old church in Tullstorp was torn down in 1846. Before the historical significance of runestones was understood, they were often used as materials in the construction of buildings, walls, and roads. The stone first ended up in the wall surrounding the church yard, later it was moved to the current position inside the church yard. It is dated from about 1000 AD. The ship and the wolf in the central image probably reflects the

Ragnarök In Norse mythology, (; non, Ragnarǫk) is a series of events, including a great battle, foretelling the death of numerous great figures (including the gods Odin, Thor, Týr, Freyr, Heimdallr, and Loki), natural disasters, and the submers ...

myth, which would make the wolf

Fenrir Fenrir (Old Norse: ; "fen-dweller")Orchard (1997:42). or Fenrisúlfr (O.N.: ; "Fenrir's wolf", often translated "Fenris-wolf"),Simek (2007:81). also referred to as Hróðvitnir (O.N.: ; "fame-wolf")Simek (2007:160). and Vánagandr (O.N.: ; " ...

and the ship

Naglfar In Norse mythology, ''Naglfar'' or ''Naglfari'' (Old Norse "nail farer") is a boat made entirely from the fingernails and toenails of the dead. During the events of Ragnarök, ''Naglfar'' is foretold to sail to Vígríðr, ferrying hordes of ...

. The ship is shaped like an ancient galley with

beakhead A beakhead or beak is the protruding part of the foremost section of a sailing ship. It was fitted on sailing vessels from the 16th to the 18th century and served as a working platform by sailors working the sails of the bowsprit, the forward-point ...

s both fore and aft and is unlike any known

Viking ship Viking ships were marine vessels of unique structure, used in Scandinavia from the Viking Age throughout the Middle Ages. The boat-types were quite varied, depending on what the ship was intended for, but they were generally characterized as bein ...

, suggesting from its archaic form that it is a symbolic ship associated with ritual. Other inscriptions with similar features which may depict ancient, symbolic ships include DR 77 in Hjermind, DR 119 in Spentrup, DR 258 in Bösarp, and DR 328 in Holmby. The wolf has a mane and pointed ears similar to the depiction of the wolf on inscription DR 284 of the

Hunnestad Monument The Hunnestad Monument ( sv, Hunnestadsmonumentet), listed as DR 282 through 286 in the Rundata catalog, was once located at Hunnestad at Marsvinsholm Castle, Marsvinsholm north-west of Ystad, Sweden. It was the largest and most famous of the Vik ...

and the two wolves on DR 314, the

Lund 1 Runestone The Lund 1 Runestone, designated as DR 314 in the Rundata catalog, is a Viking Age memorial runestone originally located on the grounds of the All Saints Church in Lund, Scania, Sweden. Description The Lund 1 Runestone is a granite stone pill ...

. The runic text indicates that the stone was raised as a memorial to a man named Ulfr. Besides the Ragnarök myth discussed above, it may be that the image of the wolf was inspired by this man's name, which 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 ...

means "Wolf." It has been pointed out that the Old Norse phrase in the runic text, ''reistu kuml'' ("raised this monument"), is somewhat rare, but does appear on seven other runestones, Sm 27 in Berga, Ög 94 in Harstads, DR 13 in Skivum, DR 383 in Vester Marie, Sö 173 in Tystberga, U 735 in Långarnö (where the wording is reversed), and U 1066 in Åkerby. Locally the stone is known as the ''Tullstorpstenen''.

Inscription

Transliteration into Latin characters

:× klibiʀ × auk × osa × ¶ × risþu × kuml + ¶ þusi × uftiʀ × ulf +Project Samnordisk Runtextdatabas Svensk
-

entry for DR 271.

Transcription into Old Norse

:''Kleppir/Glippir ok Ása reistu kuml þessi eptir Ulf''

Translation in English

:Kleppir/Glippir and Ása raised this monument in memory of Ulfr.

References

Pictures

Image:TullstorpSign.jpg, The sign at the stone - text in Swedish {{Runestones Runestones in Scania 11th-century inscriptions