Östergötland Rune Inscription 165 ( Ög 165) is a

runestone A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic alphabet, runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition of erecting runestones as a memorial to dead men began in the 4th centur ...

located between () and the

town square A town square (or public square, urban square, city square or simply square), also called a plaza or piazza, is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town or city, and which is used for community gatherings. Relat ...

Skänninge Skänninge () is a locality situated in Mjölby Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with 3,140 inhabitants in 2010. It lies about 10 km north of the municipal seat Mjölby. Before the local government reform in 1971, the ''City of Sk ...

. It is made of grey

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, 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 coo ...

and is 230 cm tall. On the front of the runestone is the first part of the text, up until the word "suniʀ" (English: ''sons''). It continues on the left side until the end of the text. The signature of the carver can be found on the right side. The verse is a half

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'', ; ) is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. ...

fornyrðislag Old Norse poetry encompasses a range of verse forms written in the Old Norse language, during the period from the 8th century to as late as the far end of the 13th century. Old Norse poetry is associated with the area now referred to as Scandinav ...

, a form of alliterate verse which was popular in

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...

. The stone was discovered in recent times during repairs carried out at Vårfrukyrkan in 1874 and had been used as a threshold at the north door. In '' Östergötlands runinskrifter'' (English: ''Östergötland's Runic Inscriptions'') (1911),

Erik Brate Erik Brate (13 June 1857 – 11 April 1924) was a Sweden, Swedish Linguistics, linguist and runology, runologist. Biography Brate was born in 1857 in Norberg, Västmanland County. In 1887 he married the Swedish painter Fanny Brate, née Ekb ...

observed that the stone bears some resemblance to inscription Ög 87 near the Högby Church in

Göstring Hundred A hundred is a geographic division formerly used in northern Germanic countries and related colonies, which historically was used to divide a larger region into smaller administrative divisions. The equivalent term in Swedish is (in Uppland als ...

. He speculates that Torun was the widow of Toste and that the stone was taken from there when the Church of Our Lady was built.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ostergotland Runic Inscription 165 Runestones in Östergötland

See also

References