The Hærulf Runestone is a

Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...

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 at

Hærvejen Hærvejen ( Danish, literally: ''the army road'', , literally: ''oxen way'', , literally: oxen path), sometimes referred to in English as the Ox Road, is the name given to an ancient trackway in Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein. The route runs from ...

northeast of Hovslund Stationsby in

Southern Jutland Southern Jutland (; ) is the region south of the Kongeå in Jutland, Denmark and north of the Eider (river) in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The region north of the Kongeå is called . Both territories had their own ting assemblies in the Mi ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

Description

The Hærulf Runestone dates from the 10th century and 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 ...

RAK. This is the classification for inscriptions with runic bands that have straight ends without any attached serpent or beast heads. The stone was originally located at Øster Løgum Project Samnordisk Runtextdatabas Svensk - Rundata entry for DR 15. near the north-south Jutland highway. It is notable not only for its short inscription, which is the name Hærulf, but for having been taken to

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

war booty Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...

in 1864. It was not until 1952 that the stone was returned to Denmark near to its original location. Although the inscription only has a single word, a single dot, which is normally a punctuation mark used as a word divider, has been placed before and after the runes hairulfʀ for the name Hærulf. This name is a shortened form of the

Proto-Norse Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic; Danish and ; ; ; ) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic in the first centuries CE. It is the earliest stage of a c ...

name Hariwulfa or Hariwulfʀ, which means either "Warrior-Wolf" or "War Host-Wolf," that is attested to on the Istaby and

Stentoften Runestone The Stentoften Runestone, listed in the Rundata catalog as DR 357, is a runestone which contains a curse in Proto-Norse that was discovered in Stentoften, Blekinge, Sweden. Inscription English translation provided by Rundata: Inte ...

s. The stone is known locally as ''Hærulfstenen'' (''the Hærulf Stone'').

Inscription

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Haerulf Runestone Runestones in Denmark 10th-century inscriptions