Scandinavian Standing Stones
Jelling Stone – Futhark
The Dark Ages: Men of the North
Runes. All over Scandinavia, Norway, Denmark and particularly here in Sweden, you find these magnificent standing stones, left behind by the Vikings, covered in wobbly carvings and all these runes.
Runes, the bits of writing and the twisty snakes. You usually find them on Viking gravestones. These ones here say, “Gidiyor loved her husband and remembers him with her tears”. Because they’re carved on these mighty stones and not written down on handy bits of parchment or vellum, there is a tendency to mythologise them, to see great truths in the runes.
According to Norse mythology, the runes were found by Odin, the supreme god of the Norsemen, while he was hanging in the tree of life, the famous, Yggdrasil. For nine days and nights, Odin stayed in the great tree, waiting, hoping, until eventually the runes fell into his hands and revealed themselves to him. Odin passed them to us. Thus, from the start, the runes were associated with magic and the mysteries of the cosmos.
This splendid story about Odin up in the trees and the origin of the runes is another example of the extraordinary power that words had in these fateful years.
Words, letters, symbols seem to mean so much in the Dark Ages. They were so loaded, they had such resonance.
Futhark – Runic Alphabet
It’s actually quite a simple alphabet. So, this shape here that is a V sound. That’s an A, L and so on. So that says, “Waldemar”. And in fact this whole message is, “Here stands Waldemar in Viking land”.
The runic alphabet, or Futhark as it is called, had 24 letters in it originally. Later on, when the Vikings attacked Britain, they took the runes with them and the Futhark grew to 33 letters.
The new letters were needed to describe new sounds. Every time the Vikings conquered a new territory and new words entered their language, the needed new letters to describe them. So, for example, originally there was no W and I had to use a V sound for my name Waldemar. So, the runes were never some cobweb-covered dead language fit only for the Museum, they were always alive, vibrant and constantly changing.
What a good-looking alphabet it is, too. So energetic and upright. It is based on vertical lines because verticals are easier to carve, particularly in wood but also in stone. This vertical emphasis gives the runes a spiky presence and a mysterious relationship with time, as if every mark is somehow counting down the days.
The Vikings were the last of the great barbarian nations to convert to Christianity. It wasn’t until the 10th century, 1,000 years after the birth of Christ, that paganism’s hold on the frozen north was broken. So, around here, paganism was stubborn. And in Viking art, it’s often difficult to tell where the paganism ends and the Christianity begins.
Jelling Stone
This is the biggest and most famous of all Scandinavian rune stones – the Jelling stone. It weighs over 10 tonnes. It is 2½m tall and, as you can see, the entire stone seems to writhe with energy. What a fabulous thing. This inscription here, which goes all the way round, tells us that the Jelling stone was put here by Harald Bluetooth, the energetic Viking ruler who is usually credited with converting the Danes to Christianity. “I am Harald,” it says here, “son of Gom and I made the Danes Christians”.
It is carved on all three sides and on this side is an image of a giant snake attacking a stylised lion. Now, obviously there are no lions in Scandinavia, it’s an image they found abroad, but the Vikings identified with the lion’s fighting spirit so it pops up a lot in their art. It is an image they made theirs.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “What lion and what snake?” Well, I’m inside the visitor centre at Jelling, there is a coloured replica of the great stone which shows you how the lion and the snake would originally have looked before all their paint fell off.
But the most surprising sight is here on the biggest side. It is the culmination of the entire stone but you can’t see it yet. The light has to be exactly right.
What you have to do is wait until the twilight begins to work its magic.
Can you see it? It is a splendid Viking crucifixion with this stern Christ in the centre surrounded by all these writhing Viking knots. It’s as if the whole stone can’t keep still. I like the way Christ hasn’t actually got a cross, he’s just standing there with his arms outstretched. So it is obviously another image that has been imported from abroad and is now being misunderstood so confidently.
