Inscriptions Recount Ancient Lore and History : Thieves Pilfer Swedish Rune Stones

STOCKHOLM —  Sigurd Fafnerbane thrust his sword into the dragon, roasted its heart over an open fire and rode away with the gold.

So goes a Swedish legend carved on a rune stone in Eskilstuna. It will probably survive for generations, if only because the massive stone is too big to steal.

However, archeological experts are worried about other rune stones.

“More and more rune stones are getting stolen,” said Jan Peder Lamm of the National Historical Museum. “They are incredibly badly watched, but then nobody could ever imagine anyone would want to steal them.”

Named for Ancient Writing

The stones get their name from runes, ancient characters used in Teutonic, Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian inscriptions, believed to date back about 1,700 years.

Myths, poems and the first traces of national history appear on 3,500 known rune stones scattered over the Swedish countryside.

“The collector’s value, or rather the value of curiosity, is booming,” Lamm said.

It is impossible to estimate the worth of a rune stone because there has never been a market for them, he said. Many of the missing stones are actually fragments, which have lain undisturbed for centuries in pastures and churchyards.

Can Weigh Nearly a Ton

An entire stone can weigh nearly a ton.

The extent of the thefts is also impossible to determine, Lamm said, because authorities do not have the money or personnel to conduct a detailed search.

“We just recently realized that they were disappearing,” Lamm said.

The newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported recently that three historically valuable fragments from about the year 1000 were missing from a church on the island of Oland. Stones and other artifacts have also been taken from an unguarded collection at Vreta Cloister in southeastern Sweden.

Every Stone Registered

“Every rune stone is registered and well documented,” Lamm said. “So from a scientific point of view, it is no catastrophe if they are stolen. We have all the information down on computers.”

He added, however, that the situation is still serious.

Trading in rune stones is illegal.

“They are public property, and this year we further tightened the laws. But I believe many people break the law without knowing,” by picking up fragments, Lamm said.

Rune stones are still turning up. In the latest find in September, a mammoth stone uncovered in a churchyard on the Baltic island of Gotland recorded the westward travel of the Vikings.

Commemorates Father

The elaborately carved inscription says: “Vatar and Hailgair erected the stone after Helge, their father. He went westwards with the Vikings.”

The mushroom-shaped 1,500-pound stone depicts a Christian cross and mythological symbols, which indicate that it was carved during the transition to Christianity around 1,000 years ago.

Rune writers were Sweden’s first artists to sign their works and the first national poets. One stone says:

He stood like a man

In the stem of the ship.

He lies in the west.

The oldest stones often depict carved scenes from mythology, with ships in battle and Norse gods in combat with dragons.

On a typical stone, a caption is inscribed on the back of the giant mythical Midgard snake, whose body twists around the edge of the stone’s flattened surface. Legend says that Judgment Day will come when the god Thor strikes the snake dead with his hammer.

Helmer Gustavson of the Central Board of National Antiquities said runes also were carved on wood, jewelry or weapons.

Sometimes they only identified the owner: “Tova owns me.” Others invoked supernatural power on a spear or a knife.

Experts disagree over the origin of the letters, but ancient legends say the runic characters were a gift of the god Odin, the chief Nordic deity.

Preserved Oral Legends

Rune stones kept oral legends from disappearing and opened a world of ancient literature.

A 9th-Century stone called Rokstenen is the most famous literary find. On it, a father tells of a son slain in battle. He illustrates the story with heroic tales and songs.

Carvings line the foreign routes of the long spring voyages, when swift ships carried Vikings over the known and unknown world.

Viking graffiti decorate a marble lion that once guarded the Greek port of Piraeus and a church wall in Constantinople, now Istanbul, in Turkey, said Gustavson of the antiquities board.

“With Christianity, the voyages become scarcer and Latin slowly overtook the runic alphabet.”

Runes are still taught in Swedish schools.

Gustavson said he once saw a modern variant on a rock by a Stockholm lake. A couple in the 1950s carved: “Ulla and Per tented here.”