There are thousands of scrolls of birch bark lodged in the soil in Novgorod, and they demonstrate a surprising level of popular literacy in the medieval period.

One of the scrolls (any word you use will be too fancy for the real thing, which is literally just a scrap of bark) is the earliest written text in a Balto-Finnic language (cool) and contains a spell or incantation of some kind (very cool).

I've been fascinated with birch bark letter #292 for a long time, so it was an obvious choice for a 'vaguely Finnish, weirdly specific' video.

Take a moment to enjoy my enthusiastic gesticulating about transliteration and back pain - and if you are particularly diverted, do give it a boost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1ie5fyrY0

#birchbark #gramota #filtrit #linguistics #archaeology #Finnish #finnic #literacy #myth #magic #medieval #Karelian