I just finished writing about 1300 words about the viking age runestone U 785 at Tillinge church west of Enköping. It is made of gray granite and is 1.7 meters tall and 0.8-1 meter wide. The inscription is inside a serpent with a head seen from the side. There is no cross on the stone, even though the inscription has a Christian prayer.

It has been raised after a man called Gudmund who died in Serkland. Possibly during the viking expedition by Ingvar the Far-Travelled or another expedition to the same area near the Caspian Sea. It is also possible that he worked as a varangian guard in the Byzantine empire.

The transliteration of the inscription is:
uifas-- ... : risa : s(t)in : þ(t)ino : ub : at : k-þmunt : bruþur : sin : han : uarþ : tuþr : a : srklant- kuþ halbi : ant : ans

Translated into English:
Vifast had the stone raised up after Gudmund, his brother. He died in Serkland. God help his soul.

#runestone #VikingAge #history #StandingStoneSunday #Viking

This is the runestone U 778 that is placed in the inner wall of the church porch of Svinnegarn church near Enköping. In the 17th century it was found used as a threshold stone in the main entrance to the church, with most of the inscription hidden under the doorjamb. In 1853-1854 it was removed from the church door and mounted into the wall of the church porch instead by Dybeck.
The stone has all four common runic formulas, it starts with a memorial formula about Banki/Bagge, followed by a biographical formula, a prayer and ends with a carver signature. The runes are younger futhark long branch runes. The /s/ in sun has a chair form, instead of the standard form that is used for all other /s/ runes in the inscription. This might be a mistake, since the lower part of the stem is thinner and shallower than the rest of the lines.
Poor Banki/Bagge was part of the catastrophic viking raid led by Ingvar in 1041, that is described in the Icelandic saga Yngvarr saga víðförla. The stone is one of at least 30 runestones describing this raid that ended so disastrously.

The inscription has 116 runes:
ᚦᛁᛅᛚᚠᛁ × ᛅᚢᚴ × ᚼᚢᛚᛘᚾᛚᛅᚢᚴ × ᛚᛁᛏᚢ × ᚱᛅᛁᛋᛅ × ᛋᛏᛅᛁᚾᛅ ᚦᛁᛋᛅ × ᛅᛚᛅ × ᛅᛏ ᛒᛅᚴᛅ × ᛋᚢᚾ ᛋᛁᚾ × ᛁᛋ ᛅᛏᛁ × ᛅᛁᚾ × ᛋᛁᚱ × ᛋᚴᛁᛒ × ᛅᚢᚴ × ᛅᚢᛋᛏᚱ × ᛋᛏᚢᚱᚦᛁ × ᛁ × ᛁᚴᚢᛅᚱᛋ × ᛚᛁᚦ × ᚴᚢᚦ ᚼᛁᛅᛚᛒᛁ × ᚯᛏ × ᛒᛅᚴᛅ × ᛅᛋᚴᛁᛚ × ᚱᛅᛁᛋᛏ

The translitteration:
þialfi × auk × hulmnlauk × litu × raisa × staina þisa × ala × at baka × sun sin × is ati × ain × sir × skib × auk × austr × st(u)[rþi ×] i × ikuars × liþ × kuþ hialbi × ot × baka × ask(i)l × raist

Normalization:
Þjalfi ok Holmlaug létu reisa steina þessa alla at Banka/Bagga, son sinn. Er átti einn sér skip ok austr stýrði í Ingvars lið. Guð hjalpi ǫnd Banka/Bagga. Áskell reist.

English translation:
Þjalfi and Holmlaug had all of these stones raised in memory of Banki/Baggi, their son, who alone owned a ship and steered to the east in Ingvarr's retinue. May God help Banki's/Baggi's spirit. Áskell carved.

#runestone #VikingAge #StandingStoneSunday #VikingRaid

This is runestone Sö 92, carved by Balle and is made of sandstone. The stone stands in the churchyard of Husby-Rekarne church in Södermanland. It mentions travels to the east, but the inscription is quite damaged. Some parts of the stone is missing. The front is completely covered in ornamentation.

It was found in a grave in the 17th century and was mounted as a window sill in the church. About 200 years later it was removed and placed where it now stands next to a wall in the churchyard. In 1936 a small part was found and added to the edge of the stone.

Transliteration:
... · lit · raisa · st... ... rysu · br(o)... · sin · ha... ... austr · bali · ...

Normalization:
... let ræisa st[æin] ... Rysiu(?), bro[ður] sinn. Ha[nn] ... austr. Balli ...

Translation:
... had the stone raised ... Rysja(?), his brother. He ... east. Balli ...

#runestone #StandingStoneSunday #viking

I dropped $10 on @simonbs's #Runestone app to draft a manually-typed-URL-heavy email reply that iOS Outlook kept mangling. It saved me from throwing my phone across the room so money well spent!

Aside from needing to re-add line breaks after copy-pasting my text from Runestone into Outlook I'd say I'm optimistic about Runestone. I need to try out some more of its feature, if nothing else to see how well it works as a Markdown editor 🤔

The small runestone I carved this summer has been painted and placed over the grave of my mother’s cat.

#runestone

I have been getting into Younger Futhark! At the level i now understand, you can treat it as alternate symbols for 16 latin letters: f u þ o r k h n i a s t b m l R.

I started by transliterating Runestone DR 334 from a picture on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_runestones#DR_334. I made a few mistakes and used Wikipedia to check.

I've added a little note from me that says "Hi i am lerniŋ runs" [runes] (hopefully).

#Runes #runestone