1@ NAIHAS VASIZOSONS-HSIDOIONS * YWONIIONVH SNAINS0VyVSLIHYALLIA TONY E. A. MAKAEV The Language of the Oldest Runic Inscriptions A Linguistic and Historical-Philological Analysis yy Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets AkademienISSN 0083-677X ISBN 91-7402-259-8 Distributed by Almavist & Wiksell International Stockholm, Sweden +2 NAIHAS VASIZOSONS-ASIDOTONS * YWONITGNVH SNSINSCVAVSLAHYALLIA TONNYEnver A. Makaev's “The Language of the Old- est Runic Inscriptions” was published in 1965, but it has never reached the broad readership it deserves within the world's scholarly com- munity because it was written in Russian. Re- views in Western journals called attention to this work, but they could not replace direct ac- cess to the work itself. The present translation into English makes this important contribution, to runic and Germanic linguistic scholarship available at last to the scholarly world at large, not merely as the subject of historiographical interest, but as a still valid appeal to runolo- gists everywhere to abandon the wild and un- founded speculations so rampant in runolo- gical studies and to adopt a more scientific ap- proach to these most ancient of all Germanic {exis, in keeping with the advances in com- parative and historical linguistics,Cover ilustration: ‘The runestone from Istaby in the province of Blekinge, Sweden, now in the Museum of Na- tional Antiquities, Stockholm. After photograph by Bengt A. Lundberg, Museum of National Antiquities, Stockholm. The runic legend reads: fate hariwulafa hapuwulafe haeruwulotin and is continued on the backside of the stone: warait runar palar This inscription may be translated ‘In memory of Hariwulf Habuwult, descendent of Heruwulf, wrote these runes.The Language of the Oldest Runic Inscriptions A Linguistic and Historical-P hilological Analysis By E. A. Makaev Filologisk-filosofiska serien 21 KUNGL. VITTERHETS. HISTORIE OCH ANTIKVITETS AKADEMIENKUNGL. VITTERHETS HISTORIE OCH ANTIKVITETS AKADEMIENS, HANDLINGAR Filologisk-filosofiska serien TJUGOFORSTA DELENE. A. MAKAEV THE LANGUAGE OF THE OLDEST RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS A Linguistic and Historical-Philological Analysis TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY JOHN MEREDIG in consultation with Elmer H. Antonsen KUNGL. VITTERHETS HISTORIE OCH ANTIKVITETS AKADEMIENPrepared for publication by Thorsten Andersson and Henrik Williams Abstract Makaev, E. A., 1996. The language of the oldest runic inscriptions. A linguistic and historical-philological analysis. Translated from the Russian by John Meredig. in consultation with Elmer H. Antonsen. Prepared for publication by Thorsten Andersson and Henrik Williams. Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikviteis Akademiens Hand- lingar, Filologisk-filosofiska serien 21. 137 pp. Stockholm. ISBN 91-7402-259-8. “Runology —if it does not wish to be transformed into a heap of groundless and fruitless speculations, of which there have been many in its history—can and must become as exact and strict a discipline as the comparative grammar of the Germanic languages. Perhaps the entire meaning of this book rests in the position, repeated many times in these pages, that the heart of runology is paleography and the comparative grammar of the Germanic languages” (p. 81). A critical analysis of runological studies up to 1965, calling for the application of a stricter methodology, is presented in the first chapter, followed by chapters devoted to the language of the oldest inscriptions as a kind of koiné, to the orthographic fit of the writing system, to the significance of onomastic evidence, and to word structure, There ate a corpus of inscriptions and bracteates, lists of runic names and of attested grammatical forms, a glossary, and a bibliography of works consulted. Keywords: ranology, runic inscriptions, dating of runic inscriptions, bracteates, runic kkoiné, runic grammar, runic epigraphy, runic morphology, onomastics, historical and comparative Germanic linguistics, Germanic personal names, Germanic tribal names, Scandinavian personal names, Scandinavian tribal names. Kung]. Vilterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien Box 3622, 5-14 86 Stockholm Original title: Asux apesnelimx pynuvecknx Hamnuceli, Jtarncriecknii n uctopiKo-icronormueckuit avast (Moscow, 1965) © EA. Makaev ISBN 91-7402-259-8 ISSN 0083-677X, Set by Ratt Satt Hard & Lagman HB, Bjirka Saby, Sweden Printed by Gotab AB, Stockholm, Sweden 1996 Distributed by Almavist & Wiksell International, SwedenCONTENTS Symbols of the Older Runic Alphabet 6 Abbreviations .... 6 A Note Concerning this Translation 7 Author's Foreword .. 9 Part One Research Chapter I, The Current State of Runology . 13, Chapter II. The Concept of a Runic Koiné . 23 Chapter III. The Relationship between Phonemes and Graphemes in Runic . Chapter IV. Problems in Runic Onomasties ., Chapter V. Word Structure in the Language of the Older Runic Inscrip- tions .. / . . 70 Part Two The Data Section I. Corpus of the Oldest Runic Inscriptions A. Inscriptions B. Bracteates ..... on ni Section Il, List of Runic Names co snes 92 Section II], List of Grammatical Forms Attested in the Oldest Runic Inscriptions . sos soos Section IV. Glossary of the Oldest Runic Inscriptions Section V. Bibliography ... Abbreviations Works Consulted ..SYMBOLS OF THE OLDER RUNIC ALPHABET v f RH h ANb FRY XP uth aor k go w $+ 1 98 1 OE XA BR ni i ei p 2(R) s BM MH foot M 8 be mito do Based on W. Krause 1964: 313. ABBREVIATIONS For bibliographical abbreviations, see the Bibliography (Part Il, Section V); abbreviations for grammatical terms are those customarily used in linguistic literature in English. Alem. BCE. Bav. CE. CGme. Dan. Elam. Faer. Ger. Gk. Gme. Goth. Ie, Lat = Norw. = Alemannic OE Old English Before the Common Era OF ris. = Old Frisian Bavarian OFrk, = Old Frankish Common Era OHG = Old High German Common Germanic Ole. Old Icelandic Danish Olnd, = Old Indic Elamite ON = Old Norse Faeroese OPers. = Old Persian German os Old Saxon Greek Run, Runic Germanic Scand. = Scandinavian Gothic Skt. = Sanskrit Icelandic Swed. = Swedish Latin Ved. Vedie NorwegianA NOTE CONCERNING THIS TRANSLATION It is sad to see how many excellent philologists writing in “exotic” languages remain forever objects of inner consumption. Even if popularized much later, they are viewed as fossils of past epochs. Language barriers among linguists are more durable than the Iron Curtain or the Berlin Wall (Anatoly Liberman, “Scandi- navian phonology”, Scandinavian Studies 66:232-3 [1994]). One victim of this language barrier was the eminent Soviet scholar Enver A. Makaev, who published a number of excellent works on Germanic linguistics in the 1960’s. Unfortunately they never reached the broad readership they de- served within the world’s scholarly community because they had appeared in Russian. Reviews in Western journals called attention to his and other Soviet scholars’ work, but they could not replace direct access to the works them- selves. I was fortunate to be able to read Makaev’s works and I recall vividly the exhiliration I derived from reading his Asx dpesnetiuux pyrauecrux nadnuceit, a copy of which the author had kindly sent to me. I subsequently reviewed it for Language (44: 132-5 [1968]). In those days, I was new to the study of runes, but the validity of many of the arguments put forth by Makaev, particularly of his call for a more disciplined scientific approach to the study of these oldest inscriptions, was immediately clear to me. It is because of the impact this work had on my own scholarship that I gladly consented to serve as, advisor on runological matters to John Meredig for this translation. The transla- tion itself is entirely the work of John Meredig, candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Slavic linguistics at the University of Illinois. Profes- sor James W. Marchand gave helpful advice on some bibliographic and ono- mastic matters. In addition to the language barrier, the contemporary social environment in the West in the 1960°s was not conducive to the reception of a work of this nature. I refer to the then-prevalent notion among students that nothing that had occurred before 1950 could have any social relevance. This short-sighted atti- tude relegated runic scholars to teach courses Jike-modern syntax because stu- dents were not interested in “outmoded” disciplines like runology. It is a wel- come affirmation of the retum of a sane atiituds: toward historical studies that younger scholars in Sweden and other parts of Scandinavia, Europe, and America are once again taking up the intriguing questions connected with the study of runic inscriptions. Every effort has been made here to preserve the integrity of the Russian-language original, including of course Makaev’s designation of language stages such as Common Germanic (rather than Proto-Germanic) and Proto-Scandina- vian (rather than Northwest Germanic, although he correctly denies the pres- ence of peculiarly Scandinavian features in the oldest inscriptions). The foot- notes of the original have been integrated into the text according to present-day reference practices in the social sciences, and those works not listed in the original bibliography have been integrated into Part Il, Section V: Biblio- graphy, but are marked with an asterisk after the listing. As in the original, Russian-language works are listed before works in the Western languages. Like the Bibliography (Part V), the list of inscriptions in Part II, Section I is arranged alphabetically according to non-Scandinavian practice (as also in the original), ic., e, d, d are not differentiated from a, nor 9, 6 from 0. In a few instances, there were inconsistencies in the ordering in the original and these have been corrected here. The following place names have been altered to correspond to present-day spellings and/or runological usage. Their ordering in the corpus and the corresponding reference numbers in the text have been changed accordingly: Aalborg — Alborg Mojebro > Mdjbro Eggjum — Eggja Straarup —> Strarup, Kjelevig > Kjalevik Tanum —> Kalleby Kowel — Kovel Torsbjerg > Thorsberg Some obvious typographical errors have been corrected, and the fonts for runic symbols (which through no fault of the author were sometimes highly erratic in the original printing) have been regularized. No attempt has been made to regularize Makaev’s rendition of the rune Y' in proper names in trans- lation, which is sometimes given as -2, sometimes as -r; of. Hiwigar (I, 3), but Saligastiz (I, 7). Quotations that the author translated into Russian have been checked against the original language and modified in the English translation where appropriate in order to avoid the distortions that would result from translating a translation. Some of the views expressed in Makaev’s work of thirty years ago will, of course, no longer find acceptance, and there have been numerous new finds of older runic inscriptions since its publication, but its translation into English is nonetheless a salutary scholarly event, for there is still a good deal for us to earn from its pages. I am delighted to have been able to play a small part in making it accessible to a wider audience. I wish to thank Professor Thorsten ‘Andersson and Dr. Henrik Williams of Uppsala University, who have initiated ‘and organized this translation project, and Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och ‘Antikvitets Akademien, Stockholm, which has accepted the book for pub- lication in their series and covered all expenses connected therewith. Urbana, Minois December 1995 Elmer H. AntonsenAUTHOR’S FOREWORD The goal of this book is to pose and shed light on the question of the language type of the older runic inscriptions. In spite of the vast literature available on runes, at the present time almost impossible to survey, it should be noted that this problem has not been satisfactorily analyzed by runologists. Take, for example, the book by F. Burg, devoted primarily to the linguistic features of the older runic inscriptions. This book appeared in 1885 and was based on the approximately 60 older runic inscriptions known at that time. In both its con- tents and its methods of linguistic analysis, it is completely outdated, although in its time it was a major achievement in the field of runology. The numerous runological studies of the first half of the 20th century contain many valuable and correct observations on the language and orthography of the older runic inscriptions, but they are not fused into a coherent whole. Therefore it would make sense to examine the question of the language of the older runic inscrip- tions from the level of the current state of runology and comparative Germanic linguistics. The number of older runic inscriptions (including inscriptions on bracteates that can be interpreted) has grown to approximately 150 at the pres- ent time. Monumental editions of Swedish, Danish, and Continental-Germanic runic inscriptions allow us to analyze the older runic inscriptions thoroughly and comprehensively, and the significant progress made in the comparative grammar of the Germanic languages enables us to interpret the linguistic fea- tures of the runic inscriptions on the level of contemporary general linguistics and its branches, At the same time it should be noted that the fragmentary nature and relative insignificance of the extant older runic inscriptions do not allow the researcher to give an exhaustive description of all linguistic and orthographic features of the older runic inscriptions, or to precisely trace the evolution of linguistic features and orthographic devices present in runic in- scriptions from the 3d to 7th centuries, scattered over the continent, in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Needless to say, the present work does not and cannot deal with many important problems connected with the language of the older runic inscriptions. This work merely points toward a solution to the problem of the principles of the chronology of runic inscriptions and its comespondence to the chronological stratification arrived at by archaeologists. A final and com-prehensive solution — which depends upon the accumulation of runic inscrip- tions, on the working out of various aspects of the Common Germanic lexicon (especially its stratigraphy), on the perfecting of the methods of archaeological dating and the methods of paleographic interpretation —is a matter for the distant future, demanding the collective effort of many scholars. Naturally the present work chiefly deals with questions that are of the utmost importance in deciding the linguistic status of the older runic inscriptions and which, at the same time, can be satisfactorily answered within the current state of runology. A particular problem is posed by the runic inscriptions of the transitional period (6th to 8th centuries), To avoid misunderstandings, it should be men- tioned that the present work understands the older runic inscriptions to be those written in the 24-character common Germanic alphabet, the fubark, which belong approximately to the 3d to 7th centuries C.E. When the analysis is lim- ited only to inscriptions from the 3d to Sth centuries, the term “oldest runic inscriptions” is used. The runic inscriptions of the transitional period (6th to 8th centuries) could turn out to be crucial in solving a number of problems related to the description of the linguistic and graphic evolution of runic inscriptions, as well as their spacial stratigraphy. Therefore the runic inscriptions of the transitional period require very close attention. But the extremely fragmentary nature and the highly insignificant number of extant runic inscriptions from the transitional period do not allow a thorough analysis of the relevant problems at the present time, Premature conclusions arrived at on the basis of such limited material could do more harm than good for runology, which, even without this, has such a wealth of fantastic and groundless hypotheses. Strict discipline in the methodology of runic studies is one of the pressing requirements of con- temporary runology. In conclusion, I consider it my duty to mention with deep gratitude those scholars whose work and correspondence were of great importance in posing this series of questions and in writing this book: W. Krause, C. Marstrander, H, Andersen, E. Moltke, A. Backsted, L. Jacobsen, K. M. Nielsen, E. Salberger, and S. Jansson. Of course, I alone am responsible for any errors in this work. 10PART ONE RESEARCHCHAPTER I The Current State of Runology INTRODUCTION. The foundations of runology as a separate and independent discipline with its own sphere of problems, its own object of study, and its own set of research methods were laid in the 1870s by the Danish runologist L. Wimmer. In the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, ninology successfully developed and improved through the efforts of many scholars, among whom were S. Bugge, M. Olsen, C. Marstrander, T. Grien- berger, O. von Friesen, E, Brate, I. Lindquist, E. Wessén, W. Krause, H. Amtz, L. Jacobsen, E, Moltke, and H. Andersen. ‘The development of runology was determined, and to a certain degree di- rected, by the following factors: (a) the discovery of a very significant number of new runic inscriptions, in particular inscriptions in the older 24-character fupark; (b) the improvement of methods of interpreting inscriptions; (c) the ever-increasing contact of runology with a number of related disciplines: archaeology, paleography, history, ethnography, and mythology. This last factor has allowed some runologists to view runology as an interdisciplinary field. C. Marstrander (1929e: 164) states flatly that “runology is paleography, linguistics, archaeology, and mythology.” At the same time it should be emphasized that the considerable achievements of runology in the last 90 years in no way guarantee that we can count on deciphering and interpreting the majority of the oldest runic inscriptions, nor on coming to any general or spe- cific conclusions based on these inscriptions. The particular complexity of the runic material lies in the fact that the runologist, with very few exceptions, is dealing with inscriptions that are extremely fragmentary and in many yespects in poor condition. In most cases the inscriptions consist of individual words (and sometimes just individual runic characters) that do not correspond ety- mologically to other Germanic languages. Furthermore, in terms of paleo- graphy, it is extremely difficult to read many of the inscriptions, and in some cases, where individual characters have become weather-wor, it is simply impossible to read them, and the researcher is reduced to guesswork and suppositions. Even when the researcher is able to read a given runic inscription, this does not necessarily mean that it can be properly interpreted, for the cul- tural and historical background of the inscription may be unclear, thus making 13,it impossible to decipher the meaning of the text. For example, the runic laukar, lina, erilan, pewar are transparent from an etymological standpoint, for they have correspondences in all or many other Germanic languages, but their functional meaning in the runic ‘anguage of the time in question remains unknown to us. Therefore it is hardly surprising that some runologists come to very pessimistic conclusions regarding the possibility of exhaustively interpret- ing the oldest runic inscriptions. C. Marstrander referred to this many times in his works. In a brief study in 1938 (Marstrander 1938a: 361) he wrote: “For well-known reasons one may maintain that not one single runic inscription hes yet been interpreted. In a number of cases we are able to decipher the text of the inscription, but at the same time we must acknowledge that the given text is just shell, beneath which the unknown core is still hidden from us.” In a 1952 monograph, Marstrander (1952: 17-8) points out that “a runic inscription may be fully interpreted in linguistic terms and at the same time remain essentially undecipherable. A typical example is the runic inscription from Eggja. We can interpret most of the words in this inscription, but we haven’t gotten any farther than this. This inscription was carved in connection with a burial in Sogndal many generations before Harald Hairfair, but no one yet has been able to understand the context and solve the mystery of the runestone, A thousand years of Christianity, civilization, and stagnation have dulled our intuition.” ‘One can hardly agree with such an assertion, in spite of the fact that much of it is undoubtedly true. For if this were the case, not only would it be impossible to carry out a strictly scientific interpretation of runic material, at the same time it would render impossible a whole series of scientific disciplines related to the ancient past. But one may indeed lear a very important lesson from the posi- tion of a runologist who has spent a half-century in runological field work, namely that the foremost task in runology today is the intensive development of a methodology that will enable us to interpret the oldest runic inscriptions and come to unambiguous conclusions, objectively and without contradictions, based first and foremost on the runic data themselves. Consequently, we are speaking of the creation of principles of relative chronology of the oldest runic inscriptions and the creation of the foundations of runic paleography (primarily in terms of analyzing the relationship between runic graphemes and pho- nemes). But before we can consider these two problems, we must first look briefly at the contemporary state of the published corpus of the oldest runic inscriptions. § 1. W. KRAUSE’S CORPUS OF OLDEST RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS IN THE LIGHT OF CONTEMPORARY DATA. At the present time the most complete, authoritative, and convenient edition of all runic inscriptions written in the 24-character fupark is W. Krause’s monograph of 1937. Krause’s classic work has been evaluated and criticized in detail in numerous reviews by runologists, and after 25 years it still remains the standard and irreplaceable reference work for all questions of runology. Runology was greatly enriched from the day this mono- graph appeared, and both its successes and its bones of contention are drawn in 14if we attempt to look at Krause’s monograph in the light of the further opment of runology. Certainly, at the present time Krause’s “corpus of runic inscriptions” needs to be supplemented and amended, as Krause admits: “My book has undoubtedly become outdated, and in general, a edition is needed” (in a letter from Krause to the author of 20 March This supplementing and amending amounts to the following: After the appearance of Krause’s book, ten of the oldest runic inscriptions e discovered, published, and deciphered (among them was one of the ssing links of the runic inscriptions from Vetteland; Marstrander 1946), z with three bracteates written in the 24-character fubark (Moltke 1:58), and a runic inscription on the bead from Lousgard (Moltke 1956: |- which from a paleographic standpoint could be placed among the oldest Jc inscriptions of the transitional period or among the runic inscriptions of era of the Vikings, See the table below for a list of all newly discovered sscriptions in the 24-charaecter fupark published since 1937. No. DESIGNATION TEXT 1 ‘Aquincum ‘A: jlain:kgia B: fuparkgy 2 Beuchte A:fubarzj Bi: buirso 3 Bratsberg ekerilan 4 Gérdlosa ekunwodw s Hesselager-br. of. DRI, br. 33. 6 Himlingoje 2 widuhudar 7 Lindker-br. AASAMSIARTINANAXL DAY 955 8 Lousgird-bead —HHINTY 963 9 Novling bidawarijaz talgidai 949 10 Nasbjerg ° waraf(au)s(a) " Ringsgaard-br. of. DRI, br. 10 980, 2 Roseland ekwagiganirilaragilamudon 947 1B Stenmagle hagirada tawide 945 4 Sunde widugastix 939 15 (Wetteland) flagdafaikinan ... magor minas staina 945 16 Varlose alugod The material from the newly discovered inscriptions significantly increases the runic lexical and grammatical material published by Krause, Of greatest interest in lexical terms are: flagdafaikinar (Vetteland), ekunwod(w) (Gardldsa), agilamudon (Rosseland), widugastin (Sunde), hagiradar (Stenmagle), widuhudar (Himlingoje 2), alugod (Verlose), buirso (Beuchte), wagigar (Roseland), irilar (Rosseland), erilar (Brats- berg), Of grammatical significance are: agilamudon (Rosseland, genitive sin gular; this form could hold the key to analyzing the inscription from Stenstad: igijon halar); magor (Vetteland, genitive singular w-stem); tawide (Sten- magle, 3d pers. sg. pret.); heretofore only the Ist pers. sg. form tawido was known (Gallehus). The newly discovered material is also highly significant and interesting in terms of onomasties (see Chapter IV). 152. The sections of Krause’s book dealing with the analysis of bracteates also need to be significantly amended and, in some cases, reformulated. One should keep in mind that bracteates with runic inscriptions did not receive systematic and adequate treatment by Kraugey-yehich has already been noted by runolo- gists. The chronological dating.’ thoroughly reexamined at this tirae. ‘Tis thing is, runologists do not date brac- teates based on linguistic criteria, but rather rely on dating worked out by archaeologists. However, there is no consensus among archaeologists on this question, Scandinavian archaeologists have proposed two systems for the chron- ology of bracteates: (a) Danish archaeologists, beginning with S. Moller, and especially M, Mackeprang (1952) in his monumental monograph on bracteates, place them in a relatively later time period. Mackeprang proposes the following periods: Period I— 475-550; Period Il — 550-600; Period III — 600-650; (b) Swedish archaeologists, beginning with O. Montelius, and especially S. Lindqvist (1927 and 1940) place bracteates in a relatively earlier time period (late 4th to mid-6th centuries) Leaving aside for the moment the question of which system is more justified (Since this can only be debated among archaeologists), we will limit ourselves to this comment: the runologist must not merely choose one of the proposed chronologies and follow it consistently, he must also, more importantly, at- tempt to make the chronology of bracteates (“Danish” or “Swedish”) agree with the chronological correlations of other runic inscriptions on wood, stone, and bone (more about this in § 4). Another fundamental question for runology is the degree to which runic inscriptions on bracteates should be viewed in the same manner as ordinary runic inscriptions, and the degree to which they should be considered a differ- ent type of distortion of the original text, or simply a sequence of runes serving perhaps as ornamentation of the bracteates, or for some magical purpose, and not having any meaning. As an illustration we will cite several inscriptions on Danish bracteates. Along with fully “deciphered” inscriptions such as laukar alu (no. 6 in the edition of DR), ek fakar f (no. 45), lapu (no. 49), (e) eik kar fahi (no. 64), there is a decidedly larger number of meaningless inscrip- tions or meaningless sequences of runes, for example: linaiwui, ildaituha (no 11); leééapret lae : t'honré (no. 12); a(wiri u(r)x phs(Q)ia (no. 26); hThe(e)I(l) (no. 27); IRof'I (no, 34); rlut : eabl laur4h owa (io. 38); fuauu (no. 50); sndi()iuuul(all)i(s)ius(a)hs(i) (no. 78). S. Bugge, in his major work of 1905, attempted to prove that most of the “meaningless” bracteates can be interpreted, but his completely fantastic and uncritical interpretations failed to convince runologists. In spite of this, individual attempts at “reasonable” inter- pretations of the meaningless inscriptions on bracteates have not ceased, Recently the point of view that the vast majority of inscriptions on bracteates are meaningless, most consistently put forth by E. Moltke (1940-43: 3-8; DRI: 790-3) has been more and more clearly expressed. In a special work, 16Moltke cites arguments in defense of his position, which must be ack- wledged as solidly justified and fully plausible. Upon reexamining the runic sseniptions on bracteates, it is only natural to confront the question of inter- ng the medallion from Svarteborg: ssigadur. Krause, as well as his pre- Sevessors, interprets this as a proper name < *Sigihapur. However, H. Ander- 1961), in a special study, argues convincingly that this inscription is ly a sequence of runes. The following material in Krause’s “corpus” is also in need of amend- sometimes very basic: Einang —dagarbarrunofaihido, should be: dagastia runofaihido (Moltke’s reading; 1938b: 111-9); Veblungsnes — wiwila, should be: wiwilan (Marstrander’s reading; 1951: 19); Méjbro — ana Pahai (dat. sg. -ai), should be: ana haha; Vi—marihai (dat. sg. -ai). Mar- der (1952) sees i/hai as a verb form. (For all inscriptions one should keep trander’s “Corpus”, 1952, in mind.) 4. The sections of Krause’s book that deal with the connection between inscriptions and magic (magic numbers of runes, magic formulas, magic es, ete.) also needs to be amended. At the present time the question of the gical nature of runes and runic alphabets and of the original, purely magical ‘tent of runic inscriptions has been thoroughly reexamined by A. Beksted 952). In his far-reaching study he puts forth a series of solid arguments inst the hypothesis of the magical purpose of runes and runic inscriptions and against attempts to interpret various runic inscriptions in which individual es are supposedly not fully written (for example, the inscription on an amu- et from Lindholm: ... hateka instead of *haiteka), or, just the opposite, here runes are written double (as, for example, on the aforementioned medal- son from Svarteborg: ssigadur), which, according to some scholars, was done out of the necessity of preserving a particular “magic” number of runes. § 2. THE FOREMOST TASKS FOR RUNOLOGY TODAY. As was mentioned earlier see the Introduction), the foremost tasks for runology today are the creation of principles of relative chronology for the oldest runic inscriptions and the crea- tion of the foundations of runic paleography. The creation of principles of chronology for the oldest runic inscriptions is 'sely connected with the question of the possibility of constructing a relative chronology on the basis of the runic material itself. This question needs to be raised, since a significant majority of runologists are of the opinion that dating runic inscriptions should be left to archaeologists. In connection with this, it would seem appropriate to consider the relationship between runology and archaeology, although with the following stipulation: this author, not being an archaeologist, supposes it would be unreasonable and tactless to presume to judge the principles of relative and absolute chronology accepted in archaeol- ogy. This author considers himself justified only in quoting a series of state- ments by archaeologists and runologists and on this basis arriving at certain conclusions on the question of the possibility of constructing a relative chronology based on the runic linguistic data themselves, 7§ 3, RUNOLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGY. In many works, Scandinavian archae- ologists and runologists generally agree that the problem of dating runic in- scriptions in the 24-character fupark can only be solved on the basis of archaeo- logical data. In the case that, for whatever reasons, there is no archaeological data available, then the question of dating a given runic inscription remains open. B. Nerman (1947 and 1953), one of Sweden’s leading archaeologists, in a work dedicated to the archaeological dating of Scandinavian runic inserip- tions from the Bjorketorp-Stentoften group, points out that the “determination in runology of the chronology of runic inscriptions dating back to the last cen- turies of pagan Scandinavia should as a rule be based on the chronology devel- oped in archaeology on the basis of dated objects and artifacts” (Nerman 1947; 109). The sorts of conclusions that this kind of assertion can lead to will be given below. The leading Danish ranologist E, Moltke (1942: 109), in his review of Krause’s cozpus of oldest runie {aytiptions, wrote that “it should be pointed ‘out once and for all, categorically, that runology is not in a position to establish its own chronology alongside that of archaeology. The runologist is only in a position to determine if a runic inscription belongs to the petiod of migrations, to the transitional period, to the Viking period, or to the Middle Ages. Within the period of migrations there can be no question of chronological differentia- tion.” (See also Askeberg 1944: 38-40. Compare the following statement by R. Derolez (1954: xv): “Archaeology, however, is not such a wonderful aid to runology as some scholars think.”) The leading Swedish runologist O. von Friesen (1924: 25), in his monograph on the runic inscription on the stone from Ro in Bohuslin, emphasized that “Ivar Lindquist agrees with all contemporary philologists in acknowledging that our oldest runic inscriptions can be dated in terms of absolute chronology only on the basis of archaeological data.” One could cite many such statements, but those already cited make it possible to draw the following conclusions: one gets the impression that archaeologists studying runes and runologists follow- ing the archaeologists don’t always make a distinction between the possibility of determining absolute and relative chronologies. The aforementioned quotes from several scholars make it possible to state the question in the following manner: in terms of absolute chronology, runic inscriptions can be dated only on the basis of archaeological data; in terms of relative chronology, runic in- scriptions can be dated not necessarily only on the basis of archaeological data, Stating the question thusly is undoebtedly logical, although it is precisely in terms of absolute chronology, at least in Scandinavian archaeology, that there is no clarity. The great Swedish archaeologist G. Ekholm (1958: 458) categori- cally emphasizes: “When the results achieved by archaeologists are pointed out in terms of a few very subtle datings of individual objects, this is more likely to elicit from us [archaeologists] a feeling of dissatisfaction. In terms of relative chronology we have indeed achieved significant results. But as far as absolute chronology is concerned, this must be designated as one of the weakest points 18in our discipline.” Weighing the possibility of absolute and relative chronolo- gies, B. Almgren (1958) points out that classification by periods “requires a larger number of finds representing different types typical of each period. ... The question is this: what is the number of groups of discovered items, what is, the time interval by which they can be characterized in both practical and theo- retical terms, and finally, how possible is it to determine to what degree the given groups of finds form chronologically consistent periods? ... Combined dating [on the basis of relative chronology —E. M.] cannot at the same time serve as the basis for an unambiguous detailed chronology.” Thus one cannot avoid coming to the conclusion that the scholar attempting to construct a chronology of runic inscriptions on the basis of archaeological data has fallen into a vicious circle. Along with this, the chronological calcula- tions of archaeologists for one particular group of runic inscriptions contradict the dating of other runic artifacts. A perfect example of this is the aforemen- tioned work by B. Nerman on the archaeological dating of the runic inscrip- tions of the Bjérketorp-Stentoften group. As carly as 1923, I. Lindquist (1923: 119-36) attempted t0 validate the hypothesis that the runic inscriptions of the Bjérketorp-Stentoften group are historical artifacts that documented the return of the Heruli to Scandinavia, presumably to the Skane district, which probably took place around 512-520. Lindquist concluded accordingly that the runic inscriptions of this group could be placed in the early 6th century. Agreeing with Lindquist, Nerman (1953) attempts to bolster this position with archaeological data, Relying on the origi- nal description by a local pastor in 1860, according to which the runic artifacts were situated in the form of a pentagon, Nerman connects this with the well- known Scandinavian assemblies or judicial courts [things] of this era with sacrificial stones (domarering) laid out in the shape of a pentagon. Since these assemblies were characteristic of the period of the migrations, Nerman con- cludes that the Bjérketorp-Stentoften runic artifacts can be placed from an archaeological standpoint in the early 6th century. ‘Nerman’s entire model raises a number of fundamental objections. This author has no right to argue with Nerman the archaeologist, but I must point out that the Danish archaeologist T. Ramskou (in Moltke 1956: 7-8) categori- cally objects to Nerman’s archaeological arguments and, by the way, points to what the Swedish archaeologist T. Ame convincingly demonstrated in his work from 1938 — that the assembly in the form of a pentagon could have been in use even in the Viking era. Furthermore, Ramskou conjectures that this assem- bly is so simple in form that it cannot be used for the purpose of chronological calculations. However in the present work, which is based entirely on linguistic material, there is one circumstance that raises a fundamental objection — there is no possibility of correlating the chronology of the Bjérketorp-Stentoften runic artifacts, which linguistically are in a transitional state (syncope of weakly stressed vowels, transition from unstressed o > a, etc.), with the chr nology of bracteates, most of which are placed by both Danish and Swedish 19archaeologists in the 6th century and which show the oldest linguistic charac- teristics. This is shown all the more strikingly in relation to the bracteate from ‘Tjurké, that is, from the very same locality as the Bjorketorp-Stentoften runic artifacts; cf. Bjérketorp: haidr runoronu falahak haidera ginarunar arageu haeramalausr utian weladaude sar pat barutr; cf. the bracteate from ‘Tjurké: heldar kunimudiu wurte runor an walhakurne. Moltke (1956: 7) quite reasonably notes here that it seems quite unlikely that in the same prov- ince (Blekinge) inscriptions on stone —which, as is well known, is the most conservative form of writing — should contain the runic language of the transi- tional period already in the early 6th century, while inscriptions on bracteates a century later continued to preserve the oldest form of runic language. In a case like this, there is but one way out for the researcher — to acknowledge that the runic inscriptions on bracteates, as well as a number of other inscriptions show- ing older language, are the product of an ARCHAICIZING style (more on this later). In light of all this one must agree with Ekholm (1958: 462), who stated in his aforementioned work: “The archaeological dating of the oldest runie in- scriptions was of fundamental importance for runology in the latest stage of its evelopment. The cooperation between runologists and archaeologists had both positive and negative sides. In the middle of this century runologists had a tendency to jump to overly broad conclusions on account of archaeology, and runologists continue to cling stubbomly to some archaeological datings that archaeologists themselves view skeptically.” There is every reason to believe that L. Wimmer (1887: 301) was completely right when he pointed out that “for the linguist the chronological determinations of archaeologists can serve only as a control for results arrived at by other means (based on linguistic and paleographic observations); where linguistics falls into conflict with archacol- ogy, the former can yield only if archaeology provides completely convincing arguments.” P, Sawyer (1962: 49) also points out that “The evidence of archae- ology is important and cannot be disregarded but it is equally important that those who use it should be aware of its general character and the limitations which should govern its use.” §4. THE CONCEPT OF ARCHAICIZING RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS. The question of the chronological stratification of the oldest runic inscriptions, along with their relative chronology, is not only connected with the problem of dating runic inscriptions on the basis of archaeological or runological criteria, it requires above all a clarification of the concept of archaicizing inscriptions. This con- cept is ambiguous in the runological literature, and its definition is most often determined in connection with the dating of particular runic inscriptions based on archaeological criteria. Thus, in Setre, Norway, in 1932, a comb was found with the runic inscription: A hal mar mauna; B alunaalunana, Based on archaeological criteria, this comb was dated by the archaeologist H. Shetelig to the second half of the 6th century, and on the basis of this dating M. Olsen came to the conclusion that the syncope of u and i had already occurred in the 20Scandinavian language of the second half of the 6th century: hal < *Aailu, mar <*mawie; while unstressed o >a, cf: mauna, nana (Olsen-Shetelig 1933: 78). A comparison of this inscription with the runic artifacts of the transi- tional period (6th~7th centuries), especially the Bjérketorp-Stentoften group, leads to the conclusion that the researcher is dealing with an older linguistic stage on the artifacts of the transitional period than in the inscription on the comb from Setre, ef. the inscription from Stentoften: ginoronor, heramala san bariutip. Attempting to explain the lack of correspondence between the linguistic stage and the dating of these inscriptions, Olsen proposes the hy- pothesis of the archaicizing nature of the Bjérketorp-Stentofien runic inscrip- tions. Olsen also presumes that one may speak of archaicizing tendencies not only in the language, but in the graphics as well. Looking at the runic inscrip- tion on the stone from Ravsal (Bohuslin, Sweden) hariwulfs stainar and sub- jecting it to a paleographic analysis, Olsen emphasizes that the simultaneous presence of the runes + (a) and P (w) indicates an archaicizing orthography. Consequently, the question is, to what degree the runologist must consider the presence of: (a) archaicizing tendencies in the language; and (b) archaicizing tendencies in the system of runic graphics, and to what degree both of these tendencies were expressed in runic inscriptions written in the 24-character fubark, In accordance with his hypothesis, Olsen believes that runic inscrip- tions on bracteates from the 6th century that reflect the linguistic stage of the runic koiné should also be viewed as manifesting archaicizing tendencies. In other words, archaicizing runic inscriptions (Bjérketorp-Stentoften group, Ravsal, bracteates) are not synchronically correlated with the Scandinavian language of the 6th century, while the runic inscription on the comb from Setre, like the runic inscription on the stone from Eggja, are a true reflection of the linguistic stage of that period. Olsen’s hypothesis can be fully tested and evaluated only after the problem of the relationship between phonemes and graphemes in the oldest runic inscriptions is solved. A necessary prerequisite for this is the detailed description of all of the oldest runic inscriptions, above all from a paleographic standpoint: the different methods of the masters of runic writing, the graphic typology in different areas of the Germanic language community, and the subsequent multifaceted transformation of the 24-character fupark in Scandinavia and on the continent. However, it is both possible and necessary at this time to make some preliminary comments on Olsen’s hy- pothesis. There is no doubt that the operation of the concept of archaicizing inscriptions could have very dangerous consequences for runology and could easily become pointless, because every time the archaeological and runological (that is, linguistic) datings of a given inscription or group of inscriptions do not, coincide, which has often been the case, it would be possible to claim that in such a case the given inscription must be archaicizing, and eventually this could not help but become completely arbitrary. I therefore propose the follow- ing preliminary procedure for labeling particular inscriptions as “archaiciz- ing” — the runologist is fully justified in speaking of a given inscription as 21being archaicizing only if this inscription stands in direct contrast to another inscription from the same time period or locality and when it can be confirmed that the two runic inscriptions do not reflect a chronological succession. In any other case it will always be impossible to prove that various runic inscriptions are archaicizing. This can be illustrated with the following examples: the runic inscription on the stone from Jelling I (example 935, in Jacobsen and Moltke’s system; DRI: cols. 65-81) uses the following form of the demonstrative pro- noun: kurmtn s fcurtuke : k[ar}pi : kubl : pusi; the runic inscription on the stone from Jelling 11 (eximple 983-985 in Jacobsen and Moltke’s system; DRI: col. 897) uses the following form of the same pronoun: haraltr: kunukr bap : kewrua : kubl : pausi. It is perfectly clear that bausi is an earlier form and busi a later form, and the use of the form pausi in what is known to be a tater insoription indicates that the Jelling II inscription is an example of a truly archaicizing runic inscription or evidence of a chancellery style, as Moltke (DRI: col. 897) calls the conservative orthography of this inscription. As far as the inscriptions on the stones from Bjérketorp and Stentoften are concerned, this question can be resolved somewhat differently. The former has the form sar pat baruta; the latter has (s)a pat bariutip. If it can be proven that the Bjérketorp inscription is somewhat later than the Stentoften inscription, then barutr and bariutip will appear as a regular reflection of the phono- morphological processes that were taking place at that time in Scandinavia. If the Bjorketorp and Stentofien inscriptions belong to the same time period, then bariutip should be viewed as using conservative runic orthography and the Stentoften inscription can be numbered among the archaicizing inscriptions. Along with this general objection to Olsen’s hypothesis, it should be pointed out that no such far-reaching conclusions can be drawn about the runic inscrip- tion on the comb from Setre due to its limited linguistic material. It must also be noted that this inscription has not yet been satisfactorily interpreted, and the aforementioned forms hal and mar could be interpreted as the proper name halmar, in which case Olsen’s statements about vowel syncope and the transi- tion of o > a and -awi > -a are invalid. Therefore K. G. Ljunggren (1937: 293), in his work analyzing this inscription, was right to note that “until the contents of the inscription on the comb from Setre are clarified and its linguistic stage is determined, it cannot be used as a base-point for establishing another chronol- ogy of linguistic changes.” Consequently, one cannot avoid concluding that the concept of archaicizing inscriptions in the transitional period must be kept as limited as possible and approached very cautiously and critically. 22CHAPTER II The Concept of a Runic Koiné § 1. A question of the utmost importance is the establishment of the linguistic status and geographic distribution of the older runic inscriptions, i.e. a clarifica- tion of the relationship of the older runic inscriptions, on the one hand, with the Common Germanic language, and on the other hand with the East Germanic, Scandinavian, and West Germanic areas. There is a lack of consensus on this question both in the specifically runological literature and in the literature on Germanic philology: most researchers, beginning with S. Bugge (1865 and 1870), call the language of the older runic inscriptions Proto-Scandinavian, while others consider it representative of a Common Germanic state (Neckel 1925: 14; Kluge 1920: 148; Indreba 1951: 41; Bax [Bach] 1956: 43). Therefore we must take a detailed look at a whole complex of related problems. § 2. At the present time there is no doubt that the language of the older runic inscriptions does not reflect a Common Germanic linguistic state; it is enough to compare several runic inscriptions with their Common Germanic reconstruc- tions in order to be convinced of this, cf.: runic ekhlewagastirholtijarhornatawido (1, 29) compared to CGme, elvik hlewagastic hultijaz hurnan tawidon; runie swestar minuliubu (I, 66) compared to CGme. swestar mino leubo runic ekwakrarunnamwraita (I, 72) compared to CGme. elvik wakraz unpnam wraitan runic frawaradar anahahaislaginaa (1, 5) compared to CGme. frawaredaz ana hanhan ist slagenaz, and so forth. (Here and henceforth, Roman numerals in parentheses indicate a reference to Part Il, Section I, containing: A—rimic inscriptions on stones, B— inscriptions on bracteates, while Arabic numerais indicate the number of the particular inscription in the corpus.) For a more detailed examination of this, question, see also: Maxaes [Makaev] (1961:44-67), and Cpasnumeonas 2pamsamuxa zepmanerux azeixos [Comparative Grammar of the Germanic Languages] (1962: 1.120). 23The oldest runic inscriptions found on the territories of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden contain no data that would permit us to establish the presence of linguistic features of a Scandinavian area in these inscriptions. Observing syn- chronic correlations, these inscriptions could just as well be placed, in linguis- tic terms, in the West Germanic area as in the Scandinavian, Adherents of the Proto-Scandinavian nature of the language of the oldest runic inscriptions point to the 1st pers. sg. personal pronoun ‘I’, which in these inscriptions is rendered in the form ek (see Part Il, Section IV). However, as W. Krogmann (1962: 155) rightfully notes, the presence of e in this pronoun is not restricted to the Scan- dinavian area. The 1st pers. sg. pronoun has this vowel in the Old Saxon (or Old Low Frankish) “Creed” (ee forsacho, ec gel6bo; Heyne 1867: 85), as well as in a number of modern German dialects (ek, ec) (Kupmyxcxuii [Zir- munsky] 1956: 414), The question of the “Gothic” runic inscriptions deserves special attention. Marstrander (1929a) attempted to uncover the presence of a rather significant number of runic inscriptions in the Gothic language, among which he num- bered: I, 16, 47, 51, 70, 24, 110; Il, 14, 24, 25. Later (1952) he was more care- ful about placing these inscriptions in the Gothic area, leaving the question of 1, 24 open and giving the transcription mrla in Scandinavian and Gothic form (Marstrander 1952: 165). A more detailed examination of all these “Gothic” inscriptions leads to the following conclusion. Many of the inscriptions allow for a different and no less likely interpreta- tion, or in terms of runic graphics, they are generally not very suitable as the basis for drawing specific conclusions; cf., for example, the bracteates contain- ing, according to Bugge (1905: 201-10) and Marstrander (1929a: 74-7), the word ehwu in various spellings. This form is similar to the Gothic ailva-, Mar- strander (1929a: 74) presumes that Gothic aifva- can be compared with -eus in runic sueus (I, 51), and this, in his opinion, points to the fact that “there were Gothic dialects, in which Germanic *ehwaz regularly developed into *ehus after the syncope of a, instead of retaining the semiconsonantal w in analogy with the oblique cases, as in Moeso-Gothic.” These bracteates, however, could hardly serve as the basis for such conclusions, because, as Jacobsen-Moltke point out (DRI: 545; see also 492, 790-93), it is most unlikely that these in- scriptions contain meaningful words, inasmuch as ehwu, which Marstrander and Krause (1937: 465-71) read on several bracteates and compare to Ger- manic *ehwaz ‘horse’, is already on shaky ground paleographically and lin- guistically (Jacobsen—Moltke interpret the word on these bracteates as eltil, not, ehwu). The reference to bracteate 71, Skine $ (DRI: $45) and Il, 4 also tells us nothing, for it is based on an erroneous interpretation of the inscriptions on these bracteates. Thus one should always bear in mind that a significant major- ity of the inscriptions on bracteates contain sequences of meaningless runes and runelike characters, and therefore provide us with very little linguistic informa- tion (cf. DRI: 790-3; Mackeprang 1952:95; on this point see also Chapter I, § 2). As far as I, 110 (aadagasu laasauwija) is concerned, it should be noted 24that there has not yet been a satisfactory interpretation of this inscription (cf. Part II, Section IV, s.v.}, which precludes any specific conclusions about what language it is written in. The form ranja (I, 16) does not provide any basis for determining what area it is from. As for tilarips (I, 47), it is possible that this inscription is Gothic (if it came from the Scandinavian area, one would expect “tilaridar), although G. Must (1955) tries to prove that it is not Germanic at all, but rather Illyrian, and thus he reads it as tilarios. One must admit that there is some justification in Must’s hypothesis, especially in paleographic terms, for the penultimate rune 0] is the only one of its type (Arntz~Zeiss 1939: 28-31) and can be interpreted in various ways. In a letter to the author of 5 October 1962, Krause states emphatically that there is no reason to doubt the Gothic origin of this inscription. Even if one does not go so far as Must, but rather takes I, 16 to be a Gothic runic inscription, then, after a critical examination, only I, 16, 47, and 70 can be counted among the “Gothic” runic inscriptions. Even then, gutani and with?) in I, 70 can be variously interpreted (see Part II, Section TV), ranja (1, 16) has no exclusively Gothic features, and only tilaribs (Z, 47) could reveal the Gothic origin of this inscsif{Hon. This # indsligledly too little material for a comparison of the runic inscripliens.of Tha Scandidaeian area with those of the Gothic or East Germanic reas; and o& ith Sky” grounds it is impossible to arrive at any far-reaclht@ eSiglaginus gbouf tie language of the older runic inscriptions (see DRI: 867). Mofike also expres his doubts concerning the Gothic origin of I, 110 andi, 24, 25, On she fons jolawid and the equating of ja with the Gothic coni@tictian 2k ‘Sd, ERA. berger (1957). On the possibility of the Gothic origin af 14, see Part Ti, See tion IV, s.v. lapa. FE = §3. Establishing the language of the older runic inscriptions requires a more exact determination of the Scandinavian and West Germanic language areas in relation to each other. This problem, in turn, cannot be solved without first solving the problem of the division of the Germanic linguistic community and the formation of groups of isoglosses that could serve as the decisive factors in forming individual Germanic language areas. A key point in the problem of the division of the Germanic linguistic com- ‘munity is the determination of temporal correlations, or in the terminology of glottochronology, the “‘time-depth” of the key innovations in the formation of the individual Germanic languages (Amdt 1959; see also Bergsland-Vogt 1962). Here it is of the utmost importance to point out phenomena such as Holtzmann’s Law, the distribution of the 2d pers. sg. past tense formative of strong verbs in Gothic, Scandinavian, and West Germanic, the raising of a to @ and @ to @ in the Anglo-Frisian group, the development of @* to a in West Germanic and Scandittavian, the loss of nasals before s, f, and p with compen- satory lengthening of the vowel in the Ingvaconic dialects (partially in Scandi- navian as well), and finally, the palatalization and assibilation of stops before front vowels in the Ingvaeonic dialects. Many researchers in the 19th and early 20th centuries were inclined to place all these innovations, or most of them in 28any case, in the very distant past — in the Ist century C.E., or even in the first few centuries B.C.E, Bremer (1894) places the loss of nasals before f; s, and p in the Ist century BCE. Résel (1962: 41) challenges Bremer’s dating and argumentation, In Résel’s opinion, Bremer bases his chronology of processes in stressed syllables on the reflexes in final syllables, whereby he uses the proper names Catualda and Chariowalda as points of departure. However, in works from the 1930s to 1950s it was shown that the aforementioned innova- tions belong to a much later period. H. Kuhn (1955b: 12) points out that in the 3d and 4th centuries, the process of transformation of CGme. jj > ddj (Gothic) and ggj (Scandinavian), as well as ww> ggw, had not yet been completed. The distinctions between Gothic and Scandinavian as reflected in Holtz mann’s Law had long since been noted by researchers (Trautman 1906: 40-8; Cpaciumeaouan zpasumamuxa zepmancxux 220108 [Comparative Grammar of the Germanic Languages] 2: 62-4), and this indisputably points to the fact that the effects of Holtzmann’s Law were not yet complete by the 3d-4th con» turies, and that the process of gutturalization could have taken place much later, which is borne out by the development of consonants in Faroese. As for the 2d pers. sg. preterite formative of strong verbs (-t in Gothic and Scandina- vian, -i/-e in West Germanic), this distribution could belong to a relatively late period, for the extremely early, Common Germanic category of preterite- present verbs reveals the presence of -t and analogous variants in all Germanic areas. Hans-F. Rosenfeld (1954: 378-9) pointed out that the generalizing of the ending -t in Gothic and Scandinavian is the same innovation in these languages as the formative -i/-e in West Germanic, and he associated the particular West Germanic development with the fact that the Ingvaeonic dialects, as a result of phonetic rules specific to this group, aust have had the following preterite paradigm for verbs of the type nimam: (‘to take’): Ist pers. sg. *nam, 2d pers. sg. "nop < "non < *namp, 34 pers. sg. nam. Rosenfeld concluded that the displacement of the Common Germanic 2d pers. sg. formative, not fitting the paradigm phonomoxphologically, might have begun specifically in the Ingvae- onic dialects, and then penetrated into all West Germanic languages. If this explanation reflects the true state of affairs to any degree, then it must be acknowledged that the West Germnanic innovation is a rather late one. Résel (1962: 43) examined this question in detail and gave his own explanation of the distribution of -# ~ -i/-e in Germanic, He came to the conclusion that the “linguistic developments determining the choice between bugi and bauht (in Gothic— the devoicing of final consonants, the generalizing of -z as the 2d pers. sg. formative in Scandinavian, the loss of -z in West Germanic), place them in the 2d to 4th centuries C.E.” Thus, the innovations mentioned above, upon which conclusions about the dialect divisions of the Germanic linguistic community have been based, in all likelihood did not take place in the first few centuries B.C.E., but rather at a later time (Schiitzeichel 1961: 3-44). This makes it possible to presume that Common Germanic still displayed insignificant dialectal differences at the end 26of the first millenium B.C.E., and consequently, one is hardly justified in draw- ing distinct, isolated dialect areas for this period. This is borne out by all the currently available evidence, both direct and indirect: the oldest runic monu- ments, Germanic toponymy, Germanic anthroponymy as reflected by the authors of antiquity in the first few centuries B.C.E. and C.E., the oldest bor- rowings in the Balto-Finnic languages, and data from internal reconstructions of the phonological and morphological structure of the Germanic languages. §4. The more or less homogeneous state of Common Germanic and the absence of distinct dialect boundaries, as was noted above, should be assumed up to the first few centuries C.E. The separation and further isolation of the Goths (or, more broadly, the East Germanic tribes), which resulted in the cre- ation of groups of isoglosses specific to the East Germanic area, and which took place, in all likelihood, in the first centuries B.C.E. and the Ist century C.E,, was the first division in the Germanic linguistic community (Kuhn 19556 and 1952; Schiitzeichel 1961: 37; Résel 1962: 18, 56; Adamus 1962: 157-8). As will be demonstrated below, the separation of East Germanic from Common Germanic does not presuppose close contact between the East Germanic and Scandinavian areas, and even less so the postulating of a unified Gotho- ‘Scandinavian protolanguage, as is constructed by E. Schwarz (1951: 47-153). § 5. The question of the separation of the Goths and the formation of an East Germanic linguistic area is connected with the problem of the original home- land of the Goths (and, perhaps, other East Germanic tribes as well) and the nature of Gotho-Scandinavian linguistic ties. In the literature on Germanic philology, history, ethnography, and archacology, the consensus is that the East Germanic tribes, above all the Goths, originally inhabited Scandinavia, and that the Goths left Scandinavia and settled at the mouth of the Vistula in the Ist century B.C.E. and the Ist century C.E. This idea originated with Jordanes: “Ex hac igitur Scandza insula quasi officina gentium aut certe velut vagina nationum cum rege suo nomine Berig Gothi quondam memorantur egressi” (Mopaat: (Jordanes] 1960: Latin text, 134; Russian text, 70). [Now from this island of Scandza, as from a hive of races or a womb of nations, the Goths are said to have come forth long ago under their king, Berig by name” (Microw 1915: 57).] It was supported archaeologically by the work of E, Oxenstiema (1948), who attempted to establish the original homeland of the Goths in Scan- dinavia in Vastergétland, Oxenstiema’s archaeological arguments were sup- plemented by the linguistic arguments of Schwarz (1951), who used the ancient proximity of the Gothic and Scandinavian tribes to explain the similarity be- tween Gothic and Scandinavian, the subsequent separation of Gothic from Scandinavian, and the reconstruction of a Gotho-Scandinavian protolanguage. At the same time, there are a number of serious objections to this point of view on archaeological, historical, and linguistic grounds, which make it impossible to accept. The problem is, the theoretical prerequisite of Oxenstiema’s work Die Urheimat der Goten, which is based on an analysis of burial grounds in Vistergétland and burial rites (the absence of weapons and other objects in the 27graves, etc.), was a method of archaeological research developed by G. Kos- sinna (“Siedlungsarchdologie”). This was expressed very clearly by Kossinna (1911: 128) in the following statement: “Archaeologically distinct cultural areas at all times coincide with perfectly distinet peoples or tribes.” As is well known, many German archaeologists raised serious objections conceraing Kossinna’s methods, most Scandinavian archaeologists considered them scien- tifically questionable, and at the present time Kossinna kas few followers. (For the best treatment of this question, see R. Hachmann, G. Kossack, H. Kuhn 1962: 9-28, e.g., “These three basic ideas of Kossinna’s, which from a modern standpoint must be considered fundamental errors, were followed by @ fourth, which was adopted by his school.”; see also #, Wale 1940-41.) As for Oxen- stierna’s conclusions about the original homeland of the Goths in Vastergot- land, it should be noted that these conclusions were criticized by Swedish historians (Moberg 1941), who categorically rejected the possibility of the Goths having originated in Scandinavia. The Swedish historian Curt Weibull points out that the myth of the origin of the Goths in Sweden, based on the word of Jordanes and faithfully passed on by Swedish historians in the Middle Ages and into modern times, gradually disappeared from Swedish historio- graphy, from works dedicated to the earliest periods of Swedish history. He states: “Historians have noted that this late-recorded story [of the origin of the Goths in Sweden —E. M.] is of highly dubious value, But archaeologists and linguists still accept it to this day and use it as the basis for their major works on the most ancient history of Sweden” (Weibull 1958: 28). The idea of the origin of the Goths in Sweden has also been criticized by Lauritz Weibull (1943: 269) and C.-A. Moberg (1951: 64). It should be noted that A. Stender- Petersen (1957: 68-80) attempted to counter Curt Weibull’s criticism, coming to the defense of Jordanes’s statements, but his arguments do not seem con- vineing to us. Stender-Petersen assumes that all of Jordanes’s statements on the ancient history of the Goths are trustworthy because they are based on oral legends. He even accepts as historical fact Jordanes’s statement that the Goths left Scandinavia in three ships, viewing it as three waves of Gothic emigration from Scandinavia: the first ship symbolizes the colonization of the area around Riga-Livonia, the second ship — the colonization of Samlandia, and the third ship — the colonization of the area around the mouth of the Vistula (Stender- Petersen 1957: 74). This is part of his overall conception of a massive migra- tion of Scandinavian tribes to the east and their colonization of Finland and the north of Russia (Stender-Petersen 1953). Furthermore, the contradiction be- tween Jordanes's statements and the archaeological, ethnographic, and linguis- tic evidence from Scandinavia, expressed in a number of works (¢.g., Nerman 1923 and 1924), is completely absent from Stender-Petersen’s line of argumen- tation, The question of the origin of the Goths in Scandinavia is undoubtedly in need of serious reevaluating on the part of archaeologists and linguists. R. Hachmann (Hachmann-Kossack-Kuhn 1962: 65) describes the Germanic 28migrations in the first few centuries B.C.E. and C.E, and points out that the settlement of Scandinavia proceeded in a slow wave from south to north and from the coasts inland. He rightly notes that because of the influence of Jor danes’s statement that Scandinavia was a vagina gentium, the archaeological data on this process of colonization from south to north has not yet received adequate attention and is not catalogued. Thus the question of the migration of the Goths (or, more broadly, the East Germanic tribes) out of Scandinavia, in light of archaeological and historical data, is less dubious; it remains to be shown to what degree the linguistic data allow one to speak of the separation of the East Germanic geographic area from the Scandinavian area, and conse- quently, to postulate an original Gotho-Scandinavian unity and reconstruct a Gotho-Scandinavian protolanguage. $6. The solution to this problem undoubtedly depends upon the degree to which the linguist may assume the presence of a Scandinavian linguistic area, the outlines of which were already drawn in the first few centuries B.C.E. It must be emphasized that the linguist has no data at his disposal that allow for the establishment of a Scandinavian linguistic area separate Sori other linguis- tic areas and, consequently, having a series of unique finguistic features as early as the last centuries B.C.E. S. Bugge (1865 and 1870) and L. Wimmer (1868 and 1874) attempted to highlight the Scandinavian origin of the older munic inscriptions by pointing first and foremost to -r as an indicator of the Scandinavian character of the runic inscriptions. However, this formative can- not be viewed as an indicator of the exclusively Scandinavian character of the runic inscriptions. The grapheme z in runic inscriptions from the older period, perhaps right up to the 6th century, represented the phoneme z in word-final position, and sometimes in inttgrvacalic positions. The endings -az, -iz, -uz in nom, sg. 0-, i, and w-stems were 8 Common Germanic feature (CGme. *dagaz ‘day’, *gastiz ‘stranger’, *sunuz ‘son'). Final -r was devoiced in the Gothic area, and the vowels a and / were syncopated; cf. Gothic dags, gasis. In the Scandinavian and West Germanic areas we find -2 > -r (rhotacism). As H. Paul (1877) and S, Gutenbrunner (1951: 34) presumed, and as A. Cumprunxnit [A. Smimnickij] (1959) substantiated in detail, it is probable that in West Germanic final -z turned into -r before it finally disappeared. If so, the forms -gastiz, wakrar, and others would be fully possible both in Scandinavian and West Germanic in the first centuries C.B. Gutenbrunner (1951: 11) notes quite reasonably that the language of the inscription on the Gold Hom from Gallehus ek hlewagastir holtijar horna tawido (1, 29) cannot be definitively deter- mined, i.., in linguistic terms it could be placed in the Scandinavian area or the West Germanic area with equal justification, if one accepts that it dates from no later than the first half of the Sth century C.E. Upon examining this question, Jacobsen-Moltke (see DRI: 30) pointed out that the presence of the rune Y in this inscription does not rule out the possibility of its West Germanic origin, for the time of the disappearance of final -z in West Germanic is unclear. However, considerations of a runological nature make this supposition most unlikely 29first of all, researchers have-ior disoovered a single West Germanic runic in- scription from before the first half of the 6th century; furthermore, the rune in. Gothic and Scandinavian inscriptions is represented graphically by the rune N, but in West Germanic inscriptions by the grapheme N. It must be said that these arguments are not entirely convineing— West Germanic inscriptions from before the 6th century may not have been preserved, because they could have been carved on wood. We do not know whether the rune / was always written as N in West Germanic inscriptions. G. Langenfelt (1946: 290-3) attempted to demonstrate that the inscription on the Gold Horn from Gallehus originated with the Angles. As evidence for this he cites the following: before the Sth century, the Angles lived in Angeln (in Jutland) but the Heruli, the cre- ators of the runic alphabet, also lived in Jutland, north of the Angles. From the Heruli, the Angles adopted runic writing and took it with them to Britain in the Sth-6th centuries. Arguing against Langenfelt, E. Moltke (1947: 336-42) rightly pointed out that if this were the case, one must accept that the Angles were already acquainted with runic writing, i.e. with the older runes, in the 2d— 3d centuries. After resettling in Britain in the Sth~6th centuries, the Angles did not leave a single runic inscription behind, and a century later there appeared in, Britain runic inscriptions of an entirely different graphic character, written in a particular Anglo-Saxon fupark. This forces one to presume that it was not the first, but the last migrants to Britain, at a relatively late date, who brought runic writing with them. Moltke emphasizes that without a sound basis there is no cause to speak of the presence of West Germanic runic inscriptions in the south, of Jutland in the 3d~4th centuries. However, one cannot agree with Moltke’s basic argument— Scandinavian expansion coincides with the area of the spread of runic inscriptions written in a North Germanic fubark (“nord- germansk futhark”). The oldest inscriptions in paleographic terms, found in Scandinavia and of the continent, show the same graphic features. If one is to follow Moltke, then tie Gothic inscriptions, for example, the inscription from Pietroassa (I, 70), would have to be considered Scandinavian. It should be pointed out that individual graphic variations in the 24-character fubark in- scriptions allow one in rare cases to speak with more or less certainty of chrono- logical differences or differences in the schools of runic masters, but they are hardly suitable for determining the specific language of the inscription: Gothic, Scandinavian, or West Germanic. There is no doubt that a specifically Scandi- navian fupark, as a particular graphic system separate from other runic graphic systems, never existed. In fact, when graphic systems such as the Danish, Swedish-Norwegian, and Anglo-Frisian runic systems appeared, the period of the older runic inscriptions in the 24-character fupark had long since passed. Consequently, the question of the language of the inscription on the Gold Hom, from Gallehus must be examined in a completely different light (see § 10). As an indicator of the Scandinavian origin of a given inscription, the feature usually referred to is the presence of e in the Ist pers. sg. pronoun ek. However, this vowel is also present in West Germanic (see Part II, section IV, s.v. ek), 30and one may assume that in Common Germanic the distribution of the forms ik~ ek was determined by the accentuation: the form ek occurred in stressed positions, and the form ik in unstressed positions. Later, leveling took place in the direction of the stressed position (Scandinavian) or the unstressed position (Gothic and West Germanic). Thus the form ek alone cannot serve as an indica- tor of the Scandinavian origin of an inscription (see also § 2). All other features and tendencies of linguistic development reflected in the older runic inscrip- tions belong to a period no earlier than the 3d to Sth centuries C.E., and several of them to an even later period. Furthermore, many of these features are common to both Scandinavian and West Germanic, such as: the development of @>a (cf. marin (1, 91) ‘renowned’; OHG mari ‘famous’; OE mére ‘famous’; Goth. meripa ‘rumor, news’ (Kuhn 1955b: 15, 32~3)); the develop- ment of final -2 > u [ef. gibu (II, 12) ‘I give’, OHG gibu, OS gibu, Goth. giba “I give’); the dat. sg. o-stem formative -e [cf woduride (I, 99), wage (I, 66)?, cf. OHG tage, OF dage ‘day’ (Adamns 1962: 146-7; Adamus presents a de- tailed list of common Scandinavian-West Germanic innovations]. All of the aforementioned leads to the conclusion that in the first few centu- ries B.C.E. and the first few centuries C.E., Scandinavian had not yet formed as an independent dialect group. Consequently, East Germanic did not split from Scandinavian, which did not yet exist, but from Common Germanic, or to be more exact, it belonged to the Late Germanic stage in the development of the Common Germanic language. After the splitting off of the Goths and the development of a separate Gothic language (and other East Germanic lan- guages), the Germanic linguistic community was represented by two groups: East Germanic and West Germanic-Scandinavian. It was on the basis of the linguistic features of West Germanie-Scandinavian that the state of the lan- guage reflected in the older runic inscriptions began to develop, and it must be clarified, why it was West Germanic-Scandinavian that served as the basis of the linguistic state that has come to be called the language of the older runic inscriptions, § 7. The question of the origin of runic writing, which has remained open for discussion to this day, will not be dealt with in this monograph, for it would require dealing with a whole series of problems far beyond the scope of this, work, However, I would like to give a brief summary of the study of the origin of runic writing at the present time and take a more detailed look at the ques- tion of the spread of runie writing in connection with the oldest runic inscrip- tions. All researchers, regardless of their views on the origin of runic writing, are united in their belief that the runic alphabet, which originated no later than the 2d-3d century C.E., was a continuation and reworking of one of the south- em European alphabets. S. Bugge (Bugge-Olsen 1905-1913: 92-120) and ©. von Friesen (1904) assumed that runic writing most likely originated with the Goths around the Black Sea approximately in the 3d century C.E., and was based on Greek cur- sive {See also von Friesen 1918-19). The massive cultural expansion of the 31Goths from the south to the north by an easterly route, which started in the 2d century C.E., gradually spread runic writing among a number of Germanic tribes. Bugge (Bugge-Olsen 1905-1913: 186-218) expressed the view, which was further developed by von Friesen (1924: 45ff., especially 38-94), that it was the Heruli who served as the carriers of runic writing among the Germanic tribes. The basis for this supposition was in essence the word erilan ‘master of runic writing’, which is found in several runic inscriptions (see Part II, section TV, s.v.), and has been equated by these scholars with the name Heruli itself. A well-known modification of the Bugge-von Friesen theory was put forth by F. Askeberg (1944), according to which runic writing originated with the Goths around the mouth of the Vistula in the 2d century C.E. under the influence of the Latin alphabet. Leaving aside a detailed analysis of the weak points of the Bugge-von Friesen theory (such a critique is contained in F. Askeberg’s 1944 work, Norden och kontinenten i gammal tid), it should be pointed out that the main deficiency in the Bugge-von Friesen theory is that the oldest runic in- scriptions found in Denmark and Norway date from the late 2d and early 3d centuries C.E., whereas the Goths did not become acquainted with Hellenistic culture in southeastern Europe until after their conquest of Olbia around the year 236 C.E. (see Brondsted 1960: 3.262; on Olbia and its significance for the culture of southeastern Europe, see 2KeGenes (Zebelev] 1953: 38-47, 275-99), Of course, a certain interval of time must have passed for runic writing to spread into Denmark and Norway. Thus the runic inscriptions themselves pro- vide evidence against this theory. Askeberg’s hypothesis, which is a compro- mise between the Bugge-von Friesen theory and L. Wimmer’s theory, is no less questionable. Based on early finds of runic inscriptions, Askeberg moved the origin of runic writing to the 2d century C.E. He assumed the presence of a ‘major cultural center around the Vistula in the Ist-2d centuries C.E., for in his opinion the invention of runic writing was an enormous cultural accomplish- ‘ment that presupposes a high level of culture in its area of origin. However, there is no other corroborating evidence for the presence of such a cultural center around the Vistula, which has been pointed out in no uncertain terms by archaeologists (Moltke 1951). Askeberg’s supposition that runic writing was invented by the Goths in the 2d century C.E. based on the Latin mode! is also highly questionable. This supposition does not jibe well with the fact that these very same Goths invented the Gothic alphabet in the 4th century C.E. based on the Greek alphabet, Indeed, if the Goths had already created the runic alphabet on the Latin model, one would have to assume that they would also create their ‘own alphabet, which in all likelihood inherited several runic characters (Braune-Ebbinghaus 1961: 11-2; Marchand 1959: 227 ff.), on the basis of the Latin rather than the Greek alphabet. Therefore, Askeberg’s hypothesis can lay no claim to being a satisfactory solution to the question of the origin of runic writing, ‘A-common point in the theories of the origin of runic writing by L. Wimmer (1874), H. Pedersen (1920-24), M. Hammarstrim (1930), and C. Marstrander 32(1928) is the supposition that runic writing originated with one of the South Germanic tribes in the 1st-2d centuries C.E. based on either the Latin alphabet (Wimmer, Pedersen) or one of the variants of the North Italic alphabet (Hammarstrém, Marstrander). A problem in assuming that the runic alphabet is derived from the Latin is that there are only a few runes that have direct corre- spondences in the Latin alphabet. Thus F, R, N, |, 7, B, N, P can be compared to F, R, H, I, T, B, V, L; three runes — X (g), P (w), M (e) —are graphically similar to Latin characters (X, P, M), but represent completely different sounds; the remaining runes — b (p), F (a), < (k), + (n), © @), E (p), 1 ®, ¥ @ a), $ (5), M (m), © (9), & (0), M (d)— cannot be related to the Latin alphabet, Thus Wimmer’s theory loses its explanatory force, and it must be acknowledged that the Marstrander-Hammarstrém theory, which associates runic writing with North Italic alphabets, is the best-founded theory that has yet been proposed. But there are still two points in this theory that remain to be cleared up: (1) all runic characters can be more or less correlated with charac ters from all of the known varieties of the Norther Italic alphabets (for the best summary of all North Italic alphabets, see Pisani 1953), but a direct prototype of the runic alphabet has not been found; (2) it is unclear which South Ger- manic tribe, having close contact with the Roman empire in the first few centu- ries C.E., might have created runic writing. The hypotheses about runic writing originating with the Marcomanni (Shetelig 1925: 138) (Shetelig’s hypothesis, was supported by J. Brondsted (1960:3.262), who pointed out that “the Marcomanni came into early contact with the Classical world; their contact with the Romans dates to the beginning of the Ist century C.E., and it is pos- sible that the great Marcomanni wars of Marcus Aurelius at the end of the 24 century C.E. could have ts 9 Furthenocnttacts witli the rest of Germania.”], the Cimbri (Altheim—Traeman {939 aiad'if 942; for more literature on this topic see also Amtz 1944”: 56-7), tiie Venilaits {Krause 1944b: 247-9; cf. as well the statement by Hellmut Rosen élll 1956: 2160-5: ASuiice Ingwaz, the name of the chief god of the Hasdings, thetroyel dies off the’ Vandals, is found in the runic alphabet, itis likely thar'the'Vandidis were tli '@avéntors of runic writing”), and the Alpine Germani (Amntz\19%42061,-4; sce glso Gitenbrunner 1939: 87-8) are nothing more than weaidy based suppetitious! Zven less likely is the origin of runic writing among jhe’ ‘utes, 23, E. Méll&e' (1951) recently attempted to demonstrate. He pointell cut thatranda-weiting could not have originated in the immediate vicinity of the limes Romanus (i.c., in any South Germanic tribe — E, M)), for in this area the process of Romanization was direct and all-encom- passing. According to Moltke, for the runic alphabet to arise and preserve its uniqueness, it had to be some distance from the Roman Empire, which led him to speculate that Denmark could well have been the place of origin of runic Writing, He defended this position on the grounds that it met the following conditions: (1) it was far enough away from the Roman Eapire; (2) there were, however, cultural ties with the Roman Empire; (3) Denmark had a high level of culture in the first few centuries C.E. (Moltke 1951; $4). 8. Bugge, as if antici- 33pating Moltke’s hypothesis, had already pointed out that “runic writing could not possibly have first appeared in Denmark or in Scandinavia, for —as many researchers acknowledge and as is immediately apparent —runic writing is connected with old southern European alphabets, especially with the Latin and Greek alphabets, or with both at the same time. The supposition that in Den- mark there were such close ties with a people using a southem European alphabet that they could have led to the appearance of runic writing — and this could not have taken place later than the 3d century CE, — is most unlikely. These ties should undoubtedly be sought in countries farther south, closer to the southern cultural centers” (Bugge-Olsen 1905-1913: 97). J. Brondsted (1960: 3.262) also emphasized that it is very unlikely that Denmark was the center for the spread of runic writing. Thus, given the current state of runology, one may presume that runic writing was created by one of the South Germanic tribes aroimd the Ist-2d centuries C.E. based on one of the still unknown varie~ ties of the North Italic alphabets, and then it spread north and eventually covered the northern, easter, and westem parts of ancient Germania. Of course, the question arises, by what route runic writing spread north all the way to Scandinavia and which Germanic tribe served as the carrier. § 8. At the present time, many researchers presume that the spread of runic writing to the North occurred chiefly along two routes: a western seute (down the Rhine and through northwestern Germany into Denmark, and ftom there to Scandinavia), and an eastern route (up the Danube, through Bohemia, down the Vistula to the Baltic Sea, and ftom there to Sweden and Gotland; Krause 1943: 8; Ekholm 1958; Elliott 1959: 12-3; Antz 1944”: 63-4—“The Rhine seems to us today to be the route by which the runes spread to the North”), As for the intermediary in the spread of runic writing, many researchers, beginning with S. Bugge (Bugge-Olsen 1905-1913: 186-218; von Friesen 1924: 45-81; Krause 1943: 8; Arntz~Zeiss 1939: 426-30; Turville-Petre 1951 22-3; Elliott 1959: 13), believe that it was the Heruli. Since this question is directly connected with the establishment of the language of the older runic inscriptions, it must be analyzed in greater detail. § 9. To begin with, it must be emphasized that everything connected with the history of the Heruli (see Schmidt 1934; Schwarz. 1956: 104-7; DRI: 817-9) — their origins, their possible connection with the spread of runic writing and with a number of runic inscriptions (especially on bracteates), their possible contribution to Old Germanic heroic legends (especially Old Danish), and finally, their role as intermediaries between the cultural centers around the Black Sea and the Scandinavian North—is very problematic and must be approached with the utmost skepticism. The far-reaching conclusions about the Heruli that have often been drawn by scholars are based on very sketchy and sometimes dubious material, and all data pertaining to the Heruli must now be carefully analyzed. It must first be pointed out that the original hore of the Heruli is unknown (for the most thorough examination of this question, see Eleqvist 1952: 100 3416), which also means that their ethnic relations are unclear. Most researchers (Bugge-Olsen 1905-1913: 186-90) include the Heruli among the Scandina- vians, C. Marstrander (1929a: 93) considers them Goths, and S, Gutenbrunner (1952: 125-6) sees them as a mixed form between the Scandinavian and West Germanic tribes. In this case, the researcher finds himself in a most difficult, position, for he has no data on the language of the Heruli, with the exception of a small number of Heruli proper names in Greek and Latin transcriptions recorded by authors and writers of antiquity and the early Middle Ages. As is always the case in these situations, it is unclear to what degree these transcrip- tions reflect the true phonetic quality of the Heruli names and to what degree they are Greek or Latin approximations. Marsirander collected all the material on Heruli personal names contained in the works of Greek historiographers (Marstrander 1929a: 91-100, Celtic and other questionable names are not in- cluded in this list. Additional material on Heruli anthroponymy from Schramm. 1957 is cited in parentheses). The following is a list of proper names recorded in the 6th century by Procopius (Tpoxommit #3 Kecapun [Procopius of Cae- sarea] 1950: 469-514): @ovi8, &opSos, Epov9oc, “pos, Biipos, Séci0s, avi8eos, pavs8_0<, gepac, OtAHOv, PovAKapIc (Agath., VI cent.; see Schramm 1957:97), Hariso (“Flavius Hariso magister primus de numero Erolorum seniorum.”—Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. 5,2, 8750; Latin inscription from Venice, date unknown), dz0<, So800Ao¢ (see Schramm 1957: 117), civSova?. (Agath, VI cent; Schramm 1957: 66), covaptosac, obAtyayyos (see Schramm 1957: 43, 62), obioavSoc. This list of Heruli personal names is all the material available to scholars at this time. It is difficult to agree with Marstrander that this material reveals a closer relationship with West Germanic than with Scandinavian, and that one can therefore claim that the Heruli were not Scandinavian. Actually, Mar- strander (19292:98) himself repeatedly said: “But we do not want to attribute too much significance to this. Personal names often change in turbulent times, and statistics often lead one astray.” However, in his polemic with S. Bugge, Marstrander was undoubtedly correct. The debate was over Bugge’s (Bugge- Olsen 1905-1913: 190) interpretation of the Heruli name Pripos (cf. Tpoxomuii us Kecapu [Procopius of Caesarea] 1950: 333), which he equated with OHG ér ‘boar’, Bugge pointed out that in Gothic, Bijpos would have to have the form *wérs, and that both Gothic and Heruli had 2, while Scandina- viam had d, ef.: Goth. mki ‘sword’ (ace. sg.) and runic makia (I, 107); Goth, méripa ‘news, rumor’ and runic marin ‘renowned, famous’ (I, 95). Mar strander (19292: 99) rightfully noted that if the Heruli were Scandinavians, as Bugge suggested, then as the Heruli followed the Goths south, 2 would have had to become @ Marstrander’s explanation of the Heruli name Bfipog can hardly be considered satisfactory. Pointing out that Ammianus Marcellinus ‘mentions the Heruli under the name Vitalianus, Marstrander presumes that the Heruli name ijpos also is nothing other than the Latin name Verus, citing as a parallel the Heruli name gavéSeoc, which he considers to be Greek, There is 35one more factor to mention in examining the Heruli name Bfipos. S. Bugge (Bugge-Olsen 1905-1913: 205) noted that the presence of @ in the name Br\pog and @ in the runic makia (1, 107) and marir (1, 95) would seem to provide evidence against the Scandinavian origin of the Heruli that he so insisted upon, In attempting to eliminate this contradiction, Bugge assumed that there were two dialects in the Heruli language: a southern dialect with @ and a northern dialect with a. This explanation cannot be valid, for the researcher has no data on the Heruli language at all, let alone on Heruli dialects. If one is to follow Bugge, then one must accept the presence of two Heruli dialects, southern and northern, already in the first centuries C.E., which raises the question of justi- fying the split into eastern and western Heruli, Based on the fact that groups of Heruli are recorded by historians almost simultaneously in the vicinity of the Black Sea (in the year 267) and along the Rhine (in 286-287, where they were defeated by Maximian’s troops), some researchers (Schmidt 1934: 552-64; Schwarz 1956: 104~7; Amntz—Zeiss 1939: 426-30) assume that the Heruli had already split into eastern and western branches in the first half of the 3d cen- tury, but this supposition has not been confirmed by either direct or indirect evidence. N. Lukman (1943: 128; see also Kroman 1947: 188-9) is fully justi- fied in pointing out that this supposition is not even necessary, for the Heruli recorded along the Rhine could be seen as mercenary groups of Heruii re- cruited from the Danube region, At this point it is necessary to examine the question of the name of the Heruli and how it relates to the runic erilar ‘master of runic writing’. Above all it must be noted that the name of the Heruli— which was well known to Greek and Roman historians, as well as to Gothic and Langobardic historians (the names of the Heruli recorded by the historians of antiquity, including Gothic and Langobardic historians, can be found ix the following works: Zeuss 1925 [1837]: 476-84; Schénfeld 1941: sv.; the following spellings are re- corded: eruli, heruli, aeruti {it Ammianus Marcellinus), keroli; among Greek authors: Epovkot, épodhox, aipovdol, Epovkor (in Zosima), EAovpo (Dexippus, in the Etymol. Magnum) — is totally absent from early Scandi- navian, Frankish, and Old English sources. This has led to the presumption that the Heruli were known by another name in Scandinavia (Chadwick 1907: 111), and caused E. Wessén (1927a: 39) to hypothesize that “the Dani, who were known at a later time, are in essence a Heruli tribe under Danish dominion.” According to some researchers (Elgqvist 1952: 114), one cannot rule out the possibility that in southern Europe the name Heruli was of a social, rather than an ethnic nature, and referred either to the precursors of the Vikings or to a military caste (or perhaps just the leaders of such a caste). The similarity of the name Heruli and the Scandinavian social term jar! ‘earl’ (see below) could be construed as evidence for this. Whatever the case may be, one cannot deny that the meaning of Heruii allows for a dual interpretation in both ethnic and social terms. In any case, the constant raids by the Heruli in places sueh as the Rhine, Spain, the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, the Danube, and the Balkans allow one 36to view the name Heruli as a collective term, perhaps for Swedish and Nor- wegiat ‘Viftings in the period of migrations, which then raises the question of their pristisaed original homeland. As was noted above, this question has yet to be decided. Most researchers who insist on the Scandinavian origin of the Heruli presume that their original homeland was southern Sweden, the Danish islands of Fyn and Sjelland, and possibly the southern part of the Jutland pen- insula (see Elgqvist 1952: 103; Krause 1961: 261-2; Wessén 1927a: 7-8; von Friesen 1924: 45-51). This conclusion is based on the statements of Jordanes and Procopius. Jordanes wrote: “The Suetidi are of this stock and excel the rest in stature. However, the Dani, who trace their origin to the same stock, drove from their homes the Heruli, who lay claim to preeminence among all the nations of Scandza for their taliness” (Mopzan [Jordanes] 1960: 69 [English translation by Mierow 1915: 56-57]). Procopius wrote: “Thus, then, do the inhabitants of Thule live. And one of their most numerous nations is the Gauti, and it was next to them that the incoming Eruli settled at the time in question” (poxonuti us Kecapuu [Procopius of Caesarea] 1950: 212 [English transla- tion by Dewing 1919: 421]. Leaving aside the numerous and contradictory interpretations of these statements by Jordanes and Procopius (see von Friesen 1924: 48-52; 1. Lindquist 1923: 150-8; Wessén 1927a: 5-16; Elgqvist 1952: 100-16; Kroman 1947: 185-90), it should be emphasized that in light of the aforementioned statements one can only conjecture that the Dani drove the Heruli from their lands on the Danish islands and southem Jutland in approxi- mately the 34 century C.E., and that the well-known caches of weapons and other valuables found in the marshes at Vimose dating, according to archaeolo- gists, from the late 2d and 3d centuries C.E. are evidence of battles fought between the invading Dani and the Heruli (Brondsted 1960: 271-3; DRI: 854— 7; Jankuhn 1952b: 35-7; Oxenstierna 1957: 66-104). After this the Heruli diaspora began, but, if one is to judge by Procopius, they maintained some ties with Scandinavia all the way through the first half of the 6th century, when the scattered remnants of the Heruli, defeated by the Langobardi, returned to Scan- dinavia aad settled somewhere near the Gauti (on the last remnants of the Heruli, see Lukman 1952). All of this leads to the conclusion that the ethnicity and language of the Heruli cannot be definitively established at the present time. However, one thing is certain: even if one accepts that the Heruli are of Scandinavian origin, there is no doubt that in the 2d-3d centuries C.E. there were still no distinctive linguistic features in the Scandinavian area, and there- fore, based on the scanty material of Heruli personal names, it is impossible to draw any conclusions about the Heruli language (see § 9). Very revealing in this respect is the Heruli name govAxaptc (see § 9). Insisting that the Heruli were of Gothic, rather than Scandinavian origin, C. Marstrander (19292: 99) pointed to the vowel u, which is characteristic of Gothic (Goth. *fuika-), but not Scandinavian (Scand. folka-). However, as H. Kuhn (1962: 2) pointed out, the distribution of o/ is highly variable in Langobardic, and somewhat vari- able in the Ingvaconic and German dialects. Consequently, if one is speaking 7