3 Interpretation

Apart from the mentioned Theodoric and the Norse god ThorThor or (ON), Thunor (OE), Donar or Donner (German) is the red-haired and bearded god of thunder and lightning in Germanic and Norse Mythology, the son of Odin and Jord. While Odin is the god of the powerful and aristocratic, Thor is much more the god of, the people and mythological creatures mentioned are unknown to us. Some interpretations have been suggested:

The two war-booties are likely to be two precious weapons, such as a sword and a shield or a helmet. Several stories like these exist in old Germanic poems.

The Hreidgoths mentioned are a poetic name for the Ostrogoths, appearing in other sources. To what sea the name Hreiðsea referred is unknown. Considering the location of the Ostrogoths at the time of Theoderic, it should be a name for the Mediterranean.

The part about Theodoric (who died in 526 A.D.) probably concerns the statueA statue is a sculpture depicting a specific entity, usually a person, event, animal or object. Its primary concern is representational. However, as with all artistic topics, this definition of the concept Statue is far from exhaustive and can be/needs to of him in Ravenna, which was moved to Aachen by Charlemagne. This statue was very famous and portrayed Theodoric with his shield hanging across his left shoulder, and his lance extended in his right hand. The Mærings is a name for Theodoric's family. According to the old English Deor poem from the 900s, Theodoric ruled the "castle of the Mærings" (Ravenna) for thirty years. The words about Theodoric may be connected to the previous statement, so the stone is talking about the death of Theodoric: he died approximately nine generations before the stone was carved, and the church considered him a cruel and godless emperor, thus some may have said that he died for his guilt. The dead person may just as well be someone else though.

Gunnr whose "horse sees fodder on the battlefield" is presumably a Valkyrie (previously known from Norse mythology), and her "horse" is a Wolf.

The story about the twenty kings says that the twenty were four groups of five brothers each, and in each of these four groups, all brothers shared the same names, and their fathers were four brothers (4 x 5 = 20). This piece of mythology seems to have been common knowledge at the time, but has been totally lost. The Sjólund that is mentioned has often been interpreted as Sjælland (nowadays a part of Denmark).

Starting with the Ingold-part, the text becomes increasingly hard to read. While the first part is written in the 16 common short-twig runes in the younger fuþark, Varin here switches over to using the older 24-type fuþark and cipher runes. It has been assumed that this is intentional, and that the rows following this point concerns legends connected specifically to Varin and his tribe.

After the word It is Vélinn ... follows the word Nit. This word is yet uniterpreted, and its meaning is unclear.

4 Speculation

There have been numerous speculations written about the stone and its purpose. The most common include:

• Varinn carved the stone only to honour his lost son. The inclusion of mythical passages was a tribute from fantasy. There is strong evidence to support this view, not the least being the fact that Thor is referenced; this use of a deity in this context is quite conceivably a prefiguration of what was to later become a common practice (anterior to Christianity), where graves were frequently inscribed with runic dedications such as þórr vigi, "may Thor protect you".
• Varinn carved the stone to raise his tribe to vengeance over the death of his son. The dramatic battle mentioned may have been the cause of his son's death.
• Varinn carved the stone to preserve the tribal myths, as he had the function of a story-teller in his tribe, and this retelling task was to be passed on to his son. Perhaps he feared that the stories could be lost because of the death of his son, and therefore he tried to preserve them in a short form in the stone.
• The stone was a sign to strengthen the position of the tribe leader (since the stone could not be missed by anybody passing the land). He tries to justifiy his position by showing a long line of powerful ancestors which he follows.

5 See also

A common problem when researching things Norse is that the spelling of names varies much depending on one's country of origin. In the articles presented here, several common forms of the names will be presented. For more information see:

Medieval literature Norse mythology Nordic folklore

Norse mythology

The Nine Worlds of Norse Mythology

People, places and things: Deities | Giants | Dwarves | Valkyries

Orthography | Numbers | Runes | Kenning

Elder Edda | Younger Edda | Skald | Sagas | Later influence

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