Kvinneby amulet
Encyclopedia
The Kvinneby amulet is an 11th century runic
Runic alphabet
The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter...

 amulet
Amulet
An amulet, similar to a talisman , is any object intended to bring good luck or protection to its owner.Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—, to...

 which was found in the mid-1950s in the soil of the village Södra Kvinneby in Öland
Öland
' is the second largest Swedish island and the smallest of the traditional provinces of Sweden. Öland has an area of 1,342 km² and is located in the Baltic Sea just off the coast of Småland. The island has 25,000 inhabitants, but during Swedish Midsummer it is visited by up to 500,000 people...

, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

. The amulet is a square copper object measuring approximately 5 cm on each side. Near one edge there is a small hole, presumably used for hanging it around the neck.

Inscription

The inscription consists of some 143 runes, written boustrophedon
Boustrophedon
Boustrophedon , is a type of bi-directional text, mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions. Every other line of writing is flipped or reversed, with reversed letters. Rather than going left-to-right as in modern English, or right-to-left as in Arabic and Hebrew, alternate lines in...

, supplemented by an engraving of a fish. It is unclear what relevance the fish has to the text.

The inscription is one of the longest and best preserved for its time but it has proven hard to interpret. The "official" Rundata
Rundata
The Scandinavian Runic-text Data Base is a project involving the creation and maintenance of a database of runic inscriptions. The project's goal is to comprehensively catalog runestones in a machine-readable way for future research...

 interpretation is:
Here I carve(d) protection for you, Bófi, with/... ... ... to you is certain. And may the lightning hold all evil away from Bófi. May Þórr protect him with that hammer which came from out of the sea. Flee from evilness! You/it get/gets nothing from Bófi. The gods are under him and over him.

Deciphering attempts

There have been five other serious attempts to decipher the text. This article treats each in turn.

Bruce E. Nilsson 1976

Bruce E. Nilsson was the first to offer an interpretation of the amulet. Ignoring what seem to be bind rune
Bind rune
A bind rune is a ligature of two or more runes. They are extremely rare in Viking Age inscriptions, but are common in pre-Viking Age and in post-Viking Age inscriptions....

s at the start of the inscription, he offered this transliteration:
tiRþiRbirk
bufimiRfultihu
risþeRuisinbral
tilufranbufaþorketih
ansmiRþemhamrisamhuR
hafikamflufraniluit
feRekiafbufakuþiRu
untiRhanumaukyfiRhan
um


and the following translation into English:
Glory to thee bear I, Bove. Help me! Who is wiser than thee? And bear all in (the form of) evil from Bove. May Thor
Thor
In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...

 protect him with that hammer which came from the sea, (and which) fled from evil. Wit fares not from Bove. The gods are under him and over him.


Nilsson interprets: "[T]he amulet is an invocation to the gods to protect Bove, especially while he is at sea." This he bases on the carving of the fish, the mention of the sea in the text and the place where the amulet was found.

Nilsson understands the mention of Thor and his hammer as a reference of the story of Thor's fishing; where he threw his hammer at the head of Jörmungandr
Jörmungandr
In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr , mostly known as Jormungand, orJörmungand , or Midgard Serpent , or World Serpent, is a sea serpent, and the middle child of the giantess Angrboða and the god Loki...

, the Midgard serpent. Since Thor's hammer always returns to its thrower it might in this case be said that it 'fled from evil' and 'came from the sea'.

Nilsson does not attempt to solve the first few runic symbols of the inscription. He ventures a guess that they might conceal the name or cognomen of a god. The fish looks more promising to Nilsson. He suggests that it might contain coded runes. The fins of the fish can, according to him, be represented graphically as:


|| | ||
|| || |


This might represent the runes 'nbh' in some order. Nilsson suggests that the meaning is based on the names of the runes; thus the amulet should give a björg
Berkanan
*Berkanan is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the b rune , meaning "birch". In the Younger Futhark it is called Bjarken in the Icelandic rune poem and Bjarkan in the Norwegian rune poem. In the Anglo-Saxon rune poem it is called beorc...

 from hagl
Haglaz
*Haglaz or *Hagalaz is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the h-rune , meaning "hail" .In the Anglo-Saxon futhorc, it is continued as haegl and in the Younger Futhark as hagall The corresponding Gothic letter is h, named hagl.The Elder Futhark letter has two variants, single-barred and...

 and nauð
Naudiz
Abdul Rahman Pazhwak was an Afghan poet and diplomat. He was educated in Afghanistan and started out his career as a journalist, but eventually joined the foreign ministry. During the 1950s he became ambassador to the United Nations, and served as president of the UN General Assembly from 1966 to...

 or a "deliverance" from "hail" and "need". He adds that this is "not at all certain".

Unfortunately Nilsson's interpretation is not treated critically by later authors.

Ivar Lindquist 1987 (a posthumous publication)

Ivar Lindquist took some 30 years to ponder the amulet - and it shows. He offers a plethora of interpretations - all, however, within the same central theme. According to Lindquist the amulet contains a solemn prayer to the Earth Goddess, referred to as 'Erka', 'Fold' and 'Undirgoð' (:the god beneath) and her 'single son' Thor.

Two of Lindquist's suggested interpretations are:

Here I, in poetry am familiar with the god(dess) beneath, for me, Bófi, to save myself. Earth, I am known to thee! May the one son keep evil away from Bófi. May Þórr protect him with the hammer that smashes Ámr, the heavy Ámr. Flee, foul ill-wight! Get nothing from Bófi. Gods are under him and over him.


Also:

I here to Erka, the undergod of the world, for me, Bófi, to save myself. Earth, I am known to thee! And may the lightning raiser help evil from Bófi. May Þórr protect him with the hammer that smashes Ámr. Go the sea, Ámr! Flee, foul ill-wight! Get nothing from Bófi. Gods are under him and over him.


On etymological grounds Lindquist reasons that Ámr is a demon of sickness.

Börje Westlund 1989

According to Westlund, Lindquist's attempts at deciphering the "bind runes" at the beginning of the inscription are misguided. In Westlund's opinion these are not complicated bind runes but elaborate forms of normal runes. To support his claim he compares the runes with an inscription found near Novgorod in 1983 and treated by the Russian runologist Elena Melnikova in 1987. This is material not available to Lindquist and Nilsson.

Westlund reads the first runes as "hiristikþirbirkbufi" and takes them to mean (in standardized West Norse) "Hér rísti ek þér björg Bófi." which would come out in English as "Here I carve protection for you, Bófi." This is a major change from Lindquist's interpretation. Instead of Bófi being the carver talking about himself we have a separate carver that addresses Bófi in the inscription.

Westlund goes on to refuse Lindquist's "prayer to Earth" in favor of a more magical interpretation. While he rejects Lindquist's interpretation of "meRfultihuþis" ("with Earth in mind") and Nilsson's interpretation of "samhuRhafikam" ("that came from the sea") he does not offer alternative explanations. On the whole he suggests that Lindquist read too much into the inscription and tries to go for a more "mundane" solution to the problem. His transliteration and translation of the whole inscription follow:

x hiristik þiR birk / bufi meR fultihu / þis þeR uis in bral / tilu fran bufa þor keti h / ans miR þem hamri samhuR / hafikam fly fran iluit feR eki af bufa kuþ iRu / untiR hanum auk yfiR han / um

Here I may carve (or: I carved) protection for you, Bófi, with ... is certain to you. And may the lightning keep evil (away) from Bófi. Thor Protect him with that hammer ... Flee from the evil being! It (?) gets nothing from Bófi. Gods are under him and over him.


In his conclusion Westlund rejects Lindquist's view of the amulet as a solemn heathen prayer. In his opinion the mention of Thor and 'the gods' reflect a post-conversion magical view of the heathen gods. He even goes as far as suggesting that the wearer of the amulet was probably a baptised Christian.

Ottar Grønvik 1992

In 1992 Ottar Grønvik
Ottar Grønvik
Ottar Nicolai Grønvik was a Norwegian philologist and runology scholar.He was a lecturer from 1959 and associate professor from 1965 to 1986, at the University of Oslo. His doctorate thesis which earned him the dr.philos. degre in 1981 was Runene på Tunesteinen...

 offered a new interpretation which is essentially an attempt to rehabilitate Lindquist's work. Lindquist's bind-runes are brought back into play.
h(i)RiurkimsutiRkuþiRbirk
bufimeRfultihu
þisþeRuisinbral
tilufranbufaþorketih
ansmiRþemhamrisamhyR
hafikamflyfraniluit
feRekiafbufakuþiRu
untiRhanumaukyfiRhan
um

Jonna Louis-Jensen 2001

In 2001 Jonna Louis-Jensen continued in the same vein as Grønvik with an interpretation involving a sickness demon named Ámr. She offers the following normalized text and English translation.
H(ǣ)R'k ī kūrims undiR guþi,RR ber'k Būfi
R fūlt ī hūþ -
es þǣR vīs in brā -
alt illu frān Būfa!
Þōrr gǣti hans
R þæm hamris Ām hyRR!
Haf ekka, Ām!
Flȳ frān, illvētt!
RR ækki af Būfa;
guþ eRu undiR hānum
auk yfiR hānum.
I cower herein,
under the god of soot;
I, Būfi, carry
a festering sore in my skin -
you know where the glistening one is -
keep evil from Būfi!
May Thor guard him
with the hammer
with which he strikes Āmr.
May you have the affliction, Āmr!
Be gone, evil being!
The affliction leaves Būfi,
there are gods below him
and above him.
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