Seax of Beagnoth
Encyclopedia
The Seax of Beagnoth is a 9th century Anglo-Saxon
seax
(single-edged knife
). It was found in the River Thames
in 1857, and is now at the British Museum
in London
. It is a prestige weapon, decorated with elaborate patterns of inlaid copper, bronze and silver wire. On one side of the blade is the only known complete inscription of the twenty-eight letter Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, as well as the name "Beagnoth" in runic letters. It is thought that the runic alphabet had a magical function, and that the name Beagnoth is that of either the owner of the weapon or the smith who forged it. Although many Anglo-Saxon and Viking
swords and knives have inscriptions in the Latin alphabet
on their blades, or have runic inscriptions on the hilt or scabbard, the Seax of Beagnoth is one of only a handful of finds with a runic inscription on its blade.
by Henry J. Briggs, a labourer, in early 1857. Briggs sold it to the British Museum, and on 21 May 1857 it was exhibited at the Society of Antiquaries of London
by Augustus Wollaston Franks
(an antiquary who worked at the Antiquities Department of the British Museum), when it was described as "resembling the Scramasax of the Franks, of which examples are very rare in England; and bears a row of runic characters inlaid in gold". Since then the weapon has usually been called the Thames scramasax; but the term scramasax (from Old Frankish
*scrâmasahs) is only attested once, in the History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours
, and the meaning of the scrama- element is uncertain, so recent scholarship prefers the term long seax or long sax for this type of weapon.
is 17.0 cm and the blade is 55.1 cm. The tang would have been attached to a handle, which has not survived.
The blade is a prestige weapon, decorated on both faces with geometric patterns created by hammering strips of twisted copper, brass and silver wire into grooves cut into the blade, as well as with inlaid triangles and lozenge
s of copper, brass and silver. The technique of inlaying wire to create decorative patterns and inscriptions was widely used on Germanic and Anglo-Saxon seaxes and spear heads from the 9th and 10th centuries, and is also found on Viking swords from about the same period.
On both sides of the seax is a deep median groove running the length of the blade, above which is a long rectangular panel bordered at the top and bottom with inlaid copper strips. The panel on one side of the seax is filled with a lozenge pattern in silver and copper, which may have been meant to simulate pattern welding
. The panel on the other side bears two runic inscriptions inlaid with brass and silver wire. The inscription on the left comprises the twenty-eight letters of the Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet or futhorc. The inscription on the right, separated from the other by a herringbone design in silver and brass, is the male personal name Beagnoþ or Beagnoth , which is assumed to be that of the maker or original owner of the blade.
There are a number of interesting features about this inscription. Firstly, the order of the runes does not exactly match the traditional sequence of the earlier twenty-four letter runic alphabet or that of the twenty-eight letter Anglo-Saxon futhorc preserved in the Vienna Codex
. The first nineteen runes are in the correct order, but the next four (20–23: ) are in a confused sequence which does not match that found in any other source. The last two runes (27–28: ) are swapped with regard to their order in the Vienna Codex, but as these are later additions to the original twenty-four letter runic alphabet their order may have been less stable, especially as the last letter is very rare in Anglo-Saxon inscriptions (elsewhere it occurs in the name Jɨslheard on a stone found in Dover
).
Secondly, the 16th rune is very small, and appears to have been squeezed in as an afterthought.
Thirdly, the letterforms of a number of the runes are unusual:
No.12 ger is written in an unusual form, with a single horizontal bar instead of the circle, lozenge or cross most commonly found in other epigraphic and manuscript examples.
No.16 is written in an unusual form, but one that is attested in a few other inscriptions (for example on the shrine of Saint Cuthbert
). Some scholars believe this runic letterform is borrowed from the insular letter s
ꞅ used in Anglo-Saxon bookhand as it has a very similar shape (both have a vertical stem with a horizontal or diagonal branch to the right). On the other hand, Elliot sees it as an evolution of the normal runic letter by straightening the left branching stroke and mirroring the letter.
No.21 is written in a unique form with the two diagonal crossbars forming a triangle rather than crossing in the middle. This is probably an aberrant form.
No.24 is written in an unusual form with a single vertical stem instead of two diagonal legs as is normally the case. This form occurs occasionally in runic inscriptions, and more often in manuscript texts. Ralph Elliott
, former professor of English at the University of Adelaide
, suggests that it represents a simplified form of the standard rune.
No.27 is written in an unusual form with a cross in the centre rather than a vertical stroke.
These peculiarities may indicate that the artisan who designed the inscription was unfamiliar with runic writing, although perhaps some of the unusual letterforms may have been errors occasioned by the difficulty of inlaying wire to form runes.
The inscription of the name Beagnoth is as follows:
There are no unusual features in the inscription of the name, but at the top right of the name are two strange designs that almost look like letters, which no-one has been able to explain.
Several seaxes of a similar kind are known from southern England (three from London, one from Suffolk
, one from the River Thames at Keen Edge Ferry in Berkshire
), and one from Hurbuck in County Durham
in the north of England. The Berkshire seax is so similar in construction and design to the Seax of Beagnoth that both may have come from the same workshop.
Elliott suggests a southern, presumably Kentish
, origin for the seax because its inscription only comprises the original twenty-eight letters of the Anglo-Saxon futhorc, and does not include any of the additional letters in use in Northumbria
n runic inscriptions at that time.
The name Beagnoth inscribed on the seax also supports a Kentish provenance, as the only two examples of this name in manuscript sources are Kentish. One Beagnoth was a witness to a charter
(S30) by King Eardwulf of Kent
, granting pasture rights to the church of St Andrew at Rochester, Kent, which is dated to 748–760, and another Beagnoth (also spelled Beahnoþ) was a monk from Kent who was present at the Synod of Clovesho
in 803 and witnessed a charter by King Æthelwulf of Wessex dated to 844. The name "Beagnoth" derives from the Old English words bēag or bēah meaning "ring, bracelet, torque or crown" and nōþ meaning "boldness", and can be translated as "Ringbold".
Daniel Haigh
(1819–1879), a noted Victorian
scholar of Anglo-Saxon history and literature, in an 1872 study of the runic monuments of Kent, considered the possibility that although the Beagnoth Seax was found in England, because the scramasax was thought at that time to be a Frankish
weapon, it may have been an import from the continent, and would originally have belonged to a Frank. He therefore attempted to read the name as if the runes represented Old Frankish, suggesting the hypothetical Frankish name Baugnanth (reading as au, and as an). However, modern scholarship considers Anglo-Saxon seaxes to be native to England, and Haigh's theory is not widely accepted today.
Sigrdrífumál
the valkyrie
Sigrdrífa teaches the hero Sigurd
how to engrave runes on his sword to provide magical protection:
This poem was not committed to writing until the late 13th century (in the Codex Regius
), although it may preserve elements from a much earlier date. However, a similar admonishment to carve runes on swords is found in lines 1694–1698 of the Old English poem Beowulf
, which is roughly contemporary with the Seax of Beagnoth:
This poem mentions the practice of carving the sword-owner's name in runes on the hilt. This practice is confirmed by a 6th-century sword pommel from Kent, as well as a 6th-century silver scabbard mouth-piece from Chessell Down, Isle of Wight
, which both preserve fragmentary runic inscriptions. The latter is the only known example of an Anglo-Saxon runic inscription on a weapon from outside Kent. Several other Anglo-Saxon weapons have isolated runic letters on them. For example a tiw rune , symbolizing the Anglo-Saxon war god Tiw (Tyr in the earlier quotation from the Sigrdrífumál), is found on two sword-pommels and a spear blade, all from Kent. Thus, although some Anglo-Saxon runic inscriptions on weapons are known, none are as extensive or as prominent as the runic inscription on the Seax of Beagnoth. Furthermore, the Seax is Beagnoth is the only known Anglo-Saxon weapon with a runic inscription on its blade, and indeed, other than the Schretzheim sword, which has a cryptic runic inscription on its blade comprising four runes in a cross formation, there are no other certain examples from anywhere in Europe of a sword or knife blade with a runic inscription. In contrast, inscriptions in the Latin alphabet occur frequently on Viking swords. For example, some one hundred swords with the maker's name "Ulfberht" inlaid into the blade are known from a period of about 300 years.
On the basis of the Beowulf quotation it may be that "Beagnoth" was the Seax's original owner's name. However, that is not certain, as Viking and Anglo-Saxon weapons often have the name of the weapon's maker engraved on them instead of, or as well as, the owner's (as on the Sittingbourne seax shown below). Raymond Page
, former Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon
at the University of Cambridge
, considers four possibilities:
1. That the name is that of the smith who forged the seax, as swords from the Dark Ages often had their maker's name engraved on them.
2. That the name is that of the rune-master who wrote the futhorc. Page supposes that adding the rune-master's name would have added extra magical power to the weapon.
3. That the name is that of the original owner of the seax, for as he notes, "[t]he scramasax is an impressive piece of equipment, one that an owner would be proud to see his name on".
4. That the name is that of someone who gave the seax as a present to someone else, for it is "distinguished enough to make a fine gift bearing the giver's name".
Page concludes that we cannot know which possibility is correct.
and sixteen letter Younger Futhark
alphabets are relatively common in continental and Scandinavia
n runic inscriptions, but inscriptions of the historically later Anglo-Saxon futhorc are rare in England, with most examples of the Anglo-Saxon futhorc being known from manuscript sources. This seax represents the only surviving epigraphic inscription of the basic twenty-eight letter Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, although an incomplete inscription of the first sixteen letters of the futhorc occurs on the disc-shaped head of a Middle Saxon pin from Brandon, Suffolk
, and the first seven or eight letters of the futhorc are inscribed on the head of a pin from Malton, North Yorkshire
.
It is unclear what purpose the inscription of the futhorc served, but Page suggests it cannot be simply decorative, but must have had a magical significance
. He notes that the carving of runic letters on swords as a form of magical protection was an ancient practice, but by the 9th century rune lore was probably on the decline in the Kingdom of Kent
, and the owner of the seax may have commissioned an archaic runic inscription for prestige purposes. The fact that there are errors in the order and design of the runic letters suggests that the smith who made the seax was not used to adding such runic inscriptions to the weapons he made, and they may have been copied inaccurately from a manuscript text.
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...
seax
Seax
Seax in Old English means knife or cutting tool. The name of the roofer's tool, the zax, is a development from this word...
(single-edged knife
Knife
A knife is a cutting tool with an exposed cutting edge or blade, hand-held or otherwise, with or without a handle. Knives were used at least two-and-a-half million years ago, as evidenced by the Oldowan tools...
). It was found in the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
in 1857, and is now at the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. It is a prestige weapon, decorated with elaborate patterns of inlaid copper, bronze and silver wire. On one side of the blade is the only known complete inscription of the twenty-eight letter Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, as well as the name "Beagnoth" in runic letters. It is thought that the runic alphabet had a magical function, and that the name Beagnoth is that of either the owner of the weapon or the smith who forged it. Although many Anglo-Saxon and Viking
Viking
The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
swords and knives have inscriptions in the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
on their blades, or have runic inscriptions on the hilt or scabbard, the Seax of Beagnoth is one of only a handful of finds with a runic inscription on its blade.
Discovery
The seax was found in the River Thames near BatterseaBattersea
Battersea is an area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is an inner-city district of South London, situated on the south side of the River Thames, 2.9 miles south-west of Charing Cross. Battersea spans from Fairfield in the west to Queenstown in the east...
by Henry J. Briggs, a labourer, in early 1857. Briggs sold it to the British Museum, and on 21 May 1857 it was exhibited at the Society of Antiquaries of London
Society of Antiquaries of London
The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...
by Augustus Wollaston Franks
Augustus Wollaston Franks
Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks KCB was an English antiquary and museum administrator. Franks was described by Marjorie Caygill, historian of the British Museum, as "arguably the most important collector in the history of the British Museum, and one of the greatest collectors of his age".-Early...
(an antiquary who worked at the Antiquities Department of the British Museum), when it was described as "resembling the Scramasax of the Franks, of which examples are very rare in England; and bears a row of runic characters inlaid in gold". Since then the weapon has usually been called the Thames scramasax; but the term scramasax (from Old Frankish
Old Frankish
Old Frankish is an extinct West Germanic language, once spoken by the Franks. It is the parent language of the Franconian languages, of which Dutch and Afrikaans are the most known descendants...
*scrâmasahs) is only attested once, in the History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours
Saint Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of Gaul. He was born Georgius Florentius, later adding the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather...
, and the meaning of the scrama- element is uncertain, so recent scholarship prefers the term long seax or long sax for this type of weapon.
Description
The seax is an iron knife with a single cutting edge and a long tapering point. It is 72.1 cm in length, of which the tangTang (weaponry)
A tang or shank is the back portion of a tool where it extends into stock material or is connected to a handle as on a knife, sword, spear, arrowhead, chisel, screwdriver, etc...
is 17.0 cm and the blade is 55.1 cm. The tang would have been attached to a handle, which has not survived.
The blade is a prestige weapon, decorated on both faces with geometric patterns created by hammering strips of twisted copper, brass and silver wire into grooves cut into the blade, as well as with inlaid triangles and lozenge
Lozenge
A lozenge , often referred to as a diamond, is a form of rhombus. The definition of lozenge is not strictly fixed, and it is sometimes used simply as a synonym for rhombus. Most often, though, lozenge refers to a thin rhombus—a rhombus with acute angles of 45°...
s of copper, brass and silver. The technique of inlaying wire to create decorative patterns and inscriptions was widely used on Germanic and Anglo-Saxon seaxes and spear heads from the 9th and 10th centuries, and is also found on Viking swords from about the same period.
On both sides of the seax is a deep median groove running the length of the blade, above which is a long rectangular panel bordered at the top and bottom with inlaid copper strips. The panel on one side of the seax is filled with a lozenge pattern in silver and copper, which may have been meant to simulate pattern welding
Pattern welding
Pattern welding is the practice in sword and knife making of forming a blade of several metal pieces of differing composition that are forge-welded together and twisted and manipulated to form a pattern. Often called Damascus steel, blades forged in this manner often display bands of slightly...
. The panel on the other side bears two runic inscriptions inlaid with brass and silver wire. The inscription on the left comprises the twenty-eight letters of the Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet or futhorc. The inscription on the right, separated from the other by a herringbone design in silver and brass, is the male personal name Beagnoþ or Beagnoth , which is assumed to be that of the maker or original owner of the blade.
Epigraphy
The inscription of the futhorc is as follows:| Order on Seax | Standard rune | UCS Universal Character Set The Universal Character Set , defined by the International Standard ISO/IEC 10646, Information technology — Universal multiple-octet coded character set , is a standard set of characters upon which many character encodings are based... | Old English name | Order in Vienna Codex Codex Vindobonensis 795 The Codex Vindobonensis 795 is a 9th century manuscript.It contains letters and treatises by Alcuin, including a discussion of the Gothic alphabet.It also contains a description of the Anglo-Saxon futhorc.... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  |
feoh Fe (rune) The Fe rune represents the f-sound in the Younger Futhark and Futhorc alphabets. Its name means " wealth", cognate to English fee with the original meaning of "sheep" or "cattle" .The rune derives from the unattested but reconstructed Proto-Germanic... |
f | 1 | |
| 2 |  |
ur Ur (rune) The reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the Elder Futhark u rune is *Ūruz meaning "wild ox" or *Ûram "water". It may have been derived from the Raetic alphabet character u as it is similar in both shape and sound value... |
u | 2 | |
| 3 |  |
þorn Thorn (letter) Thorn or þorn , is a letter in the Old English, Old Norse, and Icelandic alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English. It was also used in medieval Scandinavia, but was later replaced with the digraph th. The letter originated from the rune in the Elder Fuþark, called thorn in the... |
þ | 3 | |
| 4 | ós Ansuz rune The a-rune , Younger Futhark was probably called *ansuz in Proto-Germanic, to which the Norse name Æsir is attributed.The shape of the rune is likely from Neo-Etruscan a , like Latin A ultimately from Phoenician aleph.... |
o | 4 | ||
| 5 |  |
rad Raidô Kate Thornton is an English journalist and television presenter. Early in her career, she was notable for her articles at the Daily Mirror and for her role as editor of Smash Hits magazine... |
r | 5 | |
| 6 |  |
cen Kaunan The k-rune is called Kaun in both the Norwegian and Icelandic rune poems, meaning "ulcer". The reconstructed Proto-Germanic name is *Kaunan. It is also known as Kenaz , based on its Anglo-Saxon name.The Elder Futhark shape is likely directly based on Old Italic c / Latin C... |
c | 6 | |
| 7 |  |
gyfu Gyfu Gyfu is the name for the g-rune in the Anglo-Saxon rune poem, meaning "gift" or "generosity":The corresponding letter of the Gothic alphabet is g, called giba. The same rune also appears in the Elder Futhark, with a suggested Proto-Germanic name *gebô "gift". J. H... |
g | 7 | |
| 8 |  |
wynn Wynn Wynn is a letter of the Old English alphabet, where it is used to represent the sound .... |
w | 8 | |
| 9 |  |
hægl 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... |
h | 9 | |
| 10 |  |
nyd 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... |
n | 10 | |
| 11 |  |
is Isaz *Isaz is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the i-rune , meaning "ice". In the Younger Futhark it is called Iss in Icelandic and isa in Old Norse. As rune of the Anglo-Saxon futhorc, it is called is.... |
i | 11 | |
| 12 | ger Jera *Jēran or *Jēraz "harvest, year" is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the j-rune of the Elder Futhark.... |
j | 12 | ||
| 13 |  |
eoh Eihwaz Eiwaz or Eihaz was a Proto-Germanic word for "yew", and the reconstructed name of the rune .... |
ɨ | 13 | |
| 14 |  |
peorð Peorð ' is the rune denoting the sound p in the Elder Futhark runic alphabet, in the Anglo-Saxon rune poem named peorð. It does not appear in the Younger Futhark. In the poem, it is glossed with the enigmatic:... |
p | 14 | |
| 15 |  |
eolh Algiz The Algiz is part of the ancient Nordic and Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, often equated to the modern day z, however was traditionally pronounced yr. The letter has come to symbolize many neo-pagan religions and is often worn as a pendant... |
x | 15 | |
| 16 |  |
sigel Sowilo Sól or Sunna is the Sun personified in Germanic mythology. One of the two Old High German Merseburg Incantations, written in the 9th or 10th century CE, attests that Sunna is the sister of Sinthgunt... (written as ᚴ, see below) |
s | 16 | |
| 17 |  |
Tiw Tiwaz rune The t-rune is named after Týr, and was identified with this god. The reconstructed Proto-Germanic name is *Tîwaz or *Teiwaz.-Rune poems:Tiwaz is mentioned in all three rune poems... |
t | 17 | |
| 18 |  |
beorc 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... |
b | 18 | |
| 19 |  |
eh Ehwaz *Ehwaz is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the Elder Futhark e rune , meaning "horse"... |
e | 19 | |
| 20 |  |
ing Yngvi Yngvi, Yngvin, Ingwine, Inguin are names that relate to an older theonym Ing and which appears to have been the older name for the god Freyr .... |
ŋ | 22 | |
| 21 |  |
dæg Dagaz The d rune is called Daeg "day" in the Anglo-Saxon rune poem. The corresponding letter of the Gothic alphabet d is called dags. This rune stave is also part of the Elder Futhark, with a reconstructed Proto-Germanic name *dagaz.... |
d | 23 | |
| 22 |  |
lagu | l | 21 | |
| 23 |  |
mann | m | 20 | |
| 24 |  |
eþel Odal rune The Elder Futhark Odal rune represents the o sound. Its reconstructed Proto-Germanic name is *ôþalan. The corresponding Gothic letter is o, called oþal. Variations of the name include Othila and Othala... (written as the "lantern rune"  |
œ | 24 | |
| 25 | ac | a | 25 | ||
| 26 |  |
æ Æ Æ is a grapheme formed from the letters a and e. Originally a ligature representing a Latin diphthong, it has been promoted to the full status of a letter in the alphabets of some languages, including Danish, Faroese, Norwegian and Icelandic... sc |
æ | 26 | |
| 27 |  |
yr | y | 28 | |
| 28 |  |
ear Ear (rune) The Ear rune of the Anglo-Saxon futhorc is a late addition to the alphabet. It is, however, still attested from epigraphical evidence, notably the Thames scramasax, and its introduction thus cannot postdate the 9th century... |
ea | 27 |
There are a number of interesting features about this inscription. Firstly, the order of the runes does not exactly match the traditional sequence of the earlier twenty-four letter runic alphabet or that of the twenty-eight letter Anglo-Saxon futhorc preserved in the Vienna Codex
Codex Vindobonensis 795
The Codex Vindobonensis 795 is a 9th century manuscript.It contains letters and treatises by Alcuin, including a discussion of the Gothic alphabet.It also contains a description of the Anglo-Saxon futhorc....
. The first nineteen runes are in the correct order, but the next four (20–23: ) are in a confused sequence which does not match that found in any other source. The last two runes (27–28: ) are swapped with regard to their order in the Vienna Codex, but as these are later additions to the original twenty-four letter runic alphabet their order may have been less stable, especially as the last letter is very rare in Anglo-Saxon inscriptions (elsewhere it occurs in the name Jɨslheard on a stone found in Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
).
Secondly, the 16th rune is very small, and appears to have been squeezed in as an afterthought.
Thirdly, the letterforms of a number of the runes are unusual:
No.12 ger is written in an unusual form, with a single horizontal bar instead of the circle, lozenge or cross most commonly found in other epigraphic and manuscript examples.
No.16 is written in an unusual form, but one that is attested in a few other inscriptions (for example on the shrine of Saint Cuthbert
Cuthbert of Lindisfarne
Saint Cuthbert was an Anglo-Saxon monk, bishop and hermit associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne in the Kingdom of Northumbria, at that time including, in modern terms, northern England as well as south-eastern Scotland as far as the Firth of Forth...
). Some scholars believe this runic letterform is borrowed from the insular letter s
Ꞅ
The letter ' is an insular form of the letter S. The uppercase is encoded in Unicode at U+A784, and the lowercase is encoded at U+A785.It should not be confused with the long-legged r, , which is an obsolete IPA symbol....
ꞅ used in Anglo-Saxon bookhand as it has a very similar shape (both have a vertical stem with a horizontal or diagonal branch to the right). On the other hand, Elliot sees it as an evolution of the normal runic letter by straightening the left branching stroke and mirroring the letter.
No.21 is written in a unique form with the two diagonal crossbars forming a triangle rather than crossing in the middle. This is probably an aberrant form.
No.24 is written in an unusual form with a single vertical stem instead of two diagonal legs as is normally the case. This form occurs occasionally in runic inscriptions, and more often in manuscript texts. Ralph Elliott
Ralph Warren Victor Elliott
Ralph Warren Victor Elliott AM is a German-born Australian professor of English, and a runologist.-Biography:...
, former professor of English at the University of Adelaide
University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia...
, suggests that it represents a simplified form of the standard rune.
No.27 is written in an unusual form with a cross in the centre rather than a vertical stroke.
These peculiarities may indicate that the artisan who designed the inscription was unfamiliar with runic writing, although perhaps some of the unusual letterforms may have been errors occasioned by the difficulty of inlaying wire to form runes.
The inscription of the name Beagnoth is as follows:
There are no unusual features in the inscription of the name, but at the top right of the name are two strange designs that almost look like letters, which no-one has been able to explain.
Date and provenance
Finds of seaxes in Europe range from the 7th to the 11th century, and the earliest examples in England are from 7th-century graves. Isolated finds of seaxes in England are believed to date from the 9th and 10th centuries. The exact date that the Seax of Beagnoth was made is uncertain, but on stylistic and epigraphical grounds it has been dated to the 9th century, possibly as late as circa 900.Several seaxes of a similar kind are known from southern England (three from London, one from Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, one from the River Thames at Keen Edge Ferry in Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
), and one from Hurbuck in County Durham
County Durham
County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...
in the north of England. The Berkshire seax is so similar in construction and design to the Seax of Beagnoth that both may have come from the same workshop.
Elliott suggests a southern, presumably Kentish
Kingdom of Kent
The Kingdom of Kent was a Jutish colony and later independent kingdom in what is now south east England. It was founded at an unknown date in the 5th century by Jutes, members of a Germanic people from continental Europe, some of whom settled in Britain after the withdrawal of the Romans...
, origin for the seax because its inscription only comprises the original twenty-eight letters of the Anglo-Saxon futhorc, and does not include any of the additional letters in use in Northumbria
Northumbria
Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...
n runic inscriptions at that time.
The name Beagnoth inscribed on the seax also supports a Kentish provenance, as the only two examples of this name in manuscript sources are Kentish. One Beagnoth was a witness to a charter
Anglo-Saxon Charters
Anglo-Saxon charters are documents from the early medieval period in Britain which typically make a grant of land or record a privilege. The earliest surviving charters were drawn up in the 670s; the oldest surviving charters granted land to the Church, but from the eighth century surviving...
(S30) by King Eardwulf of Kent
Eardwulf of Kent
Eardwulf was King of Kent, jointly with Æðelberht II.Eardwulf is known from two charters, one is undated , but identifies Eardwulf’s father as Eadberht I ; the other has a date that that is incompatible with its witness list ), as it is dated 762, but witnessed by Archbishop Cuðbert, who died in...
, granting pasture rights to the church of St Andrew at Rochester, Kent, which is dated to 748–760, and another Beagnoth (also spelled Beahnoþ) was a monk from Kent who was present at the Synod of Clovesho
Councils of Clovesho
The Councils of Clovesho were a series of synods in England in the eighth and ninth centuries.The location of Clovesho has never been conclusively identified, though it must have been in or near the kingdom of Mercia, but also relatively convenient for bishops from the south of England. It has...
in 803 and witnessed a charter by King Æthelwulf of Wessex dated to 844. The name "Beagnoth" derives from the Old English words bēag or bēah meaning "ring, bracelet, torque or crown" and nōþ meaning "boldness", and can be translated as "Ringbold".
Daniel Haigh
Daniel Henry Haigh
Daniel Henry Haigh was a noted Victorian scholar of Anglo-Saxon history and literature, as well as a runologist and numismatist.-Biography:...
(1819–1879), a noted Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
scholar of Anglo-Saxon history and literature, in an 1872 study of the runic monuments of Kent, considered the possibility that although the Beagnoth Seax was found in England, because the scramasax was thought at that time to be a Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
weapon, it may have been an import from the continent, and would originally have belonged to a Frank. He therefore attempted to read the name as if the runes represented Old Frankish, suggesting the hypothetical Frankish name Baugnanth (reading as au, and as an). However, modern scholarship considers Anglo-Saxon seaxes to be native to England, and Haigh's theory is not widely accepted today.
Significance
The Seax of Beagnoth is significant both as a rare example of a runic-inscribed Anglo-Saxon weapon, and specifically for its runic inscription, which is a unique epigraphical example of the complete twenty-eight letter Anglo-Saxon futhorc.Runic inscribed blades
There was a widespread tradition throughout Northern Europe of inscribing runes on weapons, particularly swords. Thus, in Stanza 6 of the eddaic poemPoetic Edda
The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century...
Sigrdrífumál
Sigrdrífumál
Sigrdrífumál is the conventional title given to a section of the Poetic Edda text in Codex Regius....
the valkyrie
Valkyrie
In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who decides who dies in battle. Selecting among half of those who die in battle , the valkyries bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin...
Sigrdrífa teaches the hero Sigurd
Sigurd
Sigurd is a legendary hero of Norse mythology, as well as the central character in the Völsunga saga. The earliest extant representations for his legend come in pictorial form from seven runestones in Sweden and most notably the Ramsund carving Sigurd (Old Norse: Sigurðr) is a legendary hero of...
how to engrave runes on his sword to provide magical protection:
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This poem was not committed to writing until the late 13th century (in the Codex Regius
Codex Regius
Cōdex Rēgius is an Icelandic manuscript in which the Poetic Edda is preserved. It is made up of 45 vellum leaves, thought to have been written in the 1270s. It originally contained a further 8 leaves, which are now missing...
), although it may preserve elements from a much earlier date. However, a similar admonishment to carve runes on swords is found in lines 1694–1698 of the Old English poem Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
, which is roughly contemporary with the Seax of Beagnoth:
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This poem mentions the practice of carving the sword-owner's name in runes on the hilt. This practice is confirmed by a 6th-century sword pommel from Kent, as well as a 6th-century silver scabbard mouth-piece from Chessell Down, Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
, which both preserve fragmentary runic inscriptions. The latter is the only known example of an Anglo-Saxon runic inscription on a weapon from outside Kent. Several other Anglo-Saxon weapons have isolated runic letters on them. For example a tiw rune , symbolizing the Anglo-Saxon war god Tiw (Tyr in the earlier quotation from the Sigrdrífumál), is found on two sword-pommels and a spear blade, all from Kent. Thus, although some Anglo-Saxon runic inscriptions on weapons are known, none are as extensive or as prominent as the runic inscription on the Seax of Beagnoth. Furthermore, the Seax is Beagnoth is the only known Anglo-Saxon weapon with a runic inscription on its blade, and indeed, other than the Schretzheim sword, which has a cryptic runic inscription on its blade comprising four runes in a cross formation, there are no other certain examples from anywhere in Europe of a sword or knife blade with a runic inscription. In contrast, inscriptions in the Latin alphabet occur frequently on Viking swords. For example, some one hundred swords with the maker's name "Ulfberht" inlaid into the blade are known from a period of about 300 years.
On the basis of the Beowulf quotation it may be that "Beagnoth" was the Seax's original owner's name. However, that is not certain, as Viking and Anglo-Saxon weapons often have the name of the weapon's maker engraved on them instead of, or as well as, the owner's (as on the Sittingbourne seax shown below). Raymond Page
Raymond Ian Page
Raymond Ian Page is a British historian of Anglo-Saxon England and the Viking Age, and a renowned runologist who has specialized in the study of Anglo-Saxon runes. In 1984 he was appointed Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Cambridge, and he has also been the...
, former Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon
Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon
The Elrington and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon is the senior professorship in Anglo-Saxon at the University of Cambridge.The chair was founded in 1878 when an earlier gift from Joseph Bosworth, Rawlinsonian Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, had increased in value sufficiently to support...
at the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, considers four possibilities:
1. That the name is that of the smith who forged the seax, as swords from the Dark Ages often had their maker's name engraved on them.
2. That the name is that of the rune-master who wrote the futhorc. Page supposes that adding the rune-master's name would have added extra magical power to the weapon.
3. That the name is that of the original owner of the seax, for as he notes, "[t]he scramasax is an impressive piece of equipment, one that an owner would be proud to see his name on".
4. That the name is that of someone who gave the seax as a present to someone else, for it is "distinguished enough to make a fine gift bearing the giver's name".
Page concludes that we cannot know which possibility is correct.
The inscribed futhorc
The runic inscription on the seax not only identifies the maker or owner of the seax, but also provides a rare example of the twenty-eight letter Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet. Examples of the earlier, twenty-four letter Elder FutharkElder Futhark
The Elder Futhark is the oldest form of the runic alphabet, used by Germanic tribes for Northwest Germanic and Migration period Germanic dialects of the 2nd to 8th centuries for inscriptions on artifacts such as jewellery, amulets, tools, weapons and runestones...
and sixteen letter Younger Futhark
Younger Futhark
The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet, a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, consisting of only 16 characters, in use from ca. 800 CE...
alphabets are relatively common in continental and Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n runic inscriptions, but inscriptions of the historically later Anglo-Saxon futhorc are rare in England, with most examples of the Anglo-Saxon futhorc being known from manuscript sources. This seax represents the only surviving epigraphic inscription of the basic twenty-eight letter Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, although an incomplete inscription of the first sixteen letters of the futhorc occurs on the disc-shaped head of a Middle Saxon pin from Brandon, Suffolk
Brandon, Suffolk
Brandon is a small town and civil parish in the English county of Suffolk. It is in the Forest Heath local government district.Brandon is located in the Breckland area on the border of Suffolk with the adjoining county of Norfolk...
, and the first seven or eight letters of the futhorc are inscribed on the head of a pin from Malton, North Yorkshire
Malton, North Yorkshire
Malton is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. The town is the location of the offices of Ryedale District Council and has a population of around 4,000 people....
.
It is unclear what purpose the inscription of the futhorc served, but Page suggests it cannot be simply decorative, but must have had a magical significance
Runic magic
There is some evidence that, in addition to being a writing system, runes historically served purposes of magic. This is the case from earliest epigraphic evidence of the Roman to Germanic Iron Age, with non-linguistic inscriptions and the alu word...
. He notes that the carving of runic letters on swords as a form of magical protection was an ancient practice, but by the 9th century rune lore was probably on the decline in the Kingdom of Kent
Kingdom of Kent
The Kingdom of Kent was a Jutish colony and later independent kingdom in what is now south east England. It was founded at an unknown date in the 5th century by Jutes, members of a Germanic people from continental Europe, some of whom settled in Britain after the withdrawal of the Romans...
, and the owner of the seax may have commissioned an archaic runic inscription for prestige purposes. The fact that there are errors in the order and design of the runic letters suggests that the smith who made the seax was not used to adding such runic inscriptions to the weapons he made, and they may have been copied inaccurately from a manuscript text.