good for nothing; he wishes to give you power over the realm while they are so young, and he prefers you to enjoy it.’ Now Gunnar was very drunk, and a great realm was offered to him, and he could not resist fate; he promised to go, and told it to his brother Högni, who answered: ‘Your resolve must be carried out, and I will follow thee, but I am unwilling to go’ ” (Volsunga, c. 33).
Runes were occasionally used as charms in cases of illness.
Egil went on a journey to Vermaland to collect the tax from the Jarl Arnvid, who was suspected of having slain King Hakon the Good’s men when they went thither for this purpose. On the way he came to the house of a bondi named Thorfinn.
“As Egil and Thorfinn sat and took their meal, Egil saw that a woman lay sick on the cross-bench, and asked who she was. Thorfinn answered that she was his daughter Helga. She had been long ill from a very wasting sickness; she could not sleep at night, and was like one ham-stolen148 (crazy). ‘Has anything been tried for her illness?’ said Egil. Thorfinn said: ‘Runes have been traced by the son of a bondi in the neighbourhood, but she is far more ill since than she was before; canst thou do anything for such an illness?’ Egil answered: ‘It may be that it will not be worse though I take charge of it.’ When he had done eating he went to where she lay and spoke to her. He bad that she be taken out of bed and clean clothes put under her, which was done. Then he examined the bed, and there found a piece of whalebone with runes on it. He read them, cut them off, and scraped the chips into the fire; he burned the whalebone and had her clothes carried into the open air. Then Egil sang:—
As man shall not trace runes
Except he can read them well,
It is thus with many a man
That the dark letters bewilder him.
I saw on the cut whalebone
Ten hidden149 letters carved,
That have caused to the leek-linden (woman)
A very long sorrow.
“Egil traced runes, and placed them under the pillow in the bed where she rested. It seemed to her as if she awoke from a sleep, and she said she was then healed, though she had little strength. Her father and mother were very glad” (Egil’s Saga, c. 75).
When persons were deaf, they communicated with others by means of runes.
“Thorkel told his sister Orny that the steersman had come to his house, saying: ‘I wish, kinswoman, that thou shouldst serve150 him during the winter, for most other men have enough to do.’ Orny carved runes on a wood-stick, for she could not speak, and Thorkel took it and read. The wood-stick told this: ‘I do not like to undertake to serve the steersman, for my mind tells me that, if I do, much evil will come of it.’ He became angry because his sister declined, so that when she saw it she consented to serve Ivar, and continued to do so during the winter” (Thorstein Uxafót, Fornmanna Sögur, 110).
Runes traced on sticks (kefli), which were sometimes used, did not offer proper security against falsification, unless personal runes were used, which however were known only to a very limited number.
An Icelandic settler named Gris, who had gone on a journey to Norway, was going back to Iceland from Nidaros (Throndhjem).
“A woman came to him with two children, and asked him to take them with him. He asked: ‘What have they to do there?’ She said that their uncle Thorstein Svörf lived in the district where Gris had a bœr, and that her name was Thorarna. Gris said: ‘I will not do that without some evidence.’ Then she gave him from under her cloak a stick on which were many words known to Thorstein. Gris said: ‘Thou wilt think me greedy for property.’ She asked: ‘Ask as much as thou wilt.’ He answered: ‘Four hundreds in very good silver, and thou must follow with the children.’ ‘It is not possible for me to follow them,’ she said, ‘but I will pay what thou askest.’ She told him the name of the boy Klaufi, and of the girl Sigrid. Gris added: ‘How hast thou become so wretched, thou who art of such good kin?’ She replied: ‘I was taken in war by Snækoll Ljotsson, who is the father of these children; after which he drove me away against my will.’
“Gris had a favourable wind after he had taken these children on board, and sailed to Iceland into the same river-mouth as usual; and as soon as he had landed he carried away both children, so that no one knew of his coming. That evening he went to Thorstein at Grund, who received him very well, mostly because his son Karl had gone abroad at the time that Gris had been abroad, and Thorstein wanted to ask about his journey. Gris spoke little. Thorstein inquired if he was ill. Gris answered that it was rather that he was not well pleased with his doings; ‘for I have brought hither two children of thy sister.’ ‘How can that be?’ said Thorstein. ‘And I will not acknowledge their relationship unattested.’ Then Gris showed him the stick, and he recognized his words thereon, though it was long since he spoke them. He acknowledged the children, but paid Gris to bring up Klaufi” (Svarfdæla, c. 11).
“Klaufi and Gris sailed from Solskel southward along the Norwegian coast, until they came to an islet, where lay two ships with no men on them. They jumped on board one of the ships, and Klaufi said: ‘Tell thou, Gris, who has steered these ships, for here are runes, which tell it.’ Gris said he did not know. Klaufi answered: ‘Thou knowest, and must tell.’ Gris was obliged to do so, against his will, and thus read the runes: ‘Karl steered the ship when the runes were carved’ ” (Svarfdæla, c. 14).
“One summer in the time of King Harald Hardradi it happened, as was often the case, that an Icelandic ship came to Nidaros (Throndhjem). On this ship there was a poor man who kept watch during the night. While all slept he saw two men go secretly up to Gaularas with digging tools and begin to dig; he saw they searched for property, and when he came on them unawares he saw that they had dug up a chest filled with property. He said to the one who seemed to be the leader that he wanted three marks for keeping quiet, and some more if he should wish it. Thorfinn assented to this, and weighed out to him three marks; when they opened the chest a large ring and a thick necklace of gold lay uppermost. The Icelander saw runes carved on the chest; these said that Hakon Jarl had been the owner of this property” (Fornmanna Sögur, vi. 271).
One day Thurid, the old foster-mother of Thorbjörn Öngul, an enemy of Grettir, asked to be taken down to the sea.
“When she came there, she found the stump of a tree with the roots on, as large as a man could carry. She looked at the stump, and had it turned round. On one side it looked as if it had been burned and rubbed. On this side she had a small spot smoothed with a knife. Then she took her knife and carved runes on it, and reddened it with her blood, singing words of witchcraft over it. She walked backwards around the stump, in the opposite direction to the sun’s course, and pronounced many powerful incantations thereover. Then she had it pushed out into the sea, and said it should be driven out to Drangey, and cause great mischief to Grettir. When Grettir was cutting the stump for firewood with an axe, he wounded himself severely above the knee”151 (Gretti’s Saga, c. 81).
Fig. 287.—Stone axe with earlier runes; ⅔ real size.—Upland.
Fig. 288.—Earlier runic inscription discovered (1872) on a perpendicular bluff 20 feet high and about 200 feet from the shore, at Valsfjord, Fosen, North, Throndhjem. The runes are carved in a perpendicular line from the bottom up. Hardly anything is left of the letters. The Runes; 1
15 real size.
The deeds of warriors were recorded on runic staves:—
Örvar-Odd, when very old, desired to revisit the scenes of his childhood, where a Völva had foretold him that his death would be caused by the head of the horse Faxi, at his birthplace, Hrafnista. When he arrived there he walked around on the farm, and his foot struck the skull of a horse, and a viper came out of it and bit him in the leg.
“He suffered so much from this wound that they