The Rök Runestone Revisited (with Dr. Henrik Williams)

Professor Henrik Williams (Uppsala University, Sweden) answers questions about our evolving understanding of the famous runic inscription on Sweden's Rök Stone from Patreon supporters of Jackson Crawford in this Patreon-exclusive Zoom conversation recorded live on April 23, 2022.

Logos by Elizabeth Porter (snowbringer at gmail).

[martinnyberg]

Since I became a father myself, the Röök stone has taken on a whole new meaning, a much more deeply touching meaning. The grieving father Varin didn’t just stop at the usual “after Vämod stand these runes, Varin the father wrote”. He got a four meter tall mountain and kept chiseling runes on five of its six faces for weeks or months. The love and the pain and the deeply felt grief still has the power to move me to tears when standing at the stone. Over 1300 years later.

[lakrids-pibe]

00:05 In Swedish and other Nordic and European countries, the expression “red thread” refers to the core idea or theme of something.

[hunterball]

I'll be looking forward to when Henrik's book comes out in English.

[JuanFRojasA]

It all started with video games, then movies and now just grateful to found all this knowledge.

[carlinberg]

"My whole point is that people were no different back then than they are now" really well put!

[Zippythewondersquirrel]

When I was younger I experienced an almost total eclipse and was fascinated to find that even though you can’t look at the event you can see it happening by just looking at the shadows cast on the ground by the leaves of the trees. The small bits of light filtering through the tree leaves act as a camera obscura.

[brickan]

Tack Henrik för att du är med på sådana här samtal.

[lukastrojer]

I got the book last Christmas and thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommend it!
Edit: wow I just learned of the foldout too lol

[francesconicoletti]

“Using the Eldar futhark in the younger futhark system “. Dr Crawford was remarking on a sword in The Northman that had been marked up in a similar way.

[bautaballe]

If you are going to Sweden in August, I suggest that you should not skip Anunds hög.
The whole area is amazing, and some people even believe that this place acted as a counterpart to Uppsala in the early years (like 500 to 800).

[melissahdawn]

What I loved most about this discussion, among many things, is how the runes were written to communicate ideas to others and on top of that it is mentioned that it was intended as a thing to be recalled (memorium) "written in stone" by/for Odin... with that, this video feels so ironic in communicating those words globally in a vernacular. But, if I rewatch this in a week or two, I may not even notice anything about intended audiences, but may be mesmerized by some other great mystery. But, one can hardly graze the topic of runes without recalling Odin...sure makes history fascinating!

Bindrunes = typos 😆

[cuffzter]

around 12 minutes in Henrik talks about "there were no total eclipses in scandinavia during this time". I feel he does the mistake of not considering that vikings, be they pirates or merchants during this time traveled all over europe and was not confined to scandinavia and could have experienced a total eclipse there.

[weepingscorpion]

Here in the Faroe Islands, I've only experienced one total solar eclipse and that was the one of March 20th, 2015. That one lasted about 2 minutes and 15-30 seconds. For us in 2015 it was just a curiousity but for people living 1500 years before we did? Who knows, right?

[wulfgreyhame]

Is there information on the geology of the stone?

[martinnyberg]

40:10 There is a local lay runologist who made a physical analysis of the carving of the Röök stone about 30 years ago or so, in which he looked at how the carver held the chisel, when the chisel was sharpened, and such things. He concluded that a single carver made the stone, mostly by sitting on top of it, and he guessed that it was Varin himself. I think I still have his publication in my collection. 🤔

[niclaslindman]

Have lived not far from Rök stenen i Rök Östergötland 👍🇸🇪

[RobertMorgan-eq]

I found some large rune stones while diving in the northsea off the east yorkshire coast i have estimated position

[martinnyberg]

37:27 It probably did. There are archaeological records of whole villages being abandoned around then and never being populated again.

[jonswanson]

It was "Animal Farm, " I believe. 🤔

[corriewilliams]

P.s may have jumped the gun, and noted after I had made the comment that henrik mentioned there was no confirmation of a Total eclipse around this period- apologies - regards mark collier