Viking writing

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  Today we are going to know how did the Vikings write. They had their own system of writing, called Runes. The Runic alphabet, also known as Futhork (so called for the sounds of the first six letters in the alphabet) was in wide use throughout northern Europe from roughly the 3rd to the 12th century. At first, 24 letters were used, but in the 9th century, the futhork alphabet was simplified to 16 letters, beginning in Denmark, then spreading throughout the region.  Many variations of the futhork alphabet were used; one of the Danish variants is shown below.

  As we can see, all the letters consist of straight lines, making them easy to carve into wood, bone, or stone, which were the normal writing materials among the Norse, whit a knife or chisel. Words were formed by separating groups of runes with a full stop. The Vikings did not have paper or parchment like material. Their history and culture was passed down orally through stories and poems.

Stone with Viking runes

    Runes were not normally used to write down stories or poems. They were used record ordinary everyday things such as marking belongings or keeping a record of what was sold by a trader. The runic writing shown below is one of a number of wooden merchant's markers excavated in Bergen. It indicates the owner's name, and was meant to be stuck in or tied to a pile of merchandise.

Wood with Viking runes

      Viking warrior swords and spears were normally decorated with runes. The runes showed the owner of a weapon and also gave it magical power and strength in battle. Since ancient times, runes have been used for divination and magic, in addition to writing. The word "rune" actually means mystery, secret or whisper. The Vikings believed that the god Odin gave them the runes as a gift so they were treated with great respect. They also believed that the runes were magical and could tell the future.

Spears with Viking runes

  The Vikings also used runes to inscribe stones to remember dead family and friends. Thousands of rune stones have been discovered in Scandinavia and other lands that the Vikings invaded. One of the famous rune stone is the so called Rök stone, shown below, is an extraordinary rune stone over four meters high and is covered on all five sides with runic inscriptions. Many of the rune stones, particularly later ones, are memorial stones which served as declarations of inheritance.

Rök stone, Sweden

   Runes could be written left to right or right to left. The "facing" of the runes makes it clear which way to read. For inscriptions longer than one line, alternating lines were frequently written in opposite directions, first leftwards, then rightwards. Sometimes, the lines bent around at the end, so that one line reads left to right and the next line right to left and upside down. Some rune stones (such as the Rök stone above) have text crammed onto every surface of the stone, with lines reading upwards, downwards, leftwards, and rightwards.

  With the coming of Christianity, and its educated clergy speaking and writing Latin, runes were displaced by the Roman alphabet (modified to fit the needs of the various northern European languages), written with pen and ink on vellum. However, runes continued to be used for many centuries, since the materials for runic writing were always readily at hand: everyone carried a knife, and a stick could be picked up from anywhere.