Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/80

 Hoby, near Runamoe, in the Swedish province of Bleking, which is mentioned by Saxo Grammaticus as being, in his time (namely, about 1160), considered inexplicable, and which modern Runic scholars interpreted a few years ago to relate to the battle of Braavalle fought about the year 680,—is in reality no inscription at all, but a mere lusus naturæ; merely veins of one substance interspersed in the body of another substance, and forming marks which resemble Runic letters in the fancy of the antiquary, but which is an appearance in rocks of granitic formation with veins of chlorite interspersed, not unfamiliar to the eye of the mineralogist. Another of the Runic inscriptions, supposed to be illustrative of history, is that on a rock called Korpeldinte, in the island of Gotland, which, in Runic characters, told that

""Aar halftridium tusanda utdrog Helge med Gutanum sinum;""

that is, "in the year half three thousand,—videlicet, two thousand five hundred,—went out Helge with his Goths." This inscription must be, as Wormius himself admits, a gross fabrication; for the pagan Northmen did not reckon by years, but by winters, and could have known nothing of the computation of time from the creation of the world, which is derived from the Bible, and was unknown to them in the year of the world 2500. But before the year 1636 somebody had been at the trouble to attempt to impose upon the world by this inscription in Runic letters, although in modern language, and of modern conception. We may believe that inscriptions on stones in memory of the dead,—rude calendars cut in wood,—charms on amulets, rings, shields, or swords,—and tokens of recognition to be sent by messengers to accredit them to friends at a distance, may have existed among the Northmen from their first arrival in Europe; and Odin himself may have invented or used the Runic