The Uppland Runic Inscription 328 stands on a hill in a paddock at the farm Stora Lundby, which is about four kilometers west of Lindholmen, Stockholm County,

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

, in the historic province of

Uppland Uppland is a historical province or ' on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. The name literally ...

. The

runestone A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic alphabet, runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition of erecting runestones as a memorial to dead men began in the 4th centur ...

is one of several runestones that have permitted scholars to trace family relations among some powerful Viking clans in Sweden during the 11th century.

Description

The inscription consists of runic text on two intertwined serpents that form an oval around a

Christian cross The Christian cross, seen as representing the crucifixion of Jesus, is a religious symbol, symbol of Christianity. It is related to the crucifix, a cross that includes a ''corpus'' (a representation of Jesus' body, usually three-dimensional) a ...

. p. 202. The runestone is an example of the Ringerike style, and it is categorized as being carved in runestone style Pr1. The runestone was raised by two women named Gyrið and Guðlaug in memory of the master of the homestead whose name was Andsvarr and in memory of their father whose name was engraved as unif. These runes are interpreted as ''Ónæm'', the accusative case of ''Ónæmr'', a name which means "Slow Learner." A man having this rare name, Ónæmr, is also mentioned on two nearby runestones, U 112 in Kyrkstigen and U 336 in Orkesta, and so the three runestones are held to refer to the same person. The other runestones tell of the family of the two women, their father and the runemaster who made it. The runemaster

Ulf of Borresta Ulf of Borresta (Old Norse: ''Ulfr í Báristöðum'', modern Swedish: ''Ulf i Borresta'') was a runemaster in the eleventh century Uppland, Sweden, and a successful Viking who returned from England three times with a share of the Danegeld. He i ...

declared on U 336 that he was Ónæmr's paternal nephew, and consequently he was Gyrið and Guðlaug's first cousin. Ulf is notable in himself since the runestone U 344 in Yttergärde declares that Ulf had taken three

danegeld Danegeld (; "Danish tax", literally "Dane yield" or tribute) was a tax raised to pay tribute or Protection racket, protection money to the Viking raiders to save a land from being ravaged. It was called the ''geld'' or ''gafol'' in eleventh-c ...

s in England. The first one was with

Skagul Toste Skoglar Toste or Skoglar Tosti (there are several variations) is a legendary 10th century chieftain from the Swedish province of West Gothland. Snorri Sturlusson recounts in ''Heimskringla'' that he was a great Viking who often waged war and th ...

in 991, the second one with Thorkel the High in 1012 and the last one with

Canute the Great Cnut ( ; ; – 12 November 1035), also known as Canute and with the epithet the Great, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. The three kingdoms united under Cnut's rul ...

in 1018. Pritsak, Omeljan. (1981). ''The Origin of Rus''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Distributed by Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. p. 389.Pritsak, Omeljan. (1981). ''The Origin of Rus. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Distributed by Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. p. 392.Enoksen, Lars Magnar. (1998). ''Runor: Historia, Tydning, Tolkning''. Historiska Media, Falun. p. 122, 125.Jansson, Sven B. (1980). ''Runstenar''. STF, Stockholm. p. 36. The runestone U 112 in Kyrkstigen informs that a maternal nephew of Ónæmr was Ragnvaldr who was the commander of the

Varangian Guard The Varangian Guard () was an elite unit of the Byzantine army from the tenth to the fourteenth century who served as personal bodyguards to the Byzantine emperors. The Varangian Guard was known for being primarily composed of recruits from Nort ...

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

. Ragnvaldr had the runestone U 112 made in memory of himself and his mother, Ónæmr's daughter. Ónæmr's daughter Guðlaug appears to have had the son Holmi who fell in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

which is mentioned on the runestone U 133 in Täby. It is likely that Holmi fell in battle as a member of the Varangian Guard in

southern Italy Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern Regions of Italy, regions. The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or cultu ...

. Andsvarr (an

allomorph In linguistics, an allomorph is a variant phonetic form of a morpheme, or in other words, a unit of meaning that varies in sound and spelling without changing the meaning. The term ''allomorph'' describes the realization of phonological variatio ...

of ''Özurr'' and ''Assur''), in memory of whom the runestone also was raised, may be the same man as the

housecarl A housecarl (; ) was a non- servile manservant or household bodyguard in medieval Northern Europe. The institution originated amongst the Norsemen of Scandinavia, and was brought to Anglo-Saxon England by the Danish conquest in the 11th centur ...

who is mentioned on the runestone U 330 in Snottsta.Pritsak, Omeljan. (1981). ''The Origin of Rus''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Distributed by Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. pp. 391-392. Gyríðr is also mentioned on U 100 in Skälby and U 226 in Bällsta. The runic text ends with the imperative ''Rað þessi!'' which is translated as "Interpret these!" Other runestones with similar imperitive exclamations in their runic texts include U 29 in Hillersjö and Sö 158 in Österberga. p. 197. The runes for this phrase, raþisi, are carved on the serpent's tail and follow the rule that double consonants are represented with only a single consonant, even if one of the two consonants are at the end of one word and the second is at the beginning of the next word. The

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...

of the runic text for this phrase, raþ, , þisi, shows a separate þ-rune for each of the two words.

Inscription

Latin transliteration

:kuriþ * uk * kuþluk * þaʀ * litu * risa * stin * þina iftiʀ unif * faþur * sin * uk * iftiʀ * onsur * bunta * sin * raþ, , þisiProject Samnordisk Runtextdatabas Svensk
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Rundata The Scandinavian Runic-text Database () is a project involving the creation and maintenance of a database of transliterated runic inscriptions. The project's goal is to comprehensively catalog runestones in a machine-readable way for future resea ...

entry for U 328.

Old Norse transcription

:''Gyrið ok Guðlaug þaʀ letu ræisa stæin þenna æftiʀ Onæm(?), faður sinn, ok æftiʀ Ansur, bonda sinn. Rað þessi!''

English translation

:Gyríðr and Guðlaug, they had this stone raised in memory of Ónæmr(?), their father and in memory of Andsvarr, their husbandman. Interpret these!

Notes and references