Message #2558

[Valkyrie]

Further, runes could be coded into other figures, called cryptic runes, where the number of "twigs" in a figure indicated two numbers. The rune was coded by these two numbers. The first represented a particular ætt (grouping of runes within the futhork), and the second indicated which rune in the grouping was meant. Shown to the left are two figures from a series of cryptic runes in an Icelandic manuscript. The two are skiprúnar (ship runes) where the twigs adorn the stem and stern of the ship.
 

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.

The Norse did not develop a written culture until the coming of Christianity and the adoption of the Roman alphabet. Runes were used for short notes only. Runes certainly could have been used for longer messages in the same way as Roman characters. Perhaps the Norse people saw no need to do so. Only a single rune stone containing a complete poem survives, although many stones contain individual verses. In chapter 78 of Egils saga, Þorgerður asks her father Egill to compose a memorial poem, telling him she will carve it into a rune stick (rísta á kefli). Whether that was common practice or not is highly conjectural.

The Rök stone, shown above to the right, is an extraordinary rune stone over four meters high (13 feet) 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.



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