Nytt om runer 17 (2002, publ. 2004), 18–19

A Runic Fragment from Orkney

In July 2001 Christopher Gee and a companion were walking near Breckness House, west of Stromness, Orkney (National Grid Reference HY 225093), when they came upon a fragment of sandstone with the remains of a runic inscription. It was passed on to the Orkney Museum, Kirkwall (entry no. 1203). The stone was among a pile from a dyke (a dry-stone wall) that had fallen down some years earlier. This was presumably a secondary use, and we know nothing of the stone's primary context. Breckness House, now in ruins, was a seventeenth-century structure which replaced a former building. Close by is what is left of a broch (a local type of fortress), which shows that the land was occupied from early times. Ordnance Survey maps record a chapel and a burial ground just south of the house; there is thus a possible ecclesiastical context for the stone.

The fragment is broken on all sides. What remains is c. 14 × 6 × 9 cm. The runes were cut casually across its face without framing lines. Tops of all surviving graphs are lost. Such bases as remain are not in precise alignment, so it is hard to reconstruct damaged forms. There are remains of seven letters: —?þ??br???—. Rune 1 is a fragmentary vertical and bow which, from comparison with rune 4, b, must have been þ. Runes 2 and 3 are now plain verticals (thus ii), but the distance between them suggests there was a right-hand branch to 2 or a left-hand one to 3, now lost. In fact, a very faint line slopes from top right to bottom left (thus ki or it) but it is most likely this is a casual scratch. Rune 4 is a clear b, in part double-cut. Rune 5 is a badly formed r. Rune 6 is a problem. It has a vertical with two branches sloping upwards to the right: f. But the lower branch also appears to continue downward to the left of the vertical, which, if intended, could imply a bind rune a^f or æ^f (or theoretically the reverse f^a, f^æ). Yet the relatively short distance between rune 5 and the vertical of rune 6 may indicate that this line is an accidental overcut. Rune 7 is badly damaged but appears to be the remains of u or less likely r (of a different form from rune 5). There is no way of knowing what may have been lost at beginning and end of this sequence.

With all these uncertainties it is unlikely that this new Orkney discovery (OR 20) will provide more than an additional find spot on a distribution map. Likely readings for runes 1–5 are þiibr, þkibr, þitbr. Accepting runes 6 and 7 as f and u we get the sequences þiibrfu, þkibrfu, þitbrfu. Taking rune 6 as the bind rune a^f or æ^f we have the further complexities þiibra^fu, þkibra^fu, þitbra^fu, þiibræ^fu, þkibræ^fu, þitbræ^fu, and double this number if we admit the possibilities f^a, f^æ. With the perhaps unlikely identification of rune 7 as r there comes a further set of sequences. None of these suggestions makes immediate sense, so we content ourselves with the longest of long shots: the inscription is the remains of a memorial slab text lak]þi ibr fu[kl 'placed over Fugl', though the spelling ibr for yfir needs a deal of justifying.

M. P. Barnes, University College London
R. I. Page, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

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