The inscription is dated to the early 11^th century, and is beautyfully enclosed in a characteristic snake/dragon. The inscription also shows scenes from the Sigurd-saga: the killing of Favner, the decapitation of Regin, Sigurd roasting the dragons heart and listening to the birds speech and his horse, Grane. The inscription is a "bridge-inscription": it was very popular to "dedicate" bridges to dead relatives and to erect stones not only to commemorate the dead but also to show who built which bridge and for what reason. A picture of this particular inscription can be found in Turville-Petres "Myth and Religion of the North" on picture 32.

sirithir.kiarthi.bur.thosi.muthir.alriks.tutiR.urms.fur.salu.hulmkirs.fathur.suk.ruthar.buata.sis

sigrid.made.bridge.this.mother.alriks.daughter.Orms. for.soul.holmgers.father.sigroeds.husband.her

i.e. Sigrid, Alriks mother, Orms daughter made this bridge for her husband, Holmgers, father of Sigoerd, soul.

Consider this: Runes were used (to our knowledge) from about 200 AD until about 1100. If there were 100 people who possessed the knowlegde of writing runes in Europe, and these made one inscription each every year, we end up with some 90 000 inscriptions. If the average rate of inscriptions per inscriber was two a year, the sum doubles. It is a pity that they did not use stone for all of their work- then we would know a lot more about the days and ways of our ancestors...

frazze@ludd.luth.se