Die semantisch lesbaren Inschriften auf Goldbrakteaten

‘Giving’ and ‘Making’ in Early Runic Epigraphy

“…Classical horse‐and‐rider amulets, in comparison, usually feature the names of figures such as King Solomon or invocations of God – not fabricatory expressions; see Bonner (: nos 294ff.). The Tjurkö legend was clearly composed in a rhythmic, poetic manner, though: w urtē and w alhakurnē alliterate, ‘foreign‐corn’ has usually been taken to represent an allusive reference to ‘gold’ (and hence metonymically the bracteate), and the mannered syntax evidently represents a distraction of the alliterating line wurtē rūnō r an walhakurnē from its logically expected position between its subject Helda r and its indirect object Kunimu(n)diu (or vice versa); see Salberger (), Naumann (: 698, : 152), Spurkland (: 28–30), MacLeod & Mees (: 95), Beck (: 14–15), Mees (: 216, : 79), Düwel (: 51–2) and Düwel & Nowak (: 403–9) . We seem only to be being afforded access to a functionally basic part of a broader magico‐religious background by Helda r – a context we are not immediately privy to today which supplied the rest of the amuletic meaning to a fifth‐ or sixth‐century audience.…”

“…OE gifeðe ‘(what is) given, granted by fate’), but early runic auja does not necessarily indicate what particular kind of benefit (or favour) Helda r intended to be accorded Kunimundu r at Tjurkö; cf. Hallberg () and Düwel & Novak (: 413).…”

“…Yet the general meaning of the Nebenstedt text seems clear enough: glïaugi r u ïurṇ r is reasonably taken to represent Glī(j)augi r wī(j)u r(ū)n(ō) r , ‘(I,) Glijaugi r , consecrated runes’; see Krause & Jankuhn (: no. 133), Düwel (: 47–9) and Düwel & Nowak (: 434–9) . Only the appearance of a single l ‐rune at the end of the inscription suggests what benefit may have been intended by the composition of the amulet's text, the appearance of the terms laþu ‘invocation’ or more commonly lauka r ‘leek’ (the latter presumably as a metonym for fertility) being fairly common in bracteate texts; see Düwel (; : 75–6; : 47–9), MacLeod & Mees (: 95) and cf.…”

“…Grønvik's (: 222–3) unparalleled interpretation of ụuilald(u) as hwīlaldu ‘kvilefolket’. A reading of the bracteate legend which begins from its loop (as is favoured by Düwel & Nowak : 423–30) assumes an unexplained verb‐first syntax, but would not affect the overall semantic interpretation of the text.…”

“…Indeed the syntax so disturbedGrønvik (1987: 148-57) that he sought to read the lines with the (obvious) onomastic elements first, a recourse that has not been followed by subsequent interpreters (seeDu¨wel & Nowak 2011: 405, n. 115, although cf. Spurkland 2005).…”