TRAGEDY OF LONG AGO

Evening Star, Issue 21078, 15 April 1932, Page 6

TRAGEDY OF LONG AGO

THIRST FOR VENGEANCE REMARKABLE MONUMENT A dark family tragedy which occurred eleven centuries ago, thirst for vengeance,- arid weird magic spell florin the subject of an inscription on the world’s most remarkable rune stone at Roek, in Sweden. 13y a recent decision, of the Government this rune stone will now be removed from its present humble position to a high site overlooking the Ostrogothian Downs, which, slope gently down from the mighty mountain of Omberg. The runic monument is known as the “ Roek Stone,” as it was found in the parish of Roek in Oestergoetland, one of Sweden’s most beautiful and historically interesting provinces. In the midst of the fertile and smiling Ostrogothian plain an ancient cradle of Swedish culture, the stone with > its mystic inscription stands as a sinister memorial of ancient tiriies of violence and family feud. For seventy years experts on runes have grappled with _ the inscription, which includes runes in shorthand, the author being one of the greatest rune masters known to science, but the latest interpretation, which was recently given by Professor 0. V. Friesen, of Upsala University, seems to be the most reliable one, says the Stockholm correspondent of the ‘ Observer, ’i London.

An old man by the name of Yarin, he says, tells in the inscription of how his son was murdered and deplores that he is too old, to , wreak vengeance on the murderer according to the unwritten law of the age. He has,- however, a son of tender age to whom he transfers the sacred duty of revenge. In parts the inscription, numbering some 200 words, runs in alliterative verse, and in its austereness recalls the mystic poetry of / the Icelandic Edda. Tho rune carver has inscribed magic spells and curses against the murderer. He also adds spells intended to give his young son strength and power to take vengeance on behalf of his aged father. A great part of the text consists of a runic cipher, probably witchcrafts shorthand runes, which have long baffled the philologists who have attempted to decipher them and ascertain their hidden meaning. The stone is probably the most interesting and remarkable of all the archaeological remains of Teutonic antiquity, and the runes cut about 800 a.d. are as clean cut and legible as if they had been made yesterday.