Further Thoughts on E18 Saltfleetby. Futhark 9–10 (2018–2019)

The article reconsiders some of the runological, linguistic and cultural aspects of the 2010 find in Lincolnshire, England, of a lead spindle whorl inscribed with Scan di navian runes. In particular, the discussion leads to the conclusion that the inscription, which appears to mention the god-names Óðinn and Heim­ dallr, may be somewhat later than previously thought (late eleventh or even twelfth century) and that it does not necessarily provide evidence for heathen be liefs in Lincolnshire at the time.

Hines does not provide a transrunification, though he does provide (p. 120) his own drawing of the inscription and also comments on some, though not all, of the rune forms. There are some excellent photographs on the Portable Antiquities Scheme website (PAS ID LIN-D92A22), allowing some of the details of the object to be presented in a way that will further runo logical and historical discussion.
Based on these photographs, and with the proviso that personal exami na tion might suggest different readings, the following trans runi fication and transliteration are proposed (with the English translation left for the moment as proposed by Hines): A × oþen ᛫ ok ᛫ einmtalr ᛫ ok : þalfa ᛫ þeir B ielba ᛫ þeruolfl(t)  (o)k  kiriuesf Line A of the inscription is cut around the wall of the spindle whorl, while Line B is on the flat face, which would normally face upwards when in use. Runes 39 and 40 are presented here as uncertain because the photographs make it difficult to assess the presence of possible branches ( fig. 1). Runes 12 and 18, that Hines transliterates as a in einmtalr and in the first vowel of þalfa, are presented in his drawing as the fourth rune Í (which he other wise transliterates as o) - this is presumably an error, since his trans lit erations in these instances are correct even though the drawing is not. Other differences between the transrunification proposed above and Hines's drawing are a matter of judgement, such as whether these and other a-runes are long-branch or short-twig when the branch crosses the stave A xÍêeN*Í¯*eIN·tƒlÔ*Í¯:dƒlFƒ*êeIR  only slightly. It is my judge ment that the a and nrunes in this inscrip tion are intended to be one-sided (contra Hines 2017, 119; see e.g. figs 1 and 2). I would also suggest that Hines makes too much of the "Dan ish" (i.e. longbranch) character of the inscription, disregarding the cogent argu ments made by Michael Barnes (2006, 20-22) for an "alpha bet continuum" which rec og nises the diversity of rune forms found in actual inscriptions, rather than a rigid adherence to the concepts of "long-branch" and "short-twig" derived from modern standardised futharks. This approach may have conse quences for understanding the inscription, as discussed below.

Interpretation
The most striking part of the inscription as read by Hines is the first word, which he interprets as the god-name Óðinn. A genuine runic reference to this heathen god in the Viking Age, anywhere, let alone in England, with its few inscriptions and general lack of evidence for the Norse gods (Jesch 2011), does indeed "create astonishment" (Hines 2017, 125). It is per haps equally astonishing if the second word does represent the god-name Heim dallr, as this name does not to my knowledge occur in any runic inscription (on the god more generally, see Cöllen 2015). Thus it is important to understand the Saltfleetby inscription as best we can, not least in view of the interest it has sparked among non-runologists, both academic and in the general public. Hines's analysis and overall inter pretation of the in scription are in general perfectly reasonable and quite cautious, and he rec ognises that some parts of it must remain uninter pretable for the time being. How ever, his conclusion that the inscription provides "evidence for a genuine ritual adherence to the pre-Christian deities" (Hines 2017, 125) is open to question. He arrives at this conclusion despite drawing attention to a complicating chronological paradox: "Archae ologically, it would be very surprising if the Saltfleetby inscription had been made as late as the post-Conquest period [i.e. after 1066] . . . al though both runographically and philologically that would be a very com fortable dating". This object itself is a spindle whorl of type A1, which could date from 600-1000, but per haps most likely from the tenth century (Hines 2017, 122). 1 Apparently, there fore, we have an eleventh-century in scrip tion on a tenth-century object, although Hines passes rather lightly over the possibility that the inscrip tion could have been added later to a pre-existing object. There is no shortage of runic inscriptions made on objects of an earlier date, however a dating of the inscription to the eleventh century "at the earliest" would make Hines's argument (2017, 125) of "genuine ritual adherence to the pre-Christian deities" quite problematic.
We do not know when the Scandinavian settlers of Lincolnshire converted to Christianity, and no doubt the process was not even across this large county, but most historians would be surprised to find evidence of genuine paganism there in the eleventh century, let alone any later (Abrams 2000, 2014, Barrow 2000. Hines addresses this by proposing (2017, 125) that "the object and its inscription may represent individuality and non-conformity . . . rather than a hitherto unsuspected, general cultural cleft in that context". However, the runological evidence considered below suggests that a better explanation would involve a later dating of the inscription, perhaps as late as the twelfth century, and an acceptance that a mention of Óðinn is not necessarily evidence for "genuine ritual adherence" to heathen deities. 2 Starting with that all-important first word, Hines notes (2017, 119) that oþen is "a known runic spelling of the name of the god" ( fig. 3). What he does not mention is that the two instances of this runic spelling which indubitably refer to the god occur in medieval inscriptions from Bergen in Norway, one dated to the twelfth and one to the fourteenth century (discussed below). 3 Hines does discuss the eighth-century skull from Ribe (DR EM85;151B; Søvsø 2013) which has the third indubitable runic reference to Óðinn, but does not mention that it spells the name as uþin, as indeed would be expected in the early Viking Age. 4 Before turning to the two medieval Norwegian inscriptions, it is worth pausing to consider this and other relevant spellings. Other than on the Ribe skull, the name Óðinn does not occur as a simplex in any runic inscriptions from the Viking Age. It may however occur as the first element in two personal names, m. Óðinkárr which occurs in four Danish inscriptions, always spelled uþinkaur (DR 4, DR 81, DR 133, DR 239) and f. Óðindísa spelled oþintisu in an oblique case on Vs 24. The former name also occurs in a medieval inscription from Norway where it is spelled oþinkar (N 3). 5 In relation to this orthography it is worth noting the spelling of the personal name Loðinn. Although its first vowel, unlike that of Óðinn, is short, it follows the same pattern in that this vowel is generally represented by u in Viking Age inscriptions, i.e. luþin (possibly Sö 16, more certainly U 347, U 592, U 831, N 431), though once loþin (U 405), and always o in medieval inscriptions (loþin N B334 or loden N 69). Also with o, but additionally with a lowered vowel in the unstressed syllable (like Saltfleetby) are three other medieval instances of this name: loþen in N 70, lo͡ þenn N 497, and loþaen in DR 92. Here we might also compare the past participle stroðinn spelled st͡ roþen in N A322. From these forms we would expect the most likely medieval spelling of Óðinn to be oþen and that is indeed what we find in the two Norwegian examples already mentioned, twice in N B241 (the first time using a bind-rune o͡ þen) dated 1375-1400 and once in N B380 dated c. 1185 (both dates are archaeological datings as recorded in the Scandinavian Runic Text Database and may need revision 3 Runic inscriptions discussed in this paper are referred to, where available, by the signum identi fier in the Scandinavian Runic Text Data base. Where statements are made about the number of examples of a particular spelling, for example, these are based on searches conducted in the Scandinavian Runic Text Data base. 4 I follow runological practice in using 'Viking Age' to refer to inscriptions from before c. 1050/1100 and 'medieval' for those dated to later than that. 5 On whether the first element in these names is actually the same as the god-name, see the brief discussion with references in Insley 1994, 85 note 187. in the light of further research). Furthermore, óðinsdaginn 'Wednesday' is spelled oþesndhen in the fourteenth-century N 179. Overall, the use of o for the stressed vowel is more likely to be medieval, though Vs 24 and U 405 suggest that a (late?) Viking Age date cannot be completely ruled out. Hines (2017, 120) notes that "The e in the second, unstressed syllable in oþen can be explained in terms of regular sound-change either as the 'harmonisation' of the unstressed vowel to the middle back vowel [o:] in the first syllable or as reduction of [i] to [ə] under low stress" (refer ring to Seip 1955, 128, 132-37). However, he does not comment on the chronol ogy of these sound changes, nor indeed on the fact that he is using Nor wegian sound changes to explain an inscription he sees as most likely Danish (Hines 2017, 123). Seip (1955, 128) dates the first of these options (vowel harmony) to the twelfth century, but it is of course a phenomenon found in certain dialects of Norway and not across the Viking world, and in any case its age is uncertain. The second option, the reduction of the vowel in a position of low stress, is also dated to the twelfth century (Seip 1955, 132) in a Norwegian context, but again more in some dialects than others. In runic inscriptions, Viking Age examples of inn spelled as -en seem to be restricted to the reflexive possessive sinn (many examples). In un stressed syllables (mainly the suffixed definite article, or the suffix in dróttinn), there are many runic examples, mostly from Norway, but all are medieval (DR 169,N 170,N 179,N 291,N 309,N 319,N 393,N 606, N A49, N A208, N A322). On this evidence, oþen in the Saltfleetby inscription is looking more like a post-Viking Age form than one from the Viking Age, even the late Viking Age, and appears also to fit comfortably in a Nor wegian context.
At this point it is worth a brief detour to note that the name Óðinn does occur in Viking Age sources from England, in texts written by English men that nevertheless reveal their knowledge of Norse linguistic forms. The tenth-century chronicler AEthel weard, writing in Latin, used what Townend (2002, 122) has called a "compromise form arising from the coexistence of competing English and Norse forms of the same name", namely Vuothen in which "initial OE w is preserved, but medial ON ð introduced in place of OE d." Although Townend does not comment on the vowel of the second syllable, he seems to think it represents the same vowel as in Old English Wōden. While it is conceivable that Saltfleetby con tains some similarly hybrid form, it seems unlikely that such a hybrid would show loss of the initial consonant in the stressed syllable while retaining the vowel of the unstressed second syllable. The late tenth-and early eleventh-century homilists AElfric and Wulfstan both refer to Óðon or Oðon in their Old English homilies De falsis diis, specifying that this name is in the Danish language (Townend 2002, 129 f., 138 f.). A further tenthcentury document (the Latin Historia de Sancto Cuthberto) has the form Othan (Townend 2002, 141 f.). These forms, if indeed they do represent Scan di navian speech, all lack the initial Old English w, and seem to confirm that the Salt fleet by form is not that of an English speaker. More like the Salt fleetby inscrip tion is the earliest recorded spelling of the North Yorkshire place-name Rose berry Topping, which is Othenes berg in 1119 (Smith 1928, 164; the process by which the current name is derived is ex plained in Rye 2014, 21 f.), as also noted by Hines (2017, 124). This is in a region with extensive Scan di navian settlement as suggested by the place-names, and it is likely that this spelling reflects the local pronunciation at the time. Somewhat earlier, Domesday Book for Lincolnshire records in 1086 a number of people called Odincar or Odincarl(e), with medial ð re presented by d as is common in that text (Fellows Jensen 1968, xcii f., 203 f.). 6 In an English context, however, the spelling oþen could also represent a different name entirely, namely Auðun, frequent in Old West Norse (Lind 1915, cols 102-06). In his discussion of this name, John Insley (1994, 84-86)  Also relevant to the dating of the Saltfleetby inscription is Hines's com ment (2017, 120 f.) that the masculine nominative singular ending of einmtalr is expressed by the fifth rune r rather than the sixteenth rune R and the fact that this usage is "common in later Viking-period inscriptions". He seems to base this comment on his already-noted assumption that the inscription is in long-branch runes and therefore most likely to be of Danish origin. The phoneme /ʀ/ coalesced with /r/ much earlier in western Scandinavia than in the east and the product was represented by r, not ʀ (Larsson 2002, 132). This word, if it does indeed represent the god-name Heimdallr, could as well be a medieval Norwegian spelling: compare alr for the adjective allr in N 122 and halr for the personal name Hallr in N A138 dated to 1225-75 and also in N A296 where it represents the noun or adjective hallr.
Finally, Hines points to the spelling of hjálpa as ielba ( fig. 3) and asserts (2017, 121) that Saltfleetby "provides unusually, but not implausibly, early evidence" for the raising of "the erstwhile jadiphthong" as in the modern Scandi navian languages. How unusual the spelling is does depend on the date of Salfleetby. The verb hjálpa is very common in runic inscriptions and although forms with hialb-are predominant, there is a wide variety of spellings and both the loss of h and various representations of the rising diph thong can be found.  U 323, U 338, U 518, U 681). While this progressive j-mutation is not well docu mented in Norwegian in scrip tions, it does appear in manu scripts from the early 1200s onwards (Hag land 2013, 622). Thus, the particular form of Salt fleetby (i.e. ielba) is inconclusive regarding the date of the inscrip tion. If Viking Age, it may sug gest a carver using East Norse forms, in con trast to the other spellings discussed above, but if later, it would, like the other spellings, conform to a later, possibly more West Norse form of the language. It is worth noting that, in runic usage, the subject of the verb 'to help' is almost universally a Christian deity, figure or abstraction. An exception is the aforementioned Ribe skull, the exact interpretation of which is uncertain, but in which there seems to be a connection between the runic sequence ʜiᴀlb, whether noun or verb, and the three names pre ceding it, one of which is Óðinn, as already mentioned. Overall, the evi dence suggests a later date rather than an earlier one, most likely medieval rather than Viking Age.

Discussion
Since we have relatively little comparative material, we cannot rule out either a Scandinavian speaker from Lincolnshire or a visiting Scandi navian as the carver of the inscription, though given the very local nature of the object (Hines 2017, 122), any such person carving in Norway or Denmark must be less likely. As to whether this person was pagan or Christian, we can not know for certain, though it is worth noting that the two Norwegian in scrip tions which mention Óðinn are from well within the Christian period. Explicitly Christian is N B241 (a six-sided rune stick dated to the last quarter of the fourteenth century), in which Óðinn is called upon to reveal the name of a thief fyr kristni 'for (the sake of) Christianity' and con cludes with (a conjectural) Amen. N B380 (a rune stick dated to ca. 1185) is closer in date to Saltfleetby and is a simple invocation to the two best-known gods: haeil ⁝ se þu : ok : i huhum : goþom | þor : þik : þig⁝gi : oþen : þik ⁝ aeihi : Heil(l) sé þú ok í hugum góðum. Þórr þik þiggi, Óðinn þik eigi.
May you be healthy and in good spirits. 7 May Þórr receive you, may Óðinn own you.
This seems very close in spirit and function to the Saltfleetby inscription.
There is evidence that Scandinavians in England did not shy away from referring to their heathen gods in certain contexts even when they were Christians (Jesch 2001, 319 f.;2004;Abrams 2014, 337). Both Óðinn and Heimdallr are thought to be depicted on Viking Age but Christian sculptured monuments from northern England and the Isle of Man (as argued by Kopár 2012, 12, 64, 72, 79, 91 f., 103, 110-23, andWilson 2018, 106-09;Cöllen 2015, 173 f. is more skeptical about depictions of Heimdallr). Moreover, much Old Norse literature shows that the Icelanders and Nor wegians did not forget the old deities for a long time after their conversion. Both these parallels and the runic evidence suggest that the Saltfleetby inscription could easily have been carved by a Scandinavian-speaking Christian resident of either Lincolnshire or Norway in the twelfth century (with Den mark possible but less likely). That there were contacts between these two regions we know from the career of Earl Rǫgnvaldr of Orkney, who knew and used runes, and sailed from Bergen to Grimsby, less than 30 kilo metres north of Saltfleetby, in the 1140s, and who also referred to Old Norse mythology in his poetry (Jesch 2015, 147-50). Slightly later, per haps around the year 1200, the undoubtedly Christian bishop of Orkney Bjarni Kolbeinsson specifically invokes Óðinn in his skaldic poem Jóms víkinga drápa (Jesch 2015, 148). But probably the direct connection with Norway is the most relevant: Norwegian merchants were frequent enough in Grims by in the third quarter of the twelfth century for King Henry II to issue a writ enforcing the right of the reeves of Lincoln to take tolls from them (Douglas andGreenaway 1981, 1039 f.).
Even if this suggested redating of its inscription to the twelfth century is correct, the Saltfleetby spindle whorl remains mysterious. If this dating is incompatible with the archaeological dating of the object, do we have a later inscription added to an earlier object, or should we ask the archae ologists to revisit the dating of the object? In this matter I am not compe tent to judge, but regardless of its date, other questions suggest them selves. Why is there apparently an invocation to Heimdallr, a god not other wise invoked in runic inscriptions? Who or what is Þalfa? Can any sense be made of the last eight runes? There is certainly still much food for further thought. Until further elucidations, I hope at least to have shown that we should not automatically assume that the mention of a Norse god in a runic inscription is necessarily evidence for heathen belief and custom, and that such mentions could happen well after the official conversion to Christianity, even in the Viking diaspora.