The Bergen rune charm is a runic inscription on a piece of wood found among the medieval rune-staves of Bergen. It is noted for its similarities to the Eddaic poem Skírnismál (particularly stanza 36);Klaus von See, Beatrice la Farge, Eve Picard, Ilona Priebe and Katja Schulz, Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda (Heidelberg: Winter, 1997–), II 136-37. as a rare example of a poetic rune-stave inscription; and of runes being used in love magic.
The inscription has number 257 in the Bryggen inscriptions numbering and N B257 (Norway Bryggen no. 257) in the Rundata database, and P 6 in McKinnell, Simek and Düwel's collection.John McKinnell, Rudolf Simek and Klaus Duwel, Runes, Magic and Religion: A Sourcebook, Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia, 10 (Vienna: Fassbaender, 2004), pp. 131-32 [P 6].
It is thought to date from the fourteenth century.1380×90 according to John McKinnell, Rudolf Simek and Klaus Duwel, Runes, Magic and Religion: A Sourcebook, Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia, 10 (Vienna: Fassbaender, 2004), p. 131; but an earlier fourteenth-century date was proposed by the chief excavator: Lorenzo Lozzi Gallo, 'On the Interpretation of ialuns in the Norwegian Runic Text B257', Arkiv för nordisk filologi, 116 (2001), 135-51 (p. 135), http://journals.lub.lu.se/index.php/anf/article/view/11627.
Description The stave is four-sided, with text on each side, but one end is missing, leaving the text of each side incomplete. It is dated to ca. 1335, making it roughly contemporary to the Ribe healing-stick (ca. 1300).
Inscription The Scandinavian Runic-text Database (Rundata) gives the following transliteration, normalization, and translation for the stick:
Translation
Interpretation of McKinnell, Simek, Düwel and Hall As normalised and edited by McKinnell, Simek and Düwel, and 'somewhat tentatively' translated by Hall, the charm reads:John McKinnell, Rudolf Simek and Klaus Duwel, Runes, Magic and Religion: A Sourcebook, Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia, 10 (Vienna: Fassbaender, 2004), pp. 131-32 [P 6]; Alaric Hall, Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Belief, Health, Gender and Identity, Anglo-Saxon Studies, 8 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), p. 134.
Theories In the view of McKinnell, Simek and Düwel,
it is by no means certain that the inscriptions on all four sides of this stick belong to the same charm. A and B look like part of a protective charm against demons, while C and D seem to be love-magic of the most forbidden kind. However, it remains possible that they represent two contrary aspects of the same spell – a blessing if the woman gives her love to the carver combined with a curse if she refuses it.
They point out that the addressee of side D is a woman, on account of the feminine form sjalfri.John McKinnell, Rudolf Simek and Klaus Duwel, Runes, Magic and Religion: A Sourcebook, Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia, 10 (Vienna: Fassbaender, 2004), p. 132.
Parallels It has been noted that the inscription has close parallels to magic charms found in eddic poetry, especially verse 36 of the poem Skírnismál. According to Finnur Jónsson's 1932 edition of the poem and Carolyne Larrington's 2014 translation (with the line breaks adjusted to match the original):
Images There is a photograph of a detail of the stave in Aslak Liestøl, ‘Runer frå Bryggen’, Viking: Tidsskrift for norrøn arkeologi, 27 (1964), 5–53, reproduced in Stephen A. Mitchell, ‘Anaphrodisiac Charms in the Nordic Middle Ages: Impotence, Infertility and Magic’, Norveg, 41 (1998), 19-42 (p. 29).
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References