Study › Runes & Norse › The Runes That Were Only Cracks
For centuries a rock at Runamo in Sweden was thought to carry runes. In 1836 a chemist showed they were natural cracks.
The Runamo "inscription"
For centuries a rock at Runamo in southern Sweden was thought to carry a runic inscription; in the 12th century Saxo Grammaticus already wrote that it was too worn to read. In the 1830s the scholar Finnur Magnússon "translated" it as a poem about the legendary king Harald Wartooth. In 1836 the chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius showed that the "runes" were natural cracks in the stone, and the sensation became a scandal.
Read Harald Wartooth and the Kensington Runestone.
Questions
Who showed the Runamo runes were cracks?
The chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius, in 1836.
What was it "translated" as?
A poem about the legendary king Harald Wartooth.