Kensington Runestone

Historical hoaxes can be so much fun, and certainly the Kensington Runestone ought to count as one of the most whimsical and widely discussed frauds of all time. Google scholar lists 1,010 articles on the subject, and there are numerous books and dissertations about it. The city of Alexandria, Minnesota even has an enormous 28 foot (8.5 meter) statue called “Big Ole” dedicated to the conclusions promoted by believers in the Kensington Runestone that Alexandria is “the birthplace of America”. (See Big Ole’s shield.)

The Kensington Runestone was allegedly found by the Swedish immigrant Olof Ohman in a farm field under a poplar tree, bound up in the tree’s roots, in 1898. Made of a type of sandstone called greywacke, the 76 cm stone (30 inches) was carved with Nordic runes. Ohman sold the 200-pound rock to a man named Hjalmar Holand, who became the Runestone’s chief advocate.

The runes translated to a message that in the year 1362, 22 Norwegians and 8 Geats (Medieval Swedes) had explored the area, fought with “10 men red of blood,” and left.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, European nationalism was very high, and the travels of Leif Ericson to North America and the Vikings were proudly promoted by people of Scandinavian ancestry. This likely generated either the wishful thinking or the germ of a joke that got out of hand for Ohman and his friends. It turns out that the runes on the stone were written in a way that matched the grammar of 19th-century Swedish. Moreover, the runes appeared to have been carved more recently than a Medieval origin would suggest. Also, the testimony of Ohman didn’t match up with other evidence (for instance he said he didn’t know any runes but possessed a book about translating runes).

So, the Kensington Runestone is a fake, but it is still an interesting piece of history — telling more about Swedish-American identity in the turn of the 20th century than about Medieval Scandinavians in America.

There’s even been a musical about it: “Runestone! A Rock Musical!” I, for one, aim to visit the Kensington Runestone in the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce and Runestone Museum one day.