We’ve all heard the term “rune,” but mostly in contemporary culture we think about runes being magical symbols, perhaps fitting into the worlds of JRR Tolkien. So I’m here to deliver some bummer history news to fight this stereotype and argue that runes could be much more mundane. However, this lead plaque (dating between the eighth and eleventh century CE), which archaeologists have identified as an Early Medieval “runic curse tablet” that records an Old English statement meaning “the dwarf is dead” makes overturning preconceived notions about runes not so easy.
In 2017-18, the Oxford Archaeology team unearthed this tablet from excavations in Ipswich (at Lower Brook Street, to be specific), and were able to compare the runes with other similar finds from Norfolk and Cambridgeshire and transcribe them into Old English: deadisdwe/erg, or “the dwarf is dead.” The best scholarly interpretations are that the plaque was either a charm to ward off a “dwerg” or “dweorh” or to pray that the dwerg would leave. So far, all this sounds like it’s well within a magical context. No revision of runes-as-fantasy-land-(could-work-in-a-George-Martin-universe) needed.
But. The idea that runes were strictly used for magical purposes is just not the case, because many instances of completely non-supernatural runic inscriptions occur. Futhorc, the “alphabet” of runes used by Germanic language peoples in many parts of northwest Europe (like England), appears in secular contexts as well as supernatural ones. For instance, the runes meaning “dwarf” were likely to have referred to a specific illness which caused paralysis and seizures.
But those who like a little magic with their futhorc can take consolation that the Old English _Lacnunga_ argues that “dwerg/dweorh” was a disease caused by an evil dwarf who uses a sick person to make them his servant. Cure is only possible when the dwarf’s sister or another supernatural person steps up to save the day.
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