Comments

1. #1 David

   November 2, 2009

   It is also of course irefutable proof that Wolverine is much older than Marvel currently thinks. A new origin story seems necessary.

2. #2 Martin R

   November 2, 2009

   I really wonder where those claws go when he retracts them.

3. #3 kai

   November 2, 2009

   I think that “alphabet magic” is just because he kept his finger on the key for too long and runestones are so hard to erase on.

   More seriously, is it common that rune stones are that difficult to understand?

4. #4 Martin R

   November 2, 2009

   Yeah, the early ones are often quite impenetrable. Try writing English without spaces, without punctuation, without any standardised orthography, with some characters representing entire words, and with repeated characters (as in “the end”) compressing into single ones (“thend”). I often get the feeling that early runic writing was not actually intended to be read by people.

5. #5 Brian

   November 2, 2009

   Do we know if there may have been a small class of specialists whose job it was to produce and interpret such writing, like the scribes of various ancient Near Eastern civilizations?

6. #6 Martin R

   November 2, 2009

   The current idea is that there were no specialised scribes, but that literacy was restricted to aristocrats and artisans involved in fine metalwork. This is the 5th century, when rune stones such as the one from Hogganvik (and indeed all runic inscriptions) are extremely rare. In the 11th century, when rune stones are erected everywhere and generally quite easy to decipher, it seems that there were professional rune stone carvers and that pretty much everybody could read.

7. #7 kai

   November 2, 2009

   Oh, so the early rune scribes operated on the same principle as Owl—they could write as long as no one else could read… We now await the finding of a rune stone saying ”Hätila ragulpr på fåtskliaben”.

8. #8 Martin R

   November 2, 2009

   Hipy Papy Bthuthdth Thuthda Bthuthdy!

9. #9 morejello

   November 4, 2009

   Martin Wrote:
   “Try writing English without spaces, without punctuation, without any standardised orthography, with some characters representing entire words, and with repeated characters (as in “the end”) compressing into single ones (“thend”). ”

   Ah! It’s like texting with a teenager. Just get 2 13 year old girls, and you’ll have it translated in no time.

10. #10 Martin R

    November 4, 2009

    Haha, Jello, well put!

11. #11 Angantyr

    April 2, 2010

    I, myself, am nothing even close to a rune scholar, but I have heard that nauðigastir might be some sort of poetic way of referring to a dead person, the guest of need, I guess it would be like their purpose (needs) on midgarðR had been fulfilled. also maybe the wolverine thing has some connection to the berserk idea of sort of becoming an animal in battle, that’s even more speculative though, because I know that I have never heard of a berserk having connections to wolverines, only bears or wolves.
    just a thought