Bolsta Runestones

The Bolsta Runestones are two Viking Age memorial runestones and two fragments of a third that are located in Bolsta, which is on the east edge of Uppsala, Uppsala County, Sweden, and in the historic province of Uppland. One runestone is signed by the runemaster with the normalized name of Åsmund Kåresson and the other by the runemaster named Öpir.

Upplands Runic Inscription 968 or U 968 is the Rundata catalog listing for two fragments of a runestone that are 0.6 and 0.8 meters in height. The inscription consists of runic text carved in the younger futhark on a serpent. The inscription was recorded during the initial Swedish runestone surveys of the 1600s, but the stone later disappeared. Before the historic nature of runestones was understood, they were often reused as materials in the construction of churches, buildings, and walls. Two fragments of the stone were found in the basement of a village house in the 1880s, and are now located on private property. The inscription is classified as being carved in runestone style Pr4, which also known as Urnes style. This runestone style is characterized by slim and stylized animals that are interwoven into tight patterns. The animal heads are typically seen in profile with slender almond-shaped eyes and upwardly curled appendages on the noses and the necks.

The runic text is based upon the recorded text from the 1600s with sections that are today missing from the two fragments shown below within brackets. The test indicates that the stone was raised as a memorial by two brothers named Stóði and Sigdjarfr and their father Þorgerðr in memory of a brother named Eistulfr. The runic text leaves off a conjunction ok ("and") between two of the names of the sponsors, which has been added in the transcription into Old Norse below. It has been noted that the runemasters Öpir and Åsmund left off a conjunction between the name of sponsors on some twenty inscriptions in Uppland, but since there are some examples of other runemasters also leaving off conjunctions, this is not a sufficient basis for attribution of the carver of U 968.

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