Eggjum stone

The Eggja stone (also known as the Eggum or Eggjum stone), listed as N KJ101 in the Rundata catalog, is a grave stone with a runic inscription that was ploughed up in 1917 on the farm Eggja in Sogndal, Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway.

The Eggja stone was found with the written side downwards over a man's grave (cf. the Kylver stone) which is dated to the period 650-700 C.E. The flat slab of stone is nowadays in Bergen Museum. Having as many as 200 runes, it is the longest known inscription in the Elder Futhark, but certain runes are transitional towards the Younger Futhark.

Many scholarly works have been written about the inscription, but only minor parts of the partially preserved inscription have received an accepted translation. It is generally agreed that it is written in stylized poetry and in a partly metrical form containing a protection for the grave and the description of a funerary rite. However, there are widely diverging interpretations about certain details.

There is also the image of a horse carved into the stone, but it does not appear to have any connection with the inscription.

One suggested translation:

Suggested interpretation: The stone has been prepared in accordance with tradition; the stone is untouched by sunlight, and not cut with iron. It should not be uncovered during the waning moon, and should not be removed from its place.

Someone has stained this stone with blood (kenned as corpse-sea); perhaps as part of a sacrifice to facilitate the passage of the deceased or call on whatever power the inscription is addressed to. The hæráss is the "god of armies" - a psychopomp god which comes to the land of the living (godly ones) to take the deceased to an afterlife. Most likely the shapeshifting, shamanic áss Odin is meant, but the Christian god has absorbed this kenning in later Norse poetry.

The meaning of the alu formula is uncertain, as are the runes spelling it out. See reference sources for more possible translations.

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