Gök Runestone

The Sigurd stones form a group of seven or eight runestones and one picture stone that depict imagery from the legend of Sigurd the dragon slayer. They were made during the Viking Age and they constitute the earliest Norse representations of the matter of the Nibelungenlied and the Sigurd legends in the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda and the Völsunga saga.

In parts of Great Britain under Norse culture, the figure of Sigurd sucking the dragon's blood from his thumb appears on several carved stones, at Ripon and Kirby Hill, North Yorkshire, at York and at Halton, Lancashire. Carved slates from the Isle of Man, broadly dated c. 950–1000, include several pieces interpreted as showing episodes from the Sigurd story.

This runestone is in runestone style Pr2. It was found in Drävle, but in 1878 it was moved to the courtyard of the manor house Göksbo in the vicinity where it is presently raised. It has an image of Sigurd who thrusts his sword through the serpent, and the dwarf Andvari, as well as the Valkyrie Sigrdrífa who gives Sigurd a drinking horn.

The runestone has a stylized Christian cross, as do a number of the Sigurd stones. Sigurd runestones with crosses are taken as evidence of the acceptance and use of legends from the Volsung saga by Christianity during the transition period from Norse paganism. Other Sigurd stones with crosses in their designs include U 1175, Sö 327, Gs 2, and Gs 9.

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