Oseberg Viking Heritage’s newly hired event coordinator, Knut Roger Brekke (32), has, of all things, written a master’s thesis on runes! Let’s dive straight into Knifr Mælti – What the Knife Told.
Text: Einar Chr. Erlingsen
That is, in fact, the title of Knut Roger’s master’s thesis. And the knife had quite a lot to tell. Especially during the excavations at Bryggen in Bergen, where hundreds of small sticks and wooden fragments with rune inscriptions were discovered. These functioned as a Viking Age/medieval form of SMS – short messages that were sent and received. Much like text messages today, the content varied greatly. Some inscriptions recorded sexual conquests, magical spells, drunken ramblings, or complaints. Others resembled a form of graffiti – incomprehensible to the uninitiated.
Bergen boasts the world’s largest collection of such inscriptions, with around 700 examples. However, similar finds have been made in other medieval towns in Norway, such as Oslo, Trondheim, and notably Tønsberg. Recently, another decorated wooden fragment was found there—not with runes but featuring the prow of a Viking ship.
Sex and Scandal
It was therefore a multifaceted world that Knut Roger chose to explore in his analysis of these inscriptions.
It turned out that messages with more or less direct references to sex and chaos were often the ones that contained complete and comprehensible texts. One such example reads: Gyda says you should go home. One can only imagine who the recipient was and why Gyda thought it was time for him to wrap up whatever he was doing.
“These types of inscriptions have often shaped our perception of how runes were used in the Viking Age and early Middle Ages,” Knut Roger comments. “However, most inscriptions seem to reflect a learning process—someone practicing the art of carving runes.”
Thus, Knut Roger concludes that we today might be missing a medium for communicating runes.
“It’s reasonable to think that wax tablets could have served as such a medium: easy to inscribe texts into but, unfortunately, also perishable.”
This theory is supported by archaeological finds from the Swedish sites of Birka and Sigtuna. In the latter, styluses—writing instruments used to carve into wax tablets—have even been discovered.
An Exciting Job
At the Oseberg Viking Heritage Foundation, Knut Roger will be responsible for organizing events and other activities, overseeing the booking schedule, and ensuring that our ships are always crewed. “I’m really looking forward to this—it’s something truly unique. There aren’t many places in the world where you can go sailing on a Viking ship. And on top of that, it happens in the very heart of the Viking world; no other place can compete with Vestfold when it comes to spectacular Viking Age finds.”
Knut Roger Brekke has a background as the leader of Borrefylkingen, an active group that trains in Viking combat techniques. His passion for history has been with him since childhood, and he never ceases to be fascinated by the Viking Age with its dramas, adventures, and craftsmanship. Now, he wants to share that fascination with others through his new job.
