GP 5 Alskog Tjängvide I

Context and Discovery
The three stones from Tjängvide gård were first presented and their find circumstances described by Carl Säve in the journal Runa in 1845 (in part identical in Annaler for nordisk oldkyndighed 1852, reproduced in 1993). Pehr Arvid Säve, who made the drawings of the stones, described them in his Berättelser 1863, p. 210 (cf. Gotlands Allehanda 1942-01-29, and Lindqvist 1941/42 II, p. 15). The runic inscriptions are treated extensively in Gotlands runinskrifter (GR I: G 110).
GP 5 Alskog Tjängvide I was found in 1844 or shortly before by farmer Johan Tjängvide and his brother Jakob close to the farmstead, while building a potato cellar. During the excavation work they came upon the foundation walls of a medieval house, and when they broke through this foundation, they discovered that Alskog Tjängvide I was incorporated into the masonry. After the stone was removed, the brothers discovered images and runic characters on it. In the same year, shortly after its discovery, the stone was inspected by Carl Säve. On this occasion, the farmers told him that there was yet another carved stone incorporated into the underground masonry (i.e. GP 6 Alskog Tjängvide II). In 1845, Carl’s brother Pehr Arvid Säve went to the farm in order to excavate the second slab and to make drawings of both stones. This undertaking was made possible thanks to a student-group from Uppsala and Stockholm on a social trip to Lund and Copenhagen via Visby in 1845. One of the students – Carl Säve – told the others about the remarkable, recently found picture stone, but feared that it might be destroyed by weathering before it could be drawn. Upon hearing this, the philologist George Stephens promptly initiated an improvised fundraising in the group, which soon amounted to 37 ½ riksdaler. This sum enabled Pehr Arvid Säve, who had joined the group in Visby, to travel to Alskog and make the drawing on his return to Gotland. As was also desired by the students, description and illustrations were promptly published, in the same year, by Carl Säve – although, unfortunately, Pehr Arvid Säve’s first drawing was inexplicably lost at the printers (C. Säve 1845, 1852; Bergman 1930, p. 22).

The third picture stone fragment from the same farm (GP 7 Alskog Tjängvide III) was then found by Pehr Arvid in another stone foundation nearby and a drawing was made. GP 5 Alskog Tjängvide I, which had been excavated and removed from the masonry in 1844, was kept at the farmstead, protected by a wooden roof, and in 1869 transferred to Statens Historiska Museum in Stockholm. ‘After urgent advice (see among others: C. Säve 1852 p. 206 and P. A. Säve 1864 p. 230) regarding the necessity to afford better protection to this stone and other important picture stones, it was taken to SHM in 1869 (Lindqvist 1941/42 II, pp. 16-17; cf Fornsök L1977:1126 [Alskog 46:1])’. On an inventory card dated 27 July 1869, it is noted that 22 riksdaler were paid for the stone together with a hollowed granite stone (ATA, inventory card Tjengvide, Alskogs socken, ATA serie F1 Alskog P till Ö). The two other picture stones (GP 6 and GP 7), however, remained on site. Alskog Tjängvide III was not removed but left in the masonry due to its large size. The whereabouts of both stones (II and III) are unknown – Pehr Arvid’s sketch-like drawings (reproduced in Lindqvist 1941/42 II, fig. 306–308), measurements, and short remarks are the only documentation available. Carl Säve suspected that the stone pile was a whole conglomerate of cut stone blocks possibly originating in ancient monuments and that more important discoveries could be made if the whole pile was to be investigated (C. Säve 1845, p. 91).

At present, Alskog parish has eight known picture stones from four sites: GP 3 Alskog kyrka, GP 4 Alskog Ollajvs, GP 5 Alskog Tjängvide I, GP 6 Alskog Tjängvide II, GP 7 Alskog Tjängivde III, GP 8 Alskog Visnar ängar 1, GP 9 Alskog Visnar ängar 2 and GP ### Alskog Visnar ängar 3. There is good reason to assume that the stones GP 5, 6 and 7 were originally from Visnar ängar, too. Visnar ängar belonged to the Tjängvide farm according to the first tax assessment written down in the 1600s. Probably the stone fragment GP 8 Alskog Visnar ängar 1 is the root of GP 5 Alskog Tjängvide I (see the digital reconstruction alignment made by Mike Fergusson).

Carl Säve commented on the find circumstances, in the floor of a medieval house, by suggesting that in a period of transition between pagan religion and Christianity, the owner of the stone chose a middle way: the owner let the pagan monument disappear, but at the same time avoided to destroy his ancestors’ memorials, by inserting it into the foundation of his own house (C. Säve 1845, p. 92). In addition, Carl Säve commented that the parish Alskog is situated near a natural harbour on the east coast, protected by islands, and that it has an abundance of rich and varied ancient remains (C. Säve 1845, p. 92). Alskog Tjängvide I apparently made a deep impression when it became known to the public. As a curiosity, it might be mentioned that the Tjängvide stone served as a model in a novel by the famous 19th century poet Viktor Rydberg (Salberger 1976, p. 47). The eight-legged horse for a long time served as the logotype for the National History Museum in Stockholm (Widerström 2012, p. 40).

LKÅ / SO

Measurements, Material and Condition
Height 1.74 m, width 1.21 m at the neck, thickness in the upper part c. 0.2 m, thickness in the lower part c. 0.3 m. The height of the head, measured from the upper edge of the sail, is 0.97 m (Lindqvist 1941/42 II, p. 16; GR I, p. 194). A large piece is lost below the ship in the lower part of the stone. The edges have been cut straight and thus lost the ‘ears’. As the stones Alskog Tjängvide I and Ardre VIII (GP 21) by all probability have been made by the same carver or workshop (see below), the original shape and dimensions of the stone probably were similar to those of GP 21 Ardre VIII, or it might have been even larger. If it is assumed that a motif panel and a border are lacking below the ship, the original total height of the stone might have been 2.50 m (GR I, p. 194).

The farmer, and finder of the stone, Johan Tjängvide, told Carl Säve that the stone was complete when found, except that two pieces were broken off by the hits of the iron rod before they discovered that there were carvings on the stone, whereupon they took care of the pieces. According to the description by the farmer’s brother, Jakob Tjängvide, they first found pieces of plaster with imprints of carvings from the underlying stone, implying that the picture stone must at least partly have been covered with plaster (C. Säve 1845, p. 83; Säve 1852, p. 175; GR I, p. 191). Carl Säve meant that the lower part of the stone, a considerable piece, had been lost before its insertion into the wall, based on the similarity in colour between the carving surface and the cleavage surface (C. Säve 1845, p. 87). The carving surface is more worn on the left side than on the right side (C. Säve 1845, p. 83; GR I, p. 194). Judging by Carl Säve, the stone has been lying in the floor of a medieval stone house with the carving surface upwards and heavily exposed to wearing and decomposition by treading. He found the stone material to be porous and likely to crumb, and fearing that it should be destroyed, he immediately made a first drawing to call attention to the find (C. Säve 1845, p. 89). As mentioned above, Pehr Arvid Säve undertook to make a more detailed drawing of the stone. On his return in the same year as it was found, Pehr Arvid Säve found the stone badly damaged by sun, rain and frost, but in other aspects well protected by the owner and his brother, for whom he only had good words. On this occasion, Pehr Arvid Säve paid for a lid for the stone (C. Säve 1845, p. 91; GR I, pp. 191–193). Unfortunately, Pehr Arvid Säve’s drawing was lost at the printer’s and had to be replaced in 1846 (GR I, p. 191 note 1, p. 193 note 1). Carl Säve also noticed the deterioration of the stone in the short time between his visits, for example by comparing his own drawings of the runes. He remarks that the artist in 1845, i.e. his brother Pehr Arvid, was more skilled but instead had to work with an original in a worse condition than he saw himself (C. Säve 1845, p. 88).

Lindqvist describes the condition of the stone as follows: ‘The obverse is naturally smooth, with a certain roughness and damaged in places – especially by weathering. Of the many mutilations that the stone suffered along its edges, the straight one along the right side seems to have been caused by the stone’s insertion in masonry, while the others appear more coincidental. When the stone was removed, three fragments were found, of which the smallest, which belonged to the left side of the head and contained part of the border, is reproduced in the oldest depictions. These all draw on PAS’ drawing [i.e. Pehr Arvid Säve]. Whether this fragment was delivered to SHM, when the other pieces were sent in, could not be ascertained. Now, at any rate, it appears to be lost. Preserved segments of the original narrow sides make clear that those on the left side of the head and body were dressed at right angles towards the obverse for about 10cm and then chamfered towards the back, while the narrow sides on the stone’s right were rounded. The reverse is rough and rugged. The width is 121 cm at the neck, the height of the head, measured from the upper edge of the sail, is 97 cm, the fragment’s overall height is 174 cm’ (Lindqvist 1941/42 II, p. 16).

The stone was mended in 1932. At the time of writing of the entry in Gotlands runinskrifter I (GR I, published in 1962), it was standing in the great hall of the Swedish History Museum (GR I, p. 193). Presently (March 2024), it is standing beside GP 21 Ardre VIII in the stairs to the museum’s treasury, Guldrummet. In an action plan from 1991, the stone is described as being in a generally good status, with a solid and stable surface. A tendency for splitting could be observed in a human figure on the ship (the second figure to the left) (Gustafsson Belzacq 1991). The conservation was done by Marianne Gustafsson-Belzacq. In the conservation report, it is noted that there are serious splitting damages down to the left, where the surface is unstable and sandy. The picture stone was carefully cleaned using brushes and water. Damaged sections were stabilised by injection of 5% paraloid solution (Paraloid B-72) in silicic acid ester (Sw. kiselsyraester). Mendings were made with Stentekniks sandstenslagningsbruk mixed with acrylate dispersion. The mendings, old and new, were retouched with pigment and acrylate dispersion (Marchner 1992).

The stone was 3D-scanned in 2007 by Laila Kitzler Åhfeldt with assistance of Fredrik Lundström and Cecilia Ljung within a research project at Stockholm University (Kitzler Åhfeldt 2013). In 2013, an RTI-model was made by Sigmund Oehrl (Oehrl 2019).

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Runic Context and Comments
There are two vertical runic inscriptions with short-twig runes.
The first, a futhark-inscription (§A), is in a ribbon in raised relief in the head of the stone, reaching vertically from the horizontal middle border up to the house. The ribbon is c. 25 cm long and c. 5 cm wide (GR I, p. 194). In the lower part of the ribbon, there is a carving of strokes without any branches, i.e. they are not runes (see figure in GR I, p. 195). Elias Wessén means that they are decorative (GR I, p. 194), but they also have a resemblance to ogham inscriptions, with groups of strokes on either side of a middle line. Ornament of this kind is highly unusual in connection to runic inscriptions. However, the groups of strokes do not seem to form a meaningful inscription. If they have anything to do with ogham, it may not go farther than that the carver had been inspired by seeing something similar but was unable to use this writing system properly – as indeed is the case with many pseudo runic inscriptions from ancient times until today. Still, this is interesting in the perspective of possible influences from the British Isles that have been discussed earlier (eg. Lindqvist 1941/42 I, p. 135; Kitzler Åhfeldt 2009, p. 135, p. 151; 2015, p. 403, p. 406). The second part of the inscription is seen further to the left, in a vertical ribbon only 2 cm wide, close to the border (GR I, p. 195). The runes are faint, but the 3D-model enhances the main staffs and confirms the runic character.

The second inscription (§B), a memorial inscription after Hjorulf, is between the ship’s stern and the border to the right, in a field of raised relief. The present length of the inscription is 60 cm, the height of the field 5,5 cm below, narrowing to 3,5 cm in the upper end. The beginning of the inscription is lost. The runes are bent and uneven, carved by a sharp, pointed tool. (GR I, p. 195). The last part of the inscription is more difficult to interpret due to the lack of word dividers (GR I, p. 198; Snædal 2002, p. 52). In Runor, it has been left uninterpreted. Carl Säve thought that the inscription was symmetric and thus originally started on the left side at the upper corner of the sail and continued below the keel, until turning upwards along the right side of the ship. He thought that there was a similarly wide space between the border and the ship’s stern to the left, as occupied by the runic inscription to the right (C. Säve 1845, p. 88). However, there is no protruding rune band in raised relief on the left side and no runes can be discerned.

It has been asked whether there is a relation between this inscription and the pictures. Carl Säve believed that a large proportion of the inscription was lost, which he regretted as he thought that the lost part contained a clue to the meaning of the pictures (C. Säve 1852; GR I, p. 196). Hans Hildebrand assumed that the pictures illustrated Hjorulf’s death and his reception in Valhall (GR I, p. 196, p. 198), while Helmer Gustavson in general sees no connection between the text content and the pictures on Gotland picture stones (Gustavson 2012, p. 112).

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