Arum sword
A miniature yew-wood sword reading edæboda. Frisian rather than English, and one of the objects that make the futhorc a two-country alphabet.
At a glance
- Alphabet
- Anglo-Saxon Futhorc
- Date
- Late 8th century
- Found at
- Arum, Friesland, Netherlands
- Signature
- None given here. English, Frisian and Continental material is catalogued outside the Rundata tradition altogether; elsewhere a signature is left off only where we could not verify one. Either way the object is cited by name and findspot.
The text
Transliteration in the conventional runological form. Translations on this site are our own and deliberately literal.
edæboda
Discovery
Found at Arum in Friesland. It is a small sword of yew wood, far too slight to be a weapon, and is generally taken to be an amulet or a token rather than a model. Like all Frisian material it carries no Rundata signature, because the Frisian corpus is catalogued separately from the Scandinavian one.
Why it matters
The Frisian corpus runs to somewhere between nine and thirty-one inscriptions depending on the edition, and this is among the best known of them. Its importance is out of proportion to its size: it is evidence that the same alphabet was in use on both sides of the North Sea, which is why the innovations ac, æsc and os are called Anglo-Frisian rather than Anglo-Saxon.
Common misconceptions
Claims about this object that circulate widely and do not hold up.
The reading is usually given as edæboda and taken as a compound ending in "messenger", but the first element is not explained and the form edaþboda is also printed. A four-word gloss of this object is presenting a guess.
Runes attested here (1)
Every dictionary entry that cites this object, with the reason it gives.
- ÆscFuthorc
A miniature yew-wood sword reading edæboda. Frisian rather than English, and a reminder that this alphabet had two homes: Frisian material carries no Rundata signature and is cited by findspot instead.
Sources
Full references on the sources page.