Olsbrostenen

Just outside the village of Åsarp in Västergötland, Sweden stands an odd rune stones called Olsbrostenen or Vg 181 as it is also known as. The stone is erected just next to a dirt track that leads to some older buildings and a farm. The farm is called Frugården and this name is some times used to refer to it.

A creak runs north of it that joins Ätran a kilometer away to the west. Ätran is the second largest river in the province of Halland and it is 243 kilometers long and has its mouth in Kattegat on the Swedish west coast by the town of Falkenberg. The province of Halland was during the Viking Age part of Denmark and Västergötland was a area populated and ruled by the Geats or Götar. The relevance of this will become apparent later on.

The Olsbrostone are considered to be one of the most beautiful rune stones in Västergötland. It has a depiction of a beast with four feet that might be a lion. Some believe that this type of beast that can be found on other depictions are inspired by what people saw on their travels to Miklagård (Constantinople). Above the beast there are a cross. The stone is in its style very similar to Harald Bluetooths rune stone in Jelling that you can read more about HERE. This most likely dates the stone to the years around 970 CE.

The inscription is very interesting as well:

kufi : rsþi : stin : þesi : eftʀ : ulaf : sun : sin · trk · hrþa · kuþan · hn · uarþ · trbin · i · estlatum · huarþr · iuk · s­-­-­-

Gufi ræisti stæin þennsi æftiʀ Olaf, sun sinn, dræng harða goðan. Hann varð drepinn i Æistlandum. Havarðr(?) hiogg s[tæin].

”Guve erected this stone after Olov, his son, a very capable young man. He was slain in Estonia. Håvard(?) cut the stone.”

So the stone is erected by a father that has lost his son in Estonia. This is unique as this is the only rune stone that mentions Estonia by name. It is a bit odd as well as it is a location in Scandinavia which is very far away from Estonia. In this case wi are in de middle of the inland of Sweden and to reach Estonia you have to first travel west by the river Ätran to the west coast of the Scandinavian peninsula and round it through the Öresund to enter the Baltic Sea to sail to Estonia. Because the son Olov travelled through Halland that was Danish it is possible that he travelled with Danes to the east. The style of the stone suggests a danish connection and it is a possibility that the father Guve had ties to the Danes as well.

The rune stone is unusual in other was as well as it is signed by a maker something that is not normally seen in Västergötland. It is much more common in the Eastern parts of Sweden. It is believed that Håvard are the maker of at least one other rune stone called Vg 158. This is based on the use of signs of . and , between the words on both stones.

Håvard had a strange way of spelling and he leaves out some vowels from some words. A normal way of spelling during this time is to leave out the n sound in combinations like nd, nk, nt or ng. But this rune master instead left out the first vowel in the word like for example (erected) rsþi instead of risþi that would be more normal.

Some people have theorized that the place name Olsbro (Olafs bridge) might be related to the same person that is mentioned on the stone. The idea is that the father also constructed a bridge in the name of his fallen son. If this is true however we will never know.

Close to the rune stone there is also an oddly shaped rock. This is a rock that are shaped by nature and I believe it is of the type that are called Kaffesten (coffee rock) in southern Sweden because they are collected in gardens to create a kaffegrotta (coffee cave) a stone circle into which people sat down to drink coffee. The stone walls would provide shelter from the constant winds in the very flat landscape in Skåne were this is a tradition.