ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3101 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3101 ************************************ 31 Aug 2005 From: Gunnvor Silfraharr Greetings from the Academy of St. Gabriel! You asked about the runic spelling of your name, . First, we want to clarify a point that we explained badly in the earlier report in which we discussed your name [1]. is not quite the correct spelling for the daughter of a man named . The correct spelling is , where the slash represents an acute accent on the preceding letter [2]. You can write your name in several ways. In your period, the Norse wrote in runes. You can find several versions of the futhark, or runic alphabet, on the web: http://www.arild-hauge.com/enruner.htm The futhark labeled "Norwegian-Swedish Rokrunes" is a good choice. Notice that these tables identify each rune with a Roman letter; we will use that labeling in this letter to give you the runic spelling of your name. We should stress that this is a modern scholarly convention, not a notation that would have been used in our period. You'll also notice that there are no runes corresponding to some of the letters in the name, like and . Just as our letter represents different sounds in the words and , the Norse used one rune to represent more than one sound. We would expect a runic spelling for such as , where the represents the 10th rune in the futhark above [3]. The patronymic might occur as [4], or even occasionally as , with the again being the 10th rune [5]. I hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Talan Gwynek, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, and Arval Benicoeur. For the Academy, Gunnvor Silfraharr 31 August 2005 ----------------------------------------------------- References [1] Academy of St. Gabriel Report #2487 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2487 [2] The basis for spelling the genitive form of the name with a is the forms actually found in period manuscripts. In these documents, the genitive case ending occurs mostly after and . Additionally, we've shown the patronymic as two words; this is the way patronymics are most commonly written in early manuscripts. [3] Samnordisk runtextdatabas. (WWW: Uppsala universitet, 2004). http://home.swipnet.se/~w-61277/rundata/1.htm Signa Gs12, N230A, So"343, U357, U629, U720; and NA211, O"g83$, O"g192+, O"g194+, So"137, U682+, UANF1937;172, Vg30, Vg41, Vg66, Vg67, Vg115, Vg171. [4] Samnordisk runtextdatabas, op. cit. Signa O"l29{17}+, O"l30{18}, So"69, So"343, U172, U193, U256, U274+, U362+, U932A, U974, U1084, U1089. [5] Samnordisk runtextdatabas, op. cit. Signa So"25$, So"205, So"159, Vg190, So"293, U1032, DR94, U700, U477+. In these examples, the name lacks the in the runic spelling.