Scandinavian Britain / 27 (1908) Author: William Gershom Collingwood With: Frederick York Powell Table of Contents / Innehåll | << Previous | Next >>
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Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Introductory Chapters By the late Professor York Powell - II. Mother-Land and Peoples

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F, U, Th, A, R, C, G, W,

H, N, I, J, E?, P, S, Z,

T, B, E, M, L, Ng, O, D.

The characters used for F, Th, A, R, T, H, B,
M, S, E might come from several of the classical
alphabets; those for U, C, G, W, J, L, Ng, O, are
certainly Hellenic rather than Latin, corresponding
with the Greek Ο, Γ, Χ, Υ, early Ι, Δ, ΓΓ (as in
Gothic), Ω. The character for D is DD placed back
to back, and other compounds were added later.

The names of these letters, as in our own children’s
alphabets and other old alphabets, were taken from
some object with like initial. T was the god Tew,
N was nail, H hail, I ice, while (as in Irish) B was
birch, Th thorn (earlier perhaps, Thurse or giant), Y
yew.

The use of these runes in the North differed little
from that of the same alphabet in England during
the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries. Bracteates
imitative of Roman or Greek medals or coins,
memorial stones, implements and ornaments would
be engraved or scratched with these letters. The
possession of the knowledge of writing had little
effect upon the people of either country till their
old alphabet was superseded by the general West-
European Roman alphabet, which, as we shall see,
came into the north with Christianity, and soon
proved in Iceland and Denmark, as it had in Ireland,
England, and Germany, a new factor in civilisation.

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