Runes are a writing system used mostly by Germanic peoples in various regions of continental Europe and Scandinavia from c. AD 100 to 1700. Around 8000 runic inscriptions carved into wood, stone or other materials exist worldwide, although runes also appear in medieval and later manuscripts. They have been studied by scholars since the 17th century and continue to be present, e.g. in Heavy Metal band logos, computer games and productions like Disney’s Frozen.
The information on runes available, in particular on the internet, is, however, of varying quality and often outdated. There are also a number of problems with digitally storing runes. Graphemics, the study of a writing system’s basic components (e.g. letters/runes), their form and function, are an important aspect of runological research. It is often relied upon for dating or geographically locating an inscription or to determine whether a runic inscription is falsified or real. Unfortunately, studies on the actual geographic distribution of runes are challenging, since several runes appear as variations of the same underlying shape (e.g. ᚢ can also appear as ᚤ, ᚥ or ᚣ). Runologists are still not certain what these variants indicate in each single case (different pronunciation; regional variants; handwriting?).
Lack of standardisation and proper systems to store runes digitally makes research into the use and geographical spread of different runic variants difficult. On the other hand, good digital representation and edition of runic inscriptions would permit completely new ways of analysing runic corpora.
The project “From Stick to Screen” will create a born-digital, interactive and open-access critical corpus edition of the runic inscriptions from the four medieval Norwegian trading towns Bergen, Trondheim, Oslo and Tønsberg.
It examines new ways of digitally editing and analysing runic inscriptions using photographic documentation and software and attempt to solve the question of how to store runes and their variations digitally, thus creating a digital repository providing reliable, quality-checked and accessible information to scholars and a public increasingly interested in runes and the Middle Ages.
