POTEAU — The runestones of Oklahoma have captured the imagination of many, yet their true provenance remains a mystery even after several investigations and heated debate between believers and skeptics.
Capturing that mythical component of these runestones and the Norse culture that surround them has become a part of the almighty tourism dollar for LeFlore County and has fostered a different way of thinking. People around here are more apt to think outside the box and propose the question: “Could it be that ancient Norse explorers roam deep into the interior of North America hundreds of years before the Spanish and French?”
The runestones have also created a sincere interest in Norse culture, as seen in the annual Viking and Celtic Folk Festival at Heavener Runestone Park & Historic Site. The April 11 festival this year attracted about 200 and raised $3,500 for the park.
Addressing the possibility that the famed runestones of Heavener, Poteau and Shawnee are pre-Columbian recently was one of the pre-eminent runologists in the world, Henrik Williams of Uppsala University in Sweden. He spoke to about 50 attendees of a Poteau Chamber of Commerce luncheon Wednesday at the Donald W. Reynolds Center in Poteau.
Runic studies have been carried out at Uppsala since the 1590s and the university is considered the “seat of the only comprehensive rune text database.” While in Poteau, Williams inspected the Poteau and Shawnee runestones held at the LeFlore County Museum in the Lowrey Hotel.
Williams has physically studied more than 1,000 runestones around the world, and the Heavener runestone is one of the most impressive he has seen, he said. The Oklahoma Tourism & Recreation Department listed it this week as No. 44 in the top 100 things to see in Oklahoma.
“I think it should be the No. 1 or 2, and I should say this not just to ingratiate myself, but that stone is probably in the top 20 I’ve seen in the world, just for the sheer size and impressive nature of it,” Williams said. “So I think you should be proud of it no matter what it is.”
A Real Whodunit
Williams drew distinction between the Viking Age of c. 790 to 1066, and the older Scandinavian tribes that preceded them. The Heavener runestone is thought by locals to have been carved some 1,000 years ago. Many here consider the Native American trade routes offered by the north-flowing Poteau River to the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers as part of that story.
Although Williams said the older Scandinavian tribes did not carve runestones on travels, there is proof in the Crimean Peninsula that later Vikings did carve them on their travels. However, a runic inscription on the Shawnee stone, which looks like a “less than” symbol, was only seen on runestones before 500 A.D. This begs the question why it would be used 500 years later if the carving was done in the Viking Age.
Williams and others continue to seek proof that the Heavener runestone was seen by a Choctaw hunting party in 1830, as lore has it. That evidence would improve the probability the stone was carved 1,000 years ago during the time of wide Viking exploration, said Mike Kennerson, president of the Friends of the Heavener Runestone.
“It’s a tantalizing detective story,” Kennerson said. “Dr. Williams is here to discover the truth. He does not have an agenda other than that.”
Without proof of the 1830s Choctaw hunting party sighting of the Heavener runestone, Williams said, the probability points to the Oklahoma runes most likely being carved in the 19th century. He leaves a slim 20 percent chance that they were carved in the 10th or 11th century.
A few characteristics of the Heavener runestone, however, indicate it was carved in more modern times, he said. Two of the runic inscriptions and the sound of the ending phrase, translated as “Glome Dal,” or “Glome’s Valley,” do not conform with other inscriptions that he has seen in other ancient runestones.
Also, runestones usually have some form of ornamentation or layout, he said, and these do not. Correct spelling in writings, however, is a more “modern idea.” Glome is a province in southern Sweden, Kennerson said. The Heavener runestone is believed to be a property marker.
“All words have endings, back 1,000 and 500 years ago, and that is one thing we find disturbing,” Williams said of the nonconforming ending on the Heavener runestone. “None of the American inscriptions ever found have any kind of layout or ornamentation. That’s another thing that doesn’t really fit the pattern.”
Pre-Viking age runestones were also usually not carved on a voyager’s travels, he said. They usually were only carved at permanent dwellings in Futhark, the ancient Scandinavian alphabet that served as a basis for Anglo-Saxon and Germanic languages, he said.
“We have no examples of people doing so in the older Futhark, and they’re even very rare back home,” Williams said of runes made on travels. “Even Sweden and Norway are the only countries that have proper runestones from this time. Denmark don’t have them. There are no Vikings or earlier inscriptions on Iceland or Greenland. So it’s a big jump from Sweden to Heavener.”
Questions Remain
Those in the Viking Age did carve runestones while traveling though, he said. He showed one decorative runestone that was about 18 inches high, carved on a stone in the Crimean Peninsula. For several centuries Vikings went down through Russia to the former Constantinople, now Istanbul, to serve in the Varangian Guard.
“Everything is part of a pattern, and I’d like to put your inscriptions into how they fit and don’t fit into a larger pattern,” Williams explained.
Whether it was carved 1,000 years ago or in the 19th century, Williams said, the Heavener runestone “deserves respect.”
“It’s a mystery,” Williams said. “It is every bit as mysterious if it is not ancient.”
This visit to Oklahoma for Williams is part of his second North American tour, thanks to the American Association for Runic Studies in collaboration with Uppsala University and the American Friends of Uppsala University. The association seeks funding for more research of the runestones and promotes a dedicated chair in runology at Uppsala University. Since the mid-1980s, Uppsala University has been the center of a revival in runic studies, according to a brochure made available by Williams. Their collection contains almost 7,000 inscriptions.
The Poteau chamber luncheon talk by Williams was preceded by lectures at Harvard and Yale universities as well as to the Smithsonian Associates in Washington, D.C. Williams also spoke at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond on Friday. Part of his mission is to raise awareness of the American Association for Runic Studies.
Williams is a winner of the Rudbeck Medal and primarily is a philologist, teaching and doing research in runology, Old Swedish and Old Icelandic. He has written scholarly papers in English and Swedish and published a book on the language of Viking age Swedish runestones, among other topics.
Karen Wages, president and CEO of the Poteau Chamber of Commerce, said she still believes the runestones are ancient and stands by the assertion of the runestone’s early 1900s investigator Gloria Farley that it was carved 1,000 years ago. Wages also pointed to the history of the location being a trade route for Native Americans and its connections to the ancient Spiro Mounds.
Williams said information gathered on this tour would take months to analyze. Those who wish to stay updated may log on at www.runforum.nordiska.uu.se.