APPENDIX. 



Page 12. 



WE do not yet know at what time the use of Kunes commenced. 

 The examples found at Thorsbjerg and Nydani carry them back to 

 the second or third century, but they may have begun much earlier. 

 They remained partially in use in out-of-the-way districts of Scan- 

 dinavia down to the close of the last century. Runic monuments 

 occur in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, England, and, though rarely, 

 in Ireland ; but are more abundant in Sweden than anywhere else. 

 Prof. Stephens* states that there are three times as many in Sweden 

 as in all other northern countries together, and he estimates the 

 total number in Sweden at not less than two thousand. 



The Runic Alphabet, or Futhorc, is as folloM's : 



h. I). . fc. Y. *. K. I. A. i. 4. fc. K Y. 



F U th R K H N I A S T B L M (GE, T) 



There are, however, several varieties ; thus % m sometimes stands 

 for o, 1 for n, lj. for s, f . for t, 4. for d, and f . for e. There is 

 also a class of letters known as tree-runes, which are entirely unlike 

 the rest. The letters given above are those generally used in the 

 engravings on stones in the great tumulus known as Maeshowe, 

 near the Stones of Stennis, in the Orkneys, t and are supposed to 

 have been the work of a party of Northmen who broke into the 

 Howe in the ninth century. The numerous variations in the forms 

 of the letters, and the fact that they are sometimes read from left 

 to right, sometimes from right to left, make them, at times some- 

 what difficult to decipher ; but it fortunately happens that we 

 possess no less than 61 Runic Futhorcs, so that any inscription 

 which is at all perfect, and not too much abbreviated, can be read 

 with tolerable certainty. 



* The Old-Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia, p. 134. 

 t Mae?liowe. By .T. Farrar, Esq., M.P. 



