HUNKS NOT OF f,'A7,M/.I.Y oil HUN. 



I.V.I 



countries mentioned. The language of Tacitus' is plain 

 enough, and any other interpretation is not correct. Tin- 

 assertion made that the knowledge of writing cairn- to the 

 North through the present Germany is not borne out by the 

 facts. Runic monuments do not occur south of the river Eider, 

 either on detached stones or engraved on rocks. The few jewels 

 found scattered here and there, either in France or Germany'" 



Fig. 286. Neck-ring of gold, with runes; real size ; found (1838) in a round 



mound. Wai Inch ia. 



are thoroughly Northern, and show that in these places the 

 people of the North made warfare, as corroborated by the testi- 

 mony of the Eddas and Sagas, as well as of Frankish and old 

 English and other records. 



Great indeed has been, and still is, the harvest of runic 

 monuments or objects in the North. Every year several new 

 objects with these characters are discovered in fields, bogs, 

 and graves, or when old walls or buildings are demolished. 



1 Tacitus (Germ. c. 19) says: " Littc- 

 riiriini secrcta riri paritcr ac fcmhue 

 ignorant" (Men mid women are equally 

 ignorant, of the secrets of letter writing). 



The earliest Latin inscriptions found in 



the North have- characters unlike the 



runes. 



