Some runic stones. 19 



Early and Middle English (WI3E, WIE, etc.) and then dies out of the 

 buok-language, now subsisting only as a »vulgar» word in the shape of 

 DIGGER. The Icelandic form is VÏGI, for in Scandinavia the older 

 nom. -A ending (also 0, ^, etc.) lost the fuller vowel and became I, 

 while the -N of the weak declension fell away, so that, for instance 

 (WIGO), WIGA, gen. WIGAN, became WIGI, gen. WIGA. Viofusson 

 says of this word in his Cleasby'.^ Lexicon : »VIGI, A, m. a ßijliter^ only 

 used as the name of a hound, e. g. Vi'gi, the dog of king Olave Trygg- 

 VASON, Ems. i — iii, and so in mod. usage)'. We have several other in- 

 stances in the later or Scandinavian runes of this lingering older A- 

 ending, instead of the later P). In the Old-Korthern Runic monuments, 

 as being so much more antique, this A (0, JE^ etc.) is the rule. 



WIGA, then, literally meant only a Fn/hter, a JVarrior, a Soldier; 

 but, like all such words, it could sink in a military population to the 

 meaning of a Man on the one side, and could rise on the other to that 

 of Chamjnon^ (!hief. Commander, etc. Here it is doubtless taken in its 

 wider sense of WARDEJS^ GUARDIAN, LORD-LIEUTENANT, Landt- 

 viirnsman, Landf<höfdin(j, thus the highest ruler in this folkland, but at 

 the same time implying that a still higher master existed, — that already 

 Sircden had a KING. 



Supposing then Säve's transcript to be correct, accepting for the 

 moment his order of the lines, and waiting patiently till my learned 

 friend Prof. S. Bcgge publishes his notes on these stones, — • I would 

 propose : 



') I will only inentiou one. The Uilunda-stone, Upland, (Lilj. 729, Dybeck, 

 folio, I no. 06), ends with the lines 

 Fl'(L)H-FILA 

 FAK AFLAti 

 UTI KRIKUM 

 AKFA SINUM. 

 Tliii) -FOLK-FELLEB (sniitcr of men. conqueror) 

 FEE (riches) A B LED (nan, gained) 

 UT womi-ihc-GBEEKS (in Greece') 

 to -ABV (heir, son) SIN (his). 

 The Malstad formula is also in simple stave-rime verse: 

 SIULFIR UAR!* UiM LAxN'TI 

 I'JSU RI UIHA. 

 FILA is here found for the first time in runics, and is excessively rare. I only 

 know it in the Iccl. FELLI, but this is only used as a prefix in compounds, sud- 

 denly falling or coming, as FELLI-SOTT, a sudden sickness. Otherwise the Iceland- 

 ers said FELIilR, which is exactly the English FELLER. FELLA is unknown in 

 0.-Enfi;lish, etc. 



