THE OLDEST YET FOUND DOCUMENT IN DANISH. By Prof. Dr. GEORGE STEPHENS, F. S. A. Lond. & Edinb., Hon. Dr. of Letters, Cambridge. The remarkable unique LEADEN TABLET here described was found by Herr H. RASMUSSEN, Master of the School in Odense, Fyn, Denmark, on the 24th of Sept. 1883. He saw it lying among the earth cast up in diggings near St. Knut's Church. It was folded so as to look only 1-third of its real size. On his carefully opening it out the Runes appeared, when he at once gave it to the Odense Museum. Some other similar bits of lead were observed by the workmen, but no others could be found. The inscription was partly redd by Director HERBST. I think I have now deciphered the whole. If so, the first 2 lines are IN DANISH, in a form about 300 years older than any other document in Danish. The last 6 lines are in Latin. This very thin slip of lead is 7,2 cm. long by 3,3 broad, injured here and there by oxidation and blurred where the folds went, one letter fallen away, but all can be made out. Most of the characters are sharp, dug-in with a Stylus, and are in what we may call a Runic Running hand. Of larger, smaller and even tiny grave-stones, gravetablets and grave-amulets I have spoken in my Old-Northern Runic Monuments, Vol. 1, p. 394, 5, Vol. 2, p. 865. In England Absolution-tablets in the lich-chest held-on down to the Reformation, of course in Latin. Even now the orthodox Jew has scripture-written Phylacteries placed by his side in the tomb. The idea is natural. We entrust our sleeping dear-ones to the love of our Common Father, sure of the uprising to come. This Odense specimen, the 3rd in Scandinavia and first from Denmark, is another decisive proof (if such were wanting) that the Clergy did not bann and drive out the Runes as heathen. So far from this, the priest who incised these letters pre-supposed that Our Lord Himself was familiar with the Futhorc which of course He was. It is also another evidence that the oldest Northern writings were in Runic script. FULL-SIZE FACSIMILE OF THE TABLET, engraved by Prof. Magnus Petersen, with the Runes as he sees them. (TRANSLITERATION OF THE LEADEN TABLET.) (AT) P(E)R KUEN(E) SINE PRINSINED (B) AD (M)OTO LAN ANA KRISTI DONAVISTI GARDIAR IARDIAR IBODIAR KRISTUS UINKIT KRISTUS REG- KHORDAIN KHORDA + KHORDAE (t) (M) AGLA + SANGUIS KRISTI SIGNET ME I add an excellent Phototype, double size, by Messrs Pacht and Crone. That the reader may still better follow and control, I give the Futhore here employed (with a couple of the variations), the usual later Romanized one, with stung letters; only it happens that c, F, w, y and z do not occur in this document. On the other hand is used for both K and Q, B (perhaps B) for both P and v, while the Latin x is given by a rare runic type. Part of the risting being in Latin whose conventional sounds we know we are able to fix the phonetic value of the marks. We are also holpen by dots, which usually but not always have been added to separate the words. The metal however is corroded and we are seldom sure; I have therefore not ventured on marking these dots in my Transliteration. dinavian Preposition AT, AP, AD. English AT. Here in the sense of FOR, governing a Dative. PER, second letter indistinct, possibly 1. The first and only time this form for THEE has been found in Den |