Runestone in the context of "Vendel period"

Sigurd (Old Norse: Sigurðr [ˈsiɣˌurðr]) or Siegfried (Middle High German: Sîvrit) is a legendary hero of Germanic heroic legend, who killed a dragon — known in Nordic tradition as Fafnir (Old Norse: Fáfnir) — and who was later murdered. In the Nordic countries, he is referred to with the epithet "Fáfnir's bane" (Danish: Fafnersbane, Icelandic: Fáfnisbani, Norwegian: Fåvnesbane, Swedish: Fafnesbane), and is also widely known as "the Dragon Slayer". In both the Norse and continental Germanic traditions, Sigurd is portrayed as dying as the result of a quarrel between his wife (Gudrun/Kriemhild) and another woman, Brunhild, whom he had unknowingly tricked into marrying the Burgundian king Gunnar/Gunther. His slaying of a dragon and possession of the hoard of the Nibelungen is also common to both traditions. In other respects, however, the two traditions appear to diverge. The most important works to feature Sigurd are the Nibelungenlied, the Völsunga saga, and the Poetic Edda. He also appears in numerous other works from both Germany and Scandinavia, including a series of medieval and early modern Scandinavian ballads.

Sigurd's story is first attested on a series of carvings, including runestones from Sweden and stone crosses from the British Isles, dating from the 11th century. It is possible that he was inspired by one or more figures from the Frankish Merovingian dynasty, with Sigebert I being the most popular contender. Older scholarship sometimes connected him with Arminius, victor of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. He may also have a purely mythological origin.

The Elder Futhark (or Fuþark, /ˈfuːðɑːrk/), also known as the Older Futhark, Old Futhark, or Germanic Futhark, is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a writing system used by Germanic peoples in the Migration Period. Inscriptions are found on artifacts including jewelry, amulets, plateware, tools, and weapons, as well as runestones, from the 2nd to the 8th centuries.

In Scandinavia, beginning in the late 8th century, the script was simplified to the Younger Futhark, while the Anglo-Saxons and Frisians instead extended it, giving rise to the Anglo-Saxon futhorc. Both the Anglo-Saxon futhorc and the Younger Futhark remained in use during the Early and the High Middle Ages respectively, but knowledge of how to read the Elder Futhark was forgotten until 1865, when it was deciphered by Norwegian scholar Sophus Bugge.

The England runestones (Swedish: Englandsstenarna) are a group of about 30 runestones in Scandinavia which refer to Viking Age voyages to England. They constitute one of the largest groups of runestones that mention voyages to other countries, and they are comparable in number only to the approximately 30 Greece Runestones and the 26 Ingvar Runestones, of which the latter refer to a Viking expedition to the Caspian Sea region. They were engraved in Old Norse with the Younger Futhark.

The Anglo-Saxon rulers paid large sums, Danegelds, to Scandinavian Vikings who arrived to the English shores during the 990s and the first decades of the 11th century. Some runestones relate of these Danegelds, such as the Yttergärde runestone, U 344, which tells of Ulf of Borresta who received the danegeld three times, and the last one he received from Canute the Great. Canute sent home most of the Vikings who had helped him conquer England, but he kept a strong bodyguard, the Thingmen, and its members are also mentioned on several runestones.

A picture stone, image stone or figure stone is an ornate slab of stone, usually limestone, which was raised in Germanic Iron Age or Viking Age Scandinavia, and in the greatest number on Gotland. More than four hundred picture stones are known today. All of the stones were probably erected as memorial stones, but only rarely beside graves. Some of them have been positioned where many people could see them at bridges and on roads.

They mainly differ from runestones by presenting the message in pictures rather than runes. Some picture stones also have runic inscriptions, but they tell little more than to whom the stone was dedicated. Lacking textual explanations, the image stones are consequently difficult to interpret. Similar stones in Scotland are known as Pictish stones. The largest of the picture stones on Gotland is found in Änge in Buttle. It is 3.85 m (12.6 ft) tall and is richly ornamented in the style of the 8th century.

The Scandinavian Runic-text Database (Swedish: Samnordisk runtextdatabas) is a project involving the creation and maintenance of a database of transliterated runic inscriptions. The project's goal is to comprehensively catalog runestones in a machine-readable way for future research. The database is freely available via the Internet with a client program, called Rundata, for Microsoft Windows. For other operating systems, text files are provided or a web browser can be used to interact with the web application Runor.

In Old Norse sources, such as sagas and runestones, Serkland (also Særkland, Srklant, Sirklant, Serklat, etc.) was the "land of the Serkir", usually identified with the Saracens.

The exact etymology is disputed. Serk- may derive from "Saracen"; from sericum, Latin for "silk", implying a connection with the Silk Road; from the Khazar fortress of Sarkel; or from serkr, shirt or gown, i.e., "land of the gown-wearers". In all cases it refers to a land in the East. Originally, it referred to the land south of the Caspian Sea, but it gradually expanded to cover all Islamic lands, including parts of Africa (and possibly even Muslim Sicily).

The Jelling stones (Danish: Jellingstenene) are massive carved runestones from the 10th century, found at the town of Jelling in Denmark. The older of the two Jelling stones was raised by King Gorm the Old in memory of his wife Thyra. The larger of the two stones was raised by King Gorm's son, Harald Bluetooth, in memory of his parents, celebrating his conquest of Denmark and Norway, and his conversion of the Danes to Christianity.

The runic inscriptions on these stones are considered the best known in Denmark. In 1994, the stones, in addition to the burial mounds and small church nearby, were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as an unparalleled example of both pagan and Christian Nordic culture.