Younger Futhark in the context of "Armanen runes"

Old Norse was a North Germanic language spoken in Scandinavia and in Norse settlements during the Viking Age and the early Middle Ages (approximately the 8th–14th centuries). It is the conventional term for the medieval West and East Scandinavian dialects (often labelled Old West Norse and Old East Norse) that developed from Proto-Norse and later evolved into the modern North Germanic languages, including Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish.

Old Norse is attested in runic inscriptions (written in the Younger Futhark) and in numerous medieval manuscripts written with the Latin alphabet; its literary corpus includes the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, the Icelandic sagas, skaldic verse, law codes, and religious texts. Contact between Old Norse speakers and other languages — particularly Old English and the Celtic languages — left a substantial legacy of loanwords and toponyms; many common English words such as egg, knife, sky, and window derive from Old Norse.

Æsir (Old Norse; singular: áss) or ēse (Old English; singular: ōs) are gods in Germanic paganism. In Old Nordic religion and mythology, the precise meaning of the term "Æsir" is debated, as it can refer either to the gods in general or specifically to one of the main families of gods, in contrast to the Vanir, with whom the Æsir waged war, ultimately leading to a joining of the families. The term can further be applied to local gods that were believed to live in specific features in the landscape – such as fells. The Old English medical text Wið færstice refers to the Ēse, along with elves, as harmful beings that could cause a stabbing pain, although exactly how they were conceived of by the author of the text is unclear.

Áss and its cognate forms feature in many Germanic names, such as Oswald and Ásmundr, and in some place-names in Norway and Sweden. The Æsir further likely give their name to the A-rune, attested in the Elder Futhark, Anglo-Saxon Futhorc and Younger Futhark.

Old Norse religion, also known as Norse paganism, is a branch of Germanic religion which developed during the Proto-Norse period, when the North Germanic peoples separated into distinct branches. It was replaced by Christianity and forgotten during the Christianisation of Scandinavia. Scholars reconstruct aspects of North Germanic Religion by historical linguistics, archaeology, toponymy, and records left by North Germanic peoples, such as runic inscriptions in the Younger Futhark, a distinctly North Germanic extension of the runic alphabet. Numerous Old Norse works dated to the 13th-century record Norse mythology, a component of North Germanic religion.

Old Norse religion was polytheistic, entailing a belief in various gods and goddesses. These deities in Norse mythology were divided into two groups, the Æsir and the Vanir, who in some sources were said to have engaged in war until realizing that they were equally powerful. Among the most widespread deities were the gods Odin and Thor. This world was inhabited also by other mythological races, including jötnar, dwarfs, elves, and land-wights. Norse cosmology revolved around a world tree known as Yggdrasil, with various realms, such as Midgard, where humans live. These involved multiple afterlives, several of which were controlled by a particular deity.

Anglo-Saxon runes or Anglo-Frisian runes are runes that were used by the Anglo-Saxons and Medieval Frisians (collectively called Anglo-Frisians) as an alphabet in their native writing system, recording both Old English and Old Frisian (Old English: ᚱᚢᚾᚪ, romanized: rūna, lit. 'rune'). Today, the characters are known collectively as the futhorc (ᚠᚢᚦᚩᚱᚳ, fuþorc) from the first six runes and their sound values. The futhorc was a development from the older co-Germanic 24-character runic alphabet, known today as Elder Futhark, expanding to 28 characters in its older form and up to 34 characters in its younger form. In contemporary Scandinavia, the Elder Futhark developed into a shorter 16-character alphabet, today simply called Younger Futhark.

Use of the Anglo-Frisian runes is likely to have started in the 5th century onward and they continued to see use into the High Middle Ages. By the 8th century, they were eventually overtaken by the Old English Latin alphabet introduced to Anglo-Saxon England by missionaries at the end of the 6th century. Futhorc runes were no longer in common use by the 11th century, but MS Oxford St John's College 17 indicates that fairly accurate understanding of them persisted into at least the 12th century.

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.

In Scandinavian prehistory, sometimes specifically Swedish prehistory, the Vendel Period, or Vendel Age (Swedish: Vendeltiden; c. 540–790 AD) appears between the Migration Period and the Viking Age. The name is taken from the rich boat inhumation cemetery at Vendel parish church, Uppland. Unlike the preceding and succeeding eras, the Vendel Period left very few precious metal artifacts or runic inscriptions. Instead, it is extremely rich in animal art on copper-alloy objects. It is also known for guldgubbar, tiny embossed gold foil images, and elaborate helmets with embossed decoration similar to the one found at Sutton Hoo in England.

During the period, Swedish expeditions began to explore the waterways of territories which later became Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. The Elder Futhark writing system was abandoned in favor of the Younger Futhark, virtually simultaneously over the whole of Scandinavia. Some runestones survive, most notably those at Rök and Sparlösa, both from c. 800. Other written sources are few and hard to interpret: a few Icelandic sagas, the tale of Beowulf, and accounts from some southern European writers. Earlier Swedish historians tried to make use of these to create a coherent history, but this effort has largely been abandoned, and the period is now mostly studied by archaeologists.

A runic inscription is an inscription made in one of the various runic alphabets. They generally contained practical information or memorials instead of magic or mythic stories. The body of runic inscriptions falls into the three categories of Elder Futhark (some 350 items, dating to between the 2nd and 8th centuries AD), Anglo-Frisian Futhorc (some 100 items, 5th to 11th centuries) and Younger Futhark (close to 6,000 items, 8th to 12th centuries).

The total 350 known inscriptions in the Elder Futhark script fall into two main geographical categories, North Germanic (Scandinavian, c. 267 items) and Continental or South Germanic ("German" and Gothic, c. 81 items). These inscriptions are on many types of loose objects, but the North Germanic tradition shows a preference for bracteates, while the South Germanic one has a preference for fibulae. The precise figures are debatable because some inscriptions are very short and/or illegible so that it is uncertain whether they qualify as inscriptions at all.