Runestones

This is Runestone u880. It is the first two-sided stone we have come across. This stone is located in the church yard of the Skogs0Tibble Kyrka. I do not have the translations for this or for the next stone, but do have some interesting facts. Uppland has the largest concentration of runestones in the world, some 1,196 stones. 70 % of those stone have Christian content, while only a few are explicitly not Christian.

Scholars have suggested that the reason why so many Christian runestones were raised in Uppland is that the district was the focal point in the conflict between Norse paganism and the newly Christianized King of Sweden. It is possible that the chieftains tried to demonstrate their allegiance to the king and to display their Christian faith to the world and to God by adding Christian crosses and prayers on their runestones.

I am dissapointed we can not find a translation for this stone, it is one of our favorites so far (and very large, over 7 feet tall)