Rune Poems - House of Dubhros

20 The Anglo-Saxon Runic Poem
67 Ing wses serest mid East-Denum
gesewen secgun, oj? he siSSan est
ofer wseg gewat; wsen sefter ranr;
t5us Heardingas Sone hsele nemdun.
71 E]?el by)? oferleof aeghwylcum men,
gif he mot Cser rihtes and gerysena on
brucan on boWe bleadum oftast.
74 Dseg by]? drihtnes sond, deore mannum,
msere metodes leoht, myrg]? and tohiht
eadgum and earmum, eallum-brice.
77 Ac by}? on eor]?an elda bearnum
flsesces fodor, ferej? gelome
ofer ganotes bee]?; garsecg fanda)?
hwaeber ac hsebbe sebele treowe.
73. H. blode, 74. H. mann inserted above dceg.
67. Ing (Salzb. AS. Ing, Goth. Enguz), the letter for ng in the original
r\
alphabet ; occasionally it is used for ing, e.g. Bir^ngu on the stone from
Opedal, Norway ; Ing is doubtless the eponym of the Ingwine, a name
applied to the Danes in Beowulf, vv. 1044, 1319, where Hrothgar is styled
eodor Ingwina, frean Ingwina.
The earliest reference to Ing is to be found in the Ingaevones of Tacitus,
c. ii., and Pliny, whom Professor Chadwick (Origin of the English Nation,
pp. 207 ff.) has shown there is some reason for identifying with the con
federation of Baltic tribes who worshipped Nerthus, id est Terra Mater,
on an island in the ocean, perhaps the Danish isle of Sjaslland. But in
later times the name is almost exclusively confined to Sweden ; e.g.
Arngrim J6nsson's epitome of the Skioldunga saga (Olrik, Aarb.f.n.O.,
1894, p. 105): tradunt Odinum,..Daniam...Scioldo, Sveciam Ingoni filiis
assignasse. Atque inde a Scioldo, quos hodie Danos, olim Skiolldunga fuisse
appellatos ; ut et Svecos ab Ingoni Inglinga. In Icelandic literature, e.g. the
Ynglinga saga, the name Ynglingar is applied to the Swedish royal family,
and the god Frey, their favourite divinity and reputed ancestor, is himself
styled Yngvi-Freyr and Ingunar freyr (the lord of the prosperity of the
Ingwine or the husband of Ingun). It is significant, moreover, that the
name of his father NJgiftr is phonetically equivalent to Nerthus, and his own
cult as a god of peace and prosperity is evidently descended from that of the
selfsame goddess (cf. Chadwick, O.E.N. p. 230 ff.).
69. wsen after ran, doubtless to be connected with the following passages,
Tacitus, Germania, c. XL : They have a common worship of Nerthus, that is
Mother Earth, and believe that she intervenes in human affairs and visits the
nations in her car, etc., and the story of Gunnarr Helmingr in the Flateyjarb6k
Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, which relates that there was in Sweden an
image of the god Freyr, which in winter time was carried about the country
in a car, gera monnum drbot, to bring about an abundant season for men ;
cf. Vigfiisson and linger, Flateyjarbdk, i. 338, translated in Sephton's Saga
of K. Olaf Tryggvason, p. 258 ff.
70. Heardingas, not elsewhere in AS., perhaps a generic term for
"warriors" as in Elene, vv. 25, 130. It corresponds however to the ON.
Haddingjar and the Asdingi, a section of the Vandals (from haddr, " a