The Time Capsule: The tale, or hoax, of a 650-year-old rune
Two stories with a seafaring angle made our news in 1898, and one remains a controversy even today.
Early that year, the battleship Mainewas sunk, taking the life of a highly-regarded young man from Red Oak. Numerous twists and turns followed: the rush to war, conquest and annexation, the eventual raising of the Maine, the recovery of Ensign Merritt’s remains, his second funeral, eventual burial and so on. While the Merritt story spanned several years, it basically ended a century ago.
Another event that took place a few months after the explosion on the Maine, also made our papers and is still under debate.
It began, at least in the modern era, during the summer or fall (accounts vary) of 1898 when a peculiar edifice was unearthed by a Swedish farmer named Olaf Ohman near the Minnesota settlement of Kensington. Ohman later attested he and other workers, including his sons, grubbed out a tree and found a 200 pound slab of stone entangled in the roots. Ohman claims the stone was overturned to reveal engraved letters, letters packed with the earth of centuries. Using a nail to remove soil, he found a message dated 1362.
The so-called “Kensington Rune” was initially displayed at a local bank, and then the world of academia weighed in. Influenced largely by linguists, who looked at paper copies of the inscription and claimed letters on the stone had not been in use in the 14th century, Ohman was labeled a fraud, accused of having chiseled the stone himself.
He perhaps had the ability (he’d been born in Sweden and allegedly knew something of the old language, the latter a contention he denied) and a motive (Scandinavians in the new country were seeking acceptance, and being here that early gave them an identity).
Historians tended to side with linguists. In 1898 the thought that Viking explorers had “discovered” North America long before Columbus was unsettling to some, and putting Norse explorers in the upper Midwest in the mid-1300s was even more of a stretch.
Ohman and his sons swore to their dying day the story was true, and never did they try to make money from the rune. From time to time, an archeologist would side with them, but linguists were adamant—the rune included letters unknown in 1362.
There comes now a more recent study in which a geologist named Scott Wolter participated in a series of tests that purport to prove without doubt the engraving had been done several hundred years before the stone was unearthed by Ohman. Wolter is supported by at least a few modern-day linguists who point out that recently discovered runes show letters on the stone actually had been in use in 1362, something linguists who earlier cried “hoax” had not known.
What was the message someone used a hammer and chisel to carve? The translation refers to “eight gotalanders and 22 northmen on an acquisition journey from Vinland.”It tells of traveling to a camp one day’s journey from the base. Upon returning they found “10 men, red with blood and dead. Ava Maria. Save from evil.”The message concludes with reference to their ship, which was on an inland sea 14 day’s journey distant.
We don’t know if they made it or not. Actually, there are those who still believe it didn’t happen—that the rune is a fraud.
Scott Wolter and Richard Nielsen have written the latest book on the subject, and it is a good read for anyone with an interest.
Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.