Beowulf - Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia

may be the working areas of carvers like Balli (cf. Brate 1925, p. 51; Philippa 1977;
Weskamp 1987) or the use of Christ in prayers, which could partly be the result of
the preferences of a specific missionary (Segelberg 1983; Herschend 1994, pp. 54
ff.) or preferences within a family (DR, stones nos. 391 and 392). Some preferred
formulae, e.g., the prayer ‘God help his spirit and soul’ must on the other hand be
explained as geographically defined with respect to more general religious terms
(Herschend 1994, pp. 57 f.).
The most interesting regional groups are those which have a limited georeaphical
distribution despite the fact that they are defined only in very general terms, such as
great uniformity in design and style. They designate that something which we would
consider commonplace was nonetheless something special. Such groups have been
defined in seminar papers (cf. Lindblad and Wirtén 1994; Hansson 1994; Sundquist
1996) and found to exhibit a markedly regional distribution (Fig. 25). This kind of
distribution can be explained only by reference to a fairly sharply defined regional
fashion, linked to a multitude of social preferences. These preferences may overlap
each other like the distribution of the spirit-and-soul prayers on the one hand and the
distribution of Hansson’s Family 2 on the other (Herschend 1994, Fig. 29; Hansson
1994, Fig. 47).
The phenomenon should make us cautious when it comes to interpreting runestone
distributions, e.g., the occurrences of þegn-stones, since we cannot be sure
that they define an area where þegnar were common. Nor does the absence of
these stones define an area where þegnar were lacking.
Such problems of representativity become acute in minute interpretations of distributions
like those found in Randsborg (1980, pp. 35 ff.). Straightforward interpretations
of these maps run the risk of becoming examples of the ‘naive’, but false,
interpretation that Randsborg himself, (1987, p. 212) has warned against. The point
also applies to Duczko’s straightforward interpretation of þegn-stones and
Tegnebyar in Sweden, since their distribution is conspicuously complementary
rather than coincident (Duczko 1995, Fig. 1; 2 and pp. 634 ff.).
The difficulties of understanding distributions and their relations to words, which
may or may not signify an institution, emanates from underestimating the role of
socio-psychological factors and a failure to understand how such factors may have
worked in the period and area in question. Rune-stone texts are not tacitly inspired
by newly invented formal institutions, they are simply inspired by common opinions
about what may reasonably be said.
This may be illustrated if we introduce a new socio-psychological space in a culture
and try to observe what happens, e.g., to rune-stone distributions. It is thus
typical of the rune-stones in and around both Sigtuna and Århus (Figs 26 and 27),
that the towns which make up this new kind of space in their area attract rune-stones
at their centre and immediate surrounding linked to the roads to the towns. Moreover,
they create an empty space around this centre and inspire peripheral rural cen-
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