Beowulf - Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia

Figure 26. The density of the rune stone distribution in and around Sigtuna showing how
the town and the roads to and frow it attracts runestones while the environment lack
stones till we reach the satelite centres some 10 kilometres outside the town.
These problems of interpretation apply to the ‘good-stones’ too, e.g., to those
rune-stones which call someone good or generous with food (Backe et al. 1994,
Tab. 1A). If we believe the distribution to be representative, we must also conclude
that three out of seven generous-with-food Swedes lived in Sunnbo Härad in
Småland, where farming conditions are not particularly easy. This makes the attributed
generosity all the more flattering, but tells us nothing about Viking Age distribution
of generosity.
Likewise in Östergötland we shall have to explain why the formula, with respect
to goodness in connection with brothers, is ‘after NN his brother, a good þegn/
drengr/maðr/bóndi’, and never ‘after NN his good brother’, as if no brother from
Östergötland was in himself a good brother.
On the other hand, the general development of the usage is easy enough to see,
e.g., in the contrast between Västergötland and Uppland. In the former good is
never primarily linked to a man’s position within the nuclear family. A man is always
a good þegn, good drengr, good maðr, good bóndi or just good, and in addition he
is also a father, son or brother. In Uppland, however, the expression is nearly always
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