alphabet. The main difference is that our letters can be interpreted in one way while the runic alphabet can be understood in three different ways. First was the sound representation, which is just like ours. The second is the common word that could be associated with that letter. For example, the letter A for us is commonly used for apple, so apple would be the way to pronounce the letter. The third meaning was more of an allusion to higher powers that was associated with the letters. The third meaning was most important and often used. The runes were also believed to have held magical and religious significance. This was why the Norsemen saw the simple writing process as an act of magic and could be looked upon as a source of divination and protection. Since writing was used as a ritualistic and divine practice, it was most often developed in the writing of the Norsemen adventures and sagas. Historians now have gained considerable insight to the events and stories of the time and age with the runic writing system. The first rune stone was discovered in America in 1898 when a farmer in Kensington, Minnesota named Olf Ohman dug up a dead tree and he found a large stone in the roots. When he dug the stone out he found that it was an irregular rectangular slab of greywacke shaped like a tombstone. It weighed close to 200 pounds and was about two and a half feet high that was three to six inches thick and 15 inches wide. There were also strange inscriptions covering the stone where it could have been seen if it was standing up like intended. Since then 22 addition stones have been found throughout the United States including Texas and Maryland. Later in 1960, Helge Ingstad and his wife, Anne Stine Ingstad, were searching for archeological evidence of Vikings in Labrador and Newfoundland. In the small village of L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland they met fisherman who showed them sod foundations that had th...
