Hinn 17. desember 2003 lét sjuler@... þetta frá sér fara:

> Until about a tear ago I regarded the Kensington runestone (KRS) as a
> pure hoax. After reading Dr. Richard Nielsen's article (> 70 pages)
>
> http://www.byu.edu/sasslink/pdf/krs.pdf

Eep! That's certainly a lot of text :)

I'm about halfway through now. He certainly raises a lot of good points
and shows where earlier researchers were too assertive. On the other hand
a lot of this feels like clutching at straws. Manuscripts are hunted down
across the lands and the centuries for unusual spellings supporting those
on the KSR. Even if every single thing can, in isolation, be accounted for
I agree with Sjuler that the whole "look and feel" of the text isn't 14th
century. But, then again, if the text really did represent the daily speech
of "cosmopolitan" Scandinavians in the 14th century this may be how it would
look like.

One relatively minor point. There is a discussion of the meaning of 'of west'
in the context of older Swedish runestones. The following are quoted:

"han hafþi ystarla um uaRit lenki"

"han uaistr hafR uf uaRit leki"

Coming from Old Icelandic these look like alliterative couplets:

han hafþi ystarla
um uaRit lenki

han uaistr hafR
uf uaRit leki

I would take these um/of to be "filler" words with little meaning as is
common in the Eddaic poems. Of course I may be wrong and the words are
not always without meaning. One is reminded of Höfuðlausn:

Vestr fórk OF ver
en ek Viðris ber...

"I went west OVER the sea and I carry Viðrir's..."

Anyway. The examples produced to justify "of west" on the KSR actually
don't seem very comparable to me.

As for the authenticity of the stone I'm still withholding judgment.
It's not entirely clear how it could have been forged and it's not entirely
clear how it could be authentic.

Kveðja,
Haukur