Fresta Stone

‘Gunnarr ok Sassurr þér létu résa stén þenna æftir Gérbjǫrn, faður sinn, sun [H]vítkárs í Sv[al]unæsi. Hann drápu Norrmænnr á knærri Ásbjarnar.’
‘Gunnar and Sassur, they had this stone raised after Gérbjǫrn, their father, the son of Hvítkár from Svalunæs. He was killed by Norwegians on Ásbjǫrn’s “knǫrr.”’

The Fresta Runestone (U 258) is notable for its use of ‘Norrmænnr,’ an early form of Swedish ‘Norrmän.’ The ‘-rr-’ is the result of the ‘ð’ dropping from ‘-rðr-,’ compare: ‘norrǿnn’ from ‘norðr’ + ‘-ǿnn.’ The final ‘-r’ appears to be a dialectal retention of the Proto-Norse plural ending ‘-iz.’

The inscription also completely lacks the H-rune, with ‘Hvítkárs’ spelt ‘uitkars’ and ‘hann’ spelt ‘ąn.’

Svalnäs, the home of Gérbjǫrn’s father, is 8mi (13km) from Fresta, where the runestone is located.

Photo: U 258, Fresta by Wikimedia User:Berig, CC BY-SA 3.0 / Link