Most of the criticisms of the authenticity of the Runestone (rightly) lie with the inscription itself. If it is a hoax, all of the hoaxers (and probably their children, as well) are now dead, so we are left with only the stone itself to testify to its authenticity (or lack thereof). I hope, in this section, to lay out some of the more famous criticisms of the stone, most notably those which can be checked by research. Some, due to the subjective nature of the argument or the lack of source material, cannot be answered completely. Also, since many scholars make the same objections, I will note only one scholar for each objection, though I may have to quote several in answer. This is not done to "drive" the reader to an opinion, but only to provide as full an answer as possible to the objection. Notes of quotations will appear at the bottom of the page so as to make the reading of the page easier.
Objection: "Numerals, in the rare cases in which they appear at all, are cumbrously written out or, in late times, expressed in Roman style. The astonishing thing here is the use of seven numerals or sets of numerals, including the date, all expressed in symbols purporting to be runes, but with place value based on the Hindu-Arabic system of notation, a system that could not possibly mix with runes." (1)
Answer: "The decimal system was of comparatively recent introduction into the North in the XIV century. The most common style then was to state the year of the king's reign...if Anno domini enumeration was used it was suually given in Roman numerals...Another not infrequent method of giving the date was by writing it out in the historical style as is sometimes done now...
Dates in decimal notations are to be found in the Swedish diplomataria of the same period. A letter written by a German residing in Sweden begins "int jair ons Heren 1352"...Abundant evidence of the knowledge and use of the decimal system in the XIV century is found in several Icelandic annals if the Middle Ages. Annales Vetusstissimi, which comes to a close in the year 1314, contains numerous dates and numbers written in decimal notation... Skalholts Analler, ...contains scores of dates written in decimal notation. Rymbegla, a manuscript of about 1300, has many numbers in decimal notation" (18)
It should be noted that none of the inscriptions noted by Holand above are runic. However, it was Holand's contention that the inscriber used runes because they were more easily carved in stone, and used those forms which were most familiar. There is no written rule that the Arabic system cannot be used with runes (at least that I've seen), and the writer was apparently familiar with decimal notation and found it more fitting to carving than writing out the year in a form which would add to his work.
Objection: "A more plausible argument is the claim that the language of the inscription, phonetically, is too modern to be of the 14th century. It does not sound like the hundreds of letters that have survived from that period" (13)
Answer: "This is quite true, but these letters do not truly represent the speech of the people. In the Middle Ages there were very few people who could read or write. The bishops were therefore instructed to appoint one or more of the monks to act as a notarii publicii in each district to draw up contracts, conveyances of sale, or testamentary gifts to the Church, for a fixed compensation. These scriveners constituted a professional class who took their accomplishments very seriously. In order to impress the common people with their learning and dignity, they adopted a stilted style based on the more sonorous language of the past. Aside from the names, the opening sentence was always the same: "Ollum monnum beim som sea eda hojra betta bref senda Paal Jonsson og Peter Berg quedia gudh ok sina." Then follow the details in as antique a wording as possible. Thus, the notaries gave the parties concerned an assurance that the document was drawn up in the most approved and time-honored form and was therefore above reproach and fully dependable, just as many legal documents, even now, are drawn up in clumsy and well-nigh obsolete language.
"This antiquated style was favored by the scriveners into the 16th century, although it is recognized by many philologists that linguistically it was a thing of the past even in the 14th century. Professor Munch, writing of the 14th century, says:
The melodious and highly inflected Old Norse language was being displaced by a less elegant transition language, marked by lacerated verb forms and the lack of strict grammatical rules, and was therefore not written the same way by any two writers...The regular grammatical inflections which distinguish all old languages were the first to be discarded... The neglect of inflectional endings and the substitution of particles or the use of certain modified sentence structures became characteristic.' (14)...
The fact is that all these meticulous examinations of the inscription have failed to produce any evidence that it could not have been written in the 14th century. There are certain peculiarities-misspelled words, lax phonetics, and doubtful grammar-but there are none which can be proven incompatible with oral usage at the time of the date it carries, which was before the printed page began to standardize the language. Thalbitzer, O.E. Hagen, S.N. Hagen, Soderwall, Lindroth, Indrebo, and Fossum, all recognized Scandinavian philologists, have found no reason to doubt the authenticity of the inscription because of linguistic difficulties." (13)
Objection: "The amusing language of the inscription includes the English word "dead" (spelled DED)..." (2)
Answer: " Ded. Most critics believe this is a misspelling of the English word dead. They point to it as an illustration of the tendency of immigrants in America to mix English words with their native speech. It is true that such mixing is common, but there is a certain system about it. Words pertaining to their daily life such as farm, barn, stable, dinner, bedroom, factory, good time, etc., are quickly adopted into their native speech, but this is not the case with sacred or serious words such as God, savior, church, death, government, etc. This is a rule I have never heard violated. Professor Kock has given a much better and no doubt correct explanation of ded for dod (the "o" has the sound of "u" in urn). He points out in his history of Swedish phonetics that there was in the Middle Ages a frequent substitution of e for o, such as in hera for hora, breder for broder, lena for lona, grea for groa, etc. (7) Rydquist also gives a large number of illustrations of this tendency. (8) In a letter written in 1390 by Queen Margaret we find two examples of this. One is her spelling of the name of Lodose (she spells it Ledese). The other is her spelling of the same word which is criticized in the inscription. The sentence reads: 'Effther the henne husbonde her Jens Herne ded er' = 'because her husband, Sir Jense Herne, is dead.' (9) Opponents of the inscription dispose of this annoying comparison by saying that the Queen (or her secretary) made a mistake. But if the writer of the letter could make a mistake, why could not also the writer of the inscription?" (10)
Objection: "One word alone, opdagelsefard, which did not appear in any Scandinavian language for several centuries after 1362, gives it away." (5)
Answer: "The most criticized word in the inscription in opdagelse. This word, it is claimed, is an anachronism. It could not have been used in 1362 because it is not found in Soderwall's dictionary of medieval Swedish.
"It is an error to conclude that a word did not exist in the medieval Swedish if it is not found in this excellent dictionary. as Professor Soderwall did not live in the Middle Ages, his only sources about Sweden's medieval vocabulary were the preserved books and douments of that period. This literature was rather limited in scope, and there are many words he did not include in his dictionary because they were not mentioned in the old writings. As an example, there is the word, eldstal (fire steel), which was used in the flint-and-fire-steel process of making fire. This steel was an implement no house in the middle ages could be without. But it is not mentioned by Soderwall because it does not occur in the old writings, which are mostly conveyances of land.
"Professor Soderwall had no doubt that opdage was in use in the 14th century. I spent a couple of hours with him in his study, and he gave me the following statement:
'As far as I know, this word is not to be found in the meager literary fragments of the 14th century. But that proves nothing. As you probably know, these fragments consist chiefly of legal documents and homilies, and it is therefore not strange if a word of such comparably rare import as opdagelse is not found in such writings. The old Norse word for this idea was leita landa, but this expression had become obsolete when the great change from Old Swedish to the Swedish of the late Middle Ages took place about 1300. As landelieta was dropped, some other term must have been adopted to express the same thought. The only word we know which fills this function is opdage. '" (6)
Objection: The Latin phrase AVM is modern, and is evidence that Ohman, who had a scrapbook with Buddhist notes in it, carved the inscription: "He (Wahlgren) called special attention to the syllable AUM at the end of the note on Buddha and pointed out its resemblance to AVM on the rune stone (19)
"The forms of these letters have been severely criticised by the eminent archaeologist, Professor Oscar Montelius, on the grounds that such unornamented gothic forms were not in use in the fourteenth century." (20)
Answer: "If the inscription were written on parchment in a quiet monastery, this criticism would be very much to the point, for it is true that the majuscules were very much in vogue among the clerks of the fourteenth century. We also find them generally used by the the artistic engravers of seals. But if the Kensington Runestone is genuine, it was written under quite other circumstances...as a pious Catholic, he felt it incumbent to show his reverence for the holy name of the Virgin by writing it in the capitol letters of the Church, but even then he only takes time for the first letter of each syllable. Circumstances were not propitious for further elaboration.
If the majuscules used by the clerks were different in type from the Gothic, the criticism would be valid...The basic Gothic form is and was easily recognized in all majuscules, and such unaornamented forms occur quite frequently among them. Three or four instances may be cited:
The seal of Ingeger Philipsdatter, widow of the knight Magnus Gregerson, from 1326, reads:
(S' IN) GI (GER) DIS FILIE PHILLIPI
in practically plain gothic forms.
The gravestone of Ragnild, the daughter of the priest Jon, from ca. 1350, contains the words AVE MARIA in almost pure Gothic forms.
A seal of 1330 shows all 3 letters (A V M) in unornamented forms.
In the Bergen, Norway, museum is a seal of the Rostock from the fourteenth or fifteenth century which contains only plain Gothic letters. (20)
Objection: "Unlike genuine medieval rune stones, this one presents a smooth and relatively unweathered face." (2)
Answer: If the stone was a hoax, the face of the stone should be completely unweathered, as it would have taken many years of exposure to the elements for the runes to assume the weathered appearance they now have. However, since it was found face down in the ground, there is no reason to believe it should appear as weathered as those runestones which have been exposed to the elements for centuries.
"This is a very hard stone which weathers slowly, but many geologists have called attention to the fact that the inscribed characters in this area show a weathering which is just as marked as the uninscribed area of the stone. A sample of these is Dr. Upham's statement. He says:
'When we compare the excellent preservation of the glacial scratches shown on the back of the stone, which were made several thousand years ago, with the mellow, time-worn appearance of the face of the inscription, the conclusion is inevitable that this inscription must have been made many hundreds of years ago.' (3)
"In the lower left corner of the inscribed area is seen a lighter colored surface. This is a layer of calcite. This softer stone has been so corroded by rain, after the inscription was made, as to remove a sizeable layer of its surface. In fact, it is so worn down that some of the characters have been obliterated and can only be read by help of context. In most photographs they show up more plainly because the runes have usually been traced over with a pencil to make them readable" (4)
Objection: "Most damning of all were several contemporary paper texts purporting to be copies from the stone, but comparative study of which indicates that they were experimental variants, or rough drafts, of a proposed inscription, made by one or more persons involved in promoting the hoax. In brief, they anteceded the actual carving." (2)
Answer: This objection was first raised by Erik Moltke, upon reviewing a report by John A. Holvik, a Lutheran seminary student who was involved in one of the original inspections of the stone. It is to Moltke's work which Holand responds below:
"Holvik claims that the 'runepaper,' or 'draft,' as as he calls it, contains seven words using different rune-forms from those on the stone. He also finds seven words showing differences in spelling.
It is not easy to copy a long document containing strange characters without making mistakes, a fact well illustrated by Professor Oluf Rygh of Oslo University, who in 1899 attempted to copy the inscription from a print form. In this I think he had an advantage over Ohman, because Rygh had the print form on his desk, while Ohman could not get the stone so close. Yet Rygh makes more mistakes than Ohman (11). I quote below Holvik's and Moltke's reasons for believing that Ohman's 'runepaper' is a draft and not a copy of the inscription. Alternating with them are Rygh's mistakes.
'1. On the runepaper the word for from is written FRO the first time it appears and FROM in the fourth line, while the stone has FRO in both places.'
Rygh makes precisely the same mistake.
'2. On the runepaper the word for rod is written with an H-rune after the vowel. There is no H-rune in the same word on the stone.'
Rygh again makes the same mistake and in addition makes two more on the same word. He spells it rohde; it should be rode.
'The word for blood is spelled with a complicated character for the umlaut of O, which is an incorrect spelling in any Scandinavian language at any time.'
This is quite true; no one drafting an inscription would write blo(umlaut)d because there is no such word. It shows that the copyist did not understand the runes and made a mistake.
As these three examples are all that Holvik and Moltke give, it may be presumed that they are the most damning. But so far one might just as well claim that Rygh's transcription was a draft as much as Ohman's supposed runepaper. In the first and second criticized words both men made the same mistake, and the third is plainly not part of a draft as Holvik has shown."
There are other proofs that Ohman's runepaper was a copy and not a draft of the inscription. One is found on the first line (figure is noted-ed.) It will be seen that the last four letters have been rubbed out and then rewritten in the next line. There must have been some reason for this. If the runepaper was written as a draft there was no reason for rubbing them out because there is no change in the letters and there was plenty of room. But if the runepaper is a copy of the inscription we see why these letters were moved to the next line. The copyist evidently planned to make an exact copy, line for line, of the inscription. Too late he discovered that these four letters belonged on the second line, and he therefore erased them. But soon he found it too difficult to duplicate the spacing on the stone, and then used his own spacing. As in the inscription, he did manage to get his copy into twelve lines." (12)
It has been alleged by several writers, notably Wahlgren (15) and Blegen (16) that Olaf Ohman had in his library sources which would enable him (assuming he was the forger) to create the stone. In Ohman's small library were 2 books, Den Kunskapsrike Skolmasteren ("The Well-Informed Schoolmaster") by Carl Rosander and Oscar Montelius' Swedish History, which these authors mainly cite.
Rosander contains several runes, all of which appear in the Runestone in differing forms. After quoting the passage AVM fraelse af illu, Wahlgren exclaims "Comparing the phrase on the Kensington stone with the parallel in Rosander, it is obvious we need look no further." (15)
Of this, Pohl says: "Wahlgren's argument would be greatly strengthened if the much-disputed expression AVM could have been found by Ohman ready-made in Rosander. He therefore ventured to put it in Rosander!
"In his Index, p. 223, Wahlgren has this entry: 'AVM: in Rosander, 137.' It is undeniable that the letters A, V, and M do appear on many pages of Rosander, but unfortunately for Professor Wahlgren they never appear consecutively in that order. The expression AVM is not in Rosander...
"The fact is that is Rosander there are only 13 of the 30 symbols in the Kensington inscription. The symbols in that inscription which are not in rosander are the nine runes for U (W,V), Y (J), P, O, A, AE, U, K, and G; the expression AVM, and the seven numerals." (17)
On the possibility that Ohman might have read that Swedes and Norwegians traveled together ( 8 Goths and 22 Norwegians, from the Runestone inscription), Pohl says: "Actually, there is nothing in the section on Swedish history in Rosander, or in Swedish History ...which would give information that Goths and Norwegians travelled together in the 1360s when King Magnus of Norway for a time ruled over the Swedish province of Westgothland". (17)
Many of the following notes are cited in other works listed here. If I have not personally checked the references, I will list the work the reference is cited in by "cited in (n)"
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