So, what did all that long posting mean, in the greater
sphere of things...
1) It puts the finding of the runestone into a context,
rather than a
sequence of facts. It shows, at least a bit, what
people were thinking,
what kind of interest it drew, sets the discovery
of the stone into a
managable form, something that we can get our hands
on.
2) Verifies the affidavits (except the distance to
Flattens house, and the
date of discovery)
3) Fixes the date to November.
4) Sets a particular sequence of events regarding
the stone, from the point
of the cutting of the tree to the point it was sent
to Curme, some two
months later.
5) Sets the time that Roald Bentson (or Benson),
whose affidavit it posted
earlier in this line, saw the stone - ie within
the first few days after
its discovery.
6) Runestone hill was never called an island by the
locals
7) Gives evidence that a carved stone (the so called
mooring stone) was also
at the site prior to the settlement of the area.
(Was the carver of the 'mooring stone' the
same person who inscribed
the KRS?)
8) The roots of the tree were cut off beneath the
stone, so the stump could
be pulled up. The stone was grasped so tightly by
the roots, that the roots
also had to be cut off above the stone in order to
free it.
9) The site was indeed in full view of Nils Flattens
house.
10) The stone was found in clayey soil on the steep
side of a hill, not
condusive to proper growth. The tree may have been
older than a normal tree
of that size.
11) Olaf Ohman did not have the tools nor the stonecutting
skill to inscribe
the stone
12) Olaf Ohman was a respected and honorable man,
not given to playing
'practical jokes', a man "whose word was good
as his bond' - in short, not a
man of such character to attempt a hoax.
It is on this last point that I will focus my next
few posts - it would be
quite impossible to commit a planned hoax of this
nature without the
cooperation of Mr. Ohman (I do leave open the possibility
of a stone
innocently carved and just left on the spot, or of
an attempted hoax prior
to the time that Ohman came to the land).
Several people have tried to cast aspersions on Ohman,
taking a few phrases
and blowing them out to try and paint a dark portrait
of the man. However,
I hope to show by the testimonies given in the documentary
source of the
time, that Ohman was in no way of the character to
perpetrate such a fraud.