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I went to the Minnesota Historical Society last Friday and copied the transcript of the Gran tapes (the 'deathbed confession' mentioned last week) as published in Minnesota History magazine, Winter, 1976. The editor of the transcripts touted them as confirming Blegen's conclusion that "the inscription was primarily the creation of the taciturn, self-taught farmer, Olof Ohman"
The tapes were made of a converstation between Walter Gran, his sister Anna Josephine, and Anna's son (Walter's nephew, and reffered to in the transcripts only as Nephew) on Aug 13, 1967. "The pertinant information as to the inscription derives from conversations in the late 1920s between Walter and his father, John Gran, who was ill at the time and convinced he was dying" (he did recover, but said nothing more about the KRS). The information, then is third hand and roughly 40 years seperated from its source.
The most interesting thing about this confession, is that John Gran cofesses to almost nothing. The only thing he actually says about Ohman is that once, while working together at "the Larson place" Ohman carved some runic letters on a stick and "wouldn't it be fun Jonas, he said, to make some scripts that would bewilder the whole community and the eople, he said. And especially them that was educated. He was mad at people that were really educated" At no other point does Gran say he did or saw anything else in connection with the Rune Stone - he does not say he helped carve the runes, that he saw Ohman carve the runes, or even that he discussed the plot with Ohman. There is discussion by Walter about hiding the stone, the tree, and so on, but no specifics, and nothing that hadnt been the subject of books and rumours before.
Walter claims that his father, John Gran, did say that they (he and Ohman) made the stone, but when asked for specifics, only said to go ask Ohman. Let me repeat that - John Gran had no specifics, no details on how the Kensington Rune Stone was made, despite this being his death bed confession his "saga from father to son". Only Ohman knew anything about it.
Interestingly,early in the inteview Walter Gran says that his father never talked about Fogelblad, but later discusses Fogelblad's part in the hoax - which suggests that most of the interview was based on Walter's own 'knowledge' as gathered from reading the numerous books about the Rune Stone rather than on any confession by his father
Walter also says that in the Svenska Amerikanaren (a Scandinavian paper) "there was always runic scripts, small little scripts" and "he saved up all these here clippings and made quite a book out of it" - the footnote at this point shows that the Fogelblad/Ohman scrapbook did not contain any examples of runic writing, and that an examination of the incomplete file of Svenska Amerikanaren in the historical society's archives did not reveal any runic scripts.
John Gran's 'confession' must be looked at with extreme scepticism. The Idea of Ohman's writing runes on boards, sidewalks, etc was wide spread in the years after the rune stone was found. Winchell investigated this allegation, asking people if they had ever seen Ohman do this. Only one farmer, Gundar Johnson, claims to have seen him do any such thing and only once. and it was later shown that the farmer was mistaken, and that it was a Hans Voight who actually carved the runes for Johnson. It would not be difficult to assume that Gran made the same mistake about Ohman.
There are no facts, no details given about the supposed creation of the stone, indeed and details are scrupulously avoided. And the one apecific thing in the whole interview that could be double-checked (the scrapbook) turned out to be false.
The the critics of the Kensington Stone have made a great deal of fuss over this 'deathbed confession', it seems to be just one more of the numerous tall tales that have grown up around the Rune Stone. It is a very loud dog, with no teeth.
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