![]() If you were rich enough to pay for all the bling you were funding tradesmen and artisans – giving gifts to your loyal followers, and to those of higher status you wanted to curry favour with, wealth moving means a flourishing economy – wealth hidden away in a bank causes economic stagnation. Vikings had fairly socialist ideas about wealth. In Viking terms, this translates to how much bling you wear and how generous you are with your resources – what you wore and how ornately it was decorated showed your place in society. In modern terms it’s what accountants would call tangible personal property. ![]() So we’re really looking at everything we can buy, sell or own that is not land or property. To the Vikings “Cattle” did not just mean cows, it comes from the Anglo-Norman catel which means ‘sum of money, capital, moveable wealth’ – so when the runes were in contemporary use cattle meant personal property of any kind, including livestock of all types. ![]() Cows have been used as part of barter systems for thousands of years and having a cow was an unmissable sign that the household had the means to feed themselves so it’s fairly obvious to associate cattle with prosperity, even now. The Anglo-saxon rune poem says “ Wealth is a comfort to all yet must everyone bestow it freely, if they wish to gain honour in the sight of the Lord.”Ĭattle is only part of the story here – today cattle mean cows. The first rune in the Elder Futhark is Fehu, which means movable wealth or more literally, cattle. By the Viking Age runes had evolved to a point where the younger futhark was used just like any other alphabet for day to day communication, but the Elder Futhark seems to have continued to be used for ‘magic’ Runes were invented by people who were already literate, so from the very start they have been secret and mysterious. One of the things I find most fascinating about the Vikings is their use of runes.
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