Rune Round 2017

Group photo of the 12 Americans who participated in the three-day Rune Round.

I was so happy to be a part of the Rune Round trip to Uppsala this August.  This was my first trip to Sweden, the county where my grandfather was born. I went on the trip because I wanted to be in the countryside , experiencing the rune stones and monuments as they had been during  the Viking Age, scattered through the landscape on fields, roads and intersections. Being with them in the shifting sun, learning about Swedish History and the meaning of the letters and pictures, was unforgettable. Art object, religious text, literary document, historical record, place marker, ancient architecture, the experience of the stones is unlike anything else, a unique part of that which is Sweden.

Sue Carlson

Professor Henrik Williams

Photograph by Sue Carlson