Undley bracteate
A small gold pendant from Suffolk carrying three words, one of which nobody can explain. It is the earliest inscription that can be argued to use the futhorc rather than the Elder Futhark, which makes it the object the Anglo-Frisian origin question turns on.
At a glance
- Alphabet
- Anglo-Saxon Futhorc
- Date
- Later 5th century, perhaps c. AD 450–480
- Found at
- Undley Common, near Lakenheath, Suffolk, England
- Now
- British Museum
- Signature
- None given here. English, Frisian and Continental material is catalogued outside the Rundata tradition altogether; elsewhere a signature is left off only where we could not verify one. Either way the object is cited by name and findspot.
The text
Transliteration in the conventional runological form. Translations on this site are our own and deliberately literal.
gægogæ mægæ medu
Discovery
Found in 1982 by the metal detectorist Andrew Flack at Undley Common near Lakenheath in Suffolk, and now in the British Museum. It is a Migration-Period bracteate (a thin single-sided gold pendant stamped from a die) carrying a helmeted head above a she-wolf suckling twins, a design lifted from Roman coinage. The runes run right to left around the rim and stop at the wolf.
Why it matters
The reason this object matters comes down to one or two characters. The inscription uses ᚫ æsc for /æ/, and probably ᚩ os as well: the runes created when the inherited a-vowel split three ways, which is the change that turns a futhark into a futhorc. That makes Undley the earliest inscription anyone can argue is written in the English alphabet rather than the common Germanic one. Whether it was stamped in England or brought there is open, and it is the same open question as whether England or Frisia devised the innovations in the first place.
Common misconceptions
Claims about this object that circulate widely and do not hold up.
The inscription is not translatable with any confidence. gægogæ has no accepted meaning and is usually taken as a formula or a cry rather than a word; the standard comparison is the gagaga on the Kragehul spear shaft, which is to say it is explained by pointing at something else nobody can explain. Only mægæ medu yields a reading, something like "reward to a kinsman".
Undley is often called the oldest English runic inscription. It is the oldest that can be argued to be futhorc. The oldest runic object found in England is the Caistor-by-Norwich astragalus, which is Elder Futhark and at least as early.
Runes attested here (2)
Every dictionary entry that cites this object, with the reason it gives.
- OsFuthorc
Probably carries this rune, alongside æsc, which is why a 5th-century Suffolk pendant is the earliest candidate for futhorc rather than Elder Futhark writing. "Probably" is doing real work: the reading of that character is part of the argument, not an agreed starting point for it.
- ÆscFuthorc
The earliest inscription in which this rune can be seen doing its futhorc job. Undley’s æsc is the main reason the object is read as futhorc at all rather than as Elder Futhark.
Sources
Full references on the sources page.