[Northkeep] Viking Festival, March 17th and 18th, Heavener, OK

[Shirley Hackworth]

Greetings,

 

I bring tidings from the Friends of Heavener Runestone
<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Friends-of-Heavener-Runestone/11947427479417
6> .  Hear what they have to say.

 

The Viking FESTIVAL is Upon Us! March 17th & 18th! Costumes Encouraged! Park
Opens at 8Am/Gates to Festival Open at 10AM/Music 12-5ish..There will be
FOOD, VENDORS, a CHILDREN'S ARENA and a HISTORY SEMINAR on SEA PEOPLE &
MERLIN the WIZARD COMEDY-MAGIC ACT. There will be VIKING RE-ENACTORS & lots
More! For $5 a CARLOAD! Folks you can't beat the price. It is a fundraiser
and FAMILY Event for the COMMUNITY and Visitors. Come help us ENJOY this
BACKYARD!!! This is a CELEBRATION of the PARK!! 
Info- 918-653-2241

 

For those who are unfamiliar with the Heavener Runestone (as I was until
today when an NSU student invited me to this event) I copied this from
Wikipedia (yes I know that's not the best source, but it's easy J).

The Heavener Runestone is an inscribed stone located in Heavener, Oklahoma
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavener,_Oklahoma> . The City of Heavener
assumed ownership and operation of the 55-acre park beginning July 1, 2011.
The origin of the stone's runic
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_alphabet>  carvings is disputed.  The
inscription has been rejected by Scandinavian
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia>  philologists
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philology>  and runologists
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runology> , who consider it most likely modern
(19th or early 20th century). The reading of the "Elder Futhark
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Futhark> " style runes is probably
"GNOMEDAL" (meaning "Gnome Valley", or perhaps a personal name "G.
Nomedal").  The difficulty of using the Heavener Runestone to demonstrate
Viking <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking>  exploration of the area is
that the Elder Futhark <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Futhark>  had
become obsolete by the 8th century, long before the Viking expeditions to
Greenland <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland>  and Vinland
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinland> . Also, only six of the eight
characters are correct Elder Futhark
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Futhark>  runes. A transliteration would
read "G [rough backwards N] O M E D A [backwards L]".

Amateur researcher Richard Nielsen
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nielsen>  proposed that a Viking
explorer hastily reversed the last letter and substituted a letter from the
then-extinct Gothic alphabet <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_alphabet>
in the second position. According to this interpretation, the inscription
reads "GLOME DAL" -- the "Valley of Glome".  Unfortunately, this explanation
would require the Norse explorer to have known two extinct alphabets.
Author Gloria Farley also attributes the inscription to wandering
pre-Columbian Norsemen
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_colonization_of_the_Americas> .

Don Coldsmith's <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Coldsmith>  1995 novel
Runestone, offers a speculative theory about how an 11th century Viking
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking>  could have made his way to the area
of Heavener.

YIS,

 

Lady Cicily