Bergakker inscription


The Bergakker inscription is an Elder Futhark inscription discovered on the scabbard of a 5th-century sword. It was found in 1996 in the Dutch town of Bergakker, in the Betuwe, a region once inhabited by the Batavi. There is consensus that the find dates from the period 425-475 and that the inscription is either the singular direct attestation of Frankish or the earliest attestation of Old Dutch.

Inscription

at the time was used along the North Sea coast, in Frisia, but there are very few other known inscriptions from Francia. The inscription can be read as
where V is a non-standard rune, apparently a vowel.
Several readings have been presented in literature. There seems to be a consensus that the ann means "give/bestow/grant". Several authors read the first word as a personal name in the genitive, and the last word as meaning "flame, brand", a kenning for swords. The third word is read either as kusjam, meaning "chooser" or "chosen", or as kesjam meaning "cut" or "cutter", also referring to swords or sword wielders.

Scholarly interpretations