UC Berkeley

Abstract

The Application of Peircean Semiotics to the Elder Futhark Tradition:

Establishing Parameters of Magical Communication

by

Scott T. Shell

Doctor of Philosophy in German

University of California, Berkeley

Professor Irmengard Rauch, Chair

This dissertation addresses the issue of magical communication found in the Elder Futhark runic inscriptions. The study examines the Kragehul Spear Shaft (DR 196), Björketorp runestone (DR 360), the Horn(s) of Gallehus (DR 12), Gummarp runestone (DR 358), Lindholm amulet (DR 261), Straum whetstone (KJ 50), Ribe skull fragment (DR EM85; 151B), the Noleby runestone (KJ 67), and the Eggja runestone (N KJ 101). It seeks magical communication which may putatively be encompassed by my proposed law of magical semiosis, which reads:

While operating within an Umwelt where we assume magic is a phaneron in the Weltanschauung of the Runemaster, he or she intentionally manipulates signs and sign-relations within a sign-network by the use of icons (like produces like), indices (contagious properties) and/or symbols (learned conceptual properties). While there will be more than one sign within the sign-network, it is the magical sign which is the most salient when working with such an object. This includes—but is not limited to—phonetic iconicity, semantic iconicity, indexical curses, iconic theophany formulas whereby the Runemaster becomes a god (degrees of iconicity), mythic reenactments, Begriffsrunen

(symbolic indexical icons), and certain word-formulae especially alu ‘ecstatic state’ (disputed).

I argue that, by setting objective parameters for measuring this law of magical communication, we can then determine whether or not a particular inscription should be understood as magical or non-magical specific to the Umwelt and Weltanschauung of the Runemaster. Essentially, this dissertation is meant to challenge runologists in postulating falsifiable criteria so we may, in an academic setting, discuss magical communication in the world of the Runemaster.

This study begins by discussing how Charles Sanders Peirce can help provide us with a basic framework regarding the sign. His phenomenological framework is applied to the world of the Runemaster. The next section then addresses the problem with the word “magic,” which goes far beyond the concept of “if it does not make sense, it must be magical.” It then leads to a discussion of runes and numinous qualities and finally to a corpus chapter which applies the theories and methods I have adopted.