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History
The tradition of raising stones that had runic inscriptions first appeared in the 4th and 5th century in Norway and Sweden, and these early runestones were usually placed next to graves. The earliest Danish runestones appeared in the 6th and 7th centuries, and there are about 50 runestones from the Migration Period in Scandinavia. Most runestones were erected during the period 950-1100 CE, and then they were mostly raised in Sweden and Denmark, and to a lesser degree in Norway.
The tradition is mentioned in both Ynglinga saga and Hávamál:
For men of consequence a mound should be raised to their memory, and for all other warriors who had been distinguished for manhood a standing stone, a custom that remained long after Odin's time.
—The Ynglinga saga
A son is better,
though late he be born,
And his father to death have fared;
Memory-stones
seldom stand by the road
Save when kinsman honors his kin.
—Hávamál
What resulted in the production of most runestone was a trend that began in Denmark in the 960s. King Harald Bluetooth had just been baptized and in order to mark the arrival of a new order and a new age, he commanded the construction of a runestone.
The inscription reads
King Haraldr ordered this monument made in memory of Gormr, his father, and in memory of Ţyrvé, his mother; that Haraldr who won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian.
The runestone has three sides of which two are decorated with images. On one side, there is an animal that is the prototype of the runic animals that would be commonly engraved on runestones, and on another side there is Denmark's oldest depiction of Jesus. Shortly after this stone had been made, something happened in Scandinavia's runic tradition. Scores of chieftains and powerful Norse clans consciously tried to imitate King Harald, and from Denmark a runestone wave spread northwards through Sweden. In most districts, the fad died out after a generation, but, in the central Swedish provinces of Uppland and Södermanland, the fashion lasted into the 12th century.
The Snoldelev stone, one of the oldest runestones in Denmark
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