Skalds, Runes, and Voice

The word skáld is often explained as deriving from words for ‘abuse’, and the skald would thus have received his name as a ‘defamer’. This paper tests the arguments of that interpretation and arrives at the conclusion that ‘skáld’ is more probably derived from words for ‘sound’: the skald proclaims. Through a discussion of the word rún, the argument is made that the runes could be understood as sounding in a way analogous to the activity of the skald: in an oral society, writing would have been understood as the carrier of voice. The name of one of the most prolific rune carvers, Œpir, has seemed mysterious: why would anyone call himself ‘the screamer’ or ‘the loud-mouth’? In this paper, it is suggested that if the runes were considered as voice carriers, Œpir in the sense of ‘the proclaimer’ would be a congenial signature for a rune carver — or for several carvers.