Another Interpretation of "Iðiberug" (Patreon)

A lot of attention in the last few days has focused on the most readable part of the new inscription, which reads "Iðiberug" in Elder Futhark. The simplest interpretation is that this represents a misspelling of *Iðibergu, which looks like a woman's name ending in the suffix that would become -bjǫrg in Old Norse (in e.g. Ingibjǫrg). The root meaning is something like "rescue, help, deliverance."

However, a reasonable article by Klaus Johan Myrvoll points out that the simplest interpretation of the iði- element makes it the same prefix as in e.g. Old Norse iðgjǫld ("repayment"). If so, we have no other names with this prefix (except maybe the goddess name Iðunn), and he suggests that instead *iðibergu is not a name but instead a noun, possibly with religious meaning, something like "re-deliverance" (he goes as far as "re-birth," which I think is a little bit of a stretch).

I'm not convinced that it's not a name (I think the example of Iðunn is probably enough to suggest that it's available as a name's prefix), but I think he's probably right about the breakdown of the two elements in the word. Keep in mind that names may be compounds of two elements without being a meaningful compound; e.g. the woman's name Hildigunn contains two roots meaning "battle" but doesn't "mean" something like "battle-battle," the elements are just there to be picked and chosen and recombined in somewhat arbitrary compounds.

The article (in Norwegian) is here. Thanks to Christopher Hinchcliffe who sent it in to me.

All the best,

Jackson Crawford

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