Ovansjö Runestones

The Ovansjö Runestones are two Viking Age memorial runestones and fragments of a third that were found in a church in Ovansjö, which is east of Kungsgården, Gävleborg County, Sweden, which was in the historic province of Gästrikland.

Gs 14

Gästrikland Runic Inscription 14 or Gs 14 is the Rundata catalog number for a damaged sandstone runestone, which is 1.75 by 1.25 meters, that was discovered in the eastern wall near the entrance to the nave of the church. Before the historic significance of runestones was understood, they were often re-used in the construction of bridges, walls, and buildings such as churches. The inscription is classified as being carved in runestone style Pr1, which is also known as Ringerike style. This is the classification for inscriptions with text bands that have attached serpent heads depicted as seen in profile, but with features that are not as stylized as those in Urnes style.

The partial runic text names the three sponsors of the memorial stone, Helgi and Ásulfr and Ásmundr, but the name of the deceased has been lost. The text does state that the deceased man, who was probably the father of the sponsors, was bæztr smiða or the "best of smiths." This is the only surviving runestone that mentions that a person was a blacksmith. Gästrikland is known to have been a center of ironmaking during the Viking Age. One rule followed in craving runes in stone was that two consecutive identical letters were represented by a single rune, even when the two identical letters end one word and start a second word. In Gs 14, the runes þiritu are transcribed below as þir| |ritu to designate that a single r-rune was used this way in two consecutive words.