The Stallarholmen rune stone carved by Kalle the runestonecarver

The "Stallarholmen vikings" is a viking association on Selaön/Stallarholmen in Strängnäs municipality.

In year 2003 the Stallarholmen vikings had their first viking festival, a big and well coordinate arrangement with many visitor. At this first year I started the work with their own runestone.

It was decided that the stone would only be carved on the days of festival until it become completed. But when I counted out that it would take 35 years to get done we change the plan to cut also between the festivals to be clear in reasonable time.

Runic inscription:
(translated)

The Stallarholmen vikings raised the stone to be a link from the past to the future

Me and my daughter Sol
Photo by: Arne Haraldsson

In June 2006 the
runestone was cut
but not painted.

I paint the the runestone at the festival together with Sol, my daughter.

To cut and paint up a runestone on a festival means also that I tell about the work, thoughts behind and a lot answering on questions.

2 July 2006 - It's time for ceremony and speech


Torgny Jonsson, chairman at the board of directors of Strängnäs municipality uncover the runestone and holding a speech.	Here I'm tell about the work, ornamentation, the symbols and the runic inscription

The stone was found on the island a long time ago in a field belong to Årby farm.

In the area it's a large number of old runestones so when they pick up the stone from the soil they thought it was an old runestone.

They must have been disappointed, no runic letters, no viking ornamental art on the surface. But the stone look like a runestone so they drag the stone to home and raised it at the front of the houses.

Stallarholmens runsten på sin ursprungliga plats, på Årby gård

30 years later the Stallarholmen vikings look for a good stone to make a runestone off and there it was, just waiting to be carved and the The Årby farm was kind and donate the stone.

The ornamental, symbols and rune

The dragon on the stone with it's runic inscription on the body it's a kind of watchdog that protect the stone and runes for ever if it's tied correctly by the runecarver. I'm the runecarver and I used the old local runestone snake to tied the dragon into the stone.

The 6 pictures above on snake heads are taken from 6 old runestones at Selaön

The ornamentation was a challenge to my self.
I let the dragon and snake weave together to a node in the right down corner and gave space and air on the rest of the surface.
The weave of reptile bodies become tight and was difficult to carve.

The proposals of ornamentation was painted on this piece of linen cloth.
The painting was also used the first years to explain my work.
Click here to enlarge >>

Triskele (The symbol at the top) At least three of Sweden's 3000 runestones have that symbol but the one a make has double lines. At the first look at the symbol it looks like three pieces, but it's only one. The three ends on the symbol are woven together in a impossible magic way.
It's a symbol of life, every end is a part of your life, child, adult and old, then life starts all over again like a circle. If you don't believe in reincarnation you can think at this as a part of you will transfer into your children. You can also use the triskele as a symbol for the day or the yare, everything will com to the end and it will also start again.

----------2006 - The Stallarholmen runestone ----------A long time work, yare 2003 to 2006