Three Daughters and a Funeral : Re-reading the Tune Inscription

This paper contains a new analysis of the runic inscription on the Tune stone, made on the basis of autopsies and various earlier proposals. While I agree with the view that there is a word missing at the top of side A (contra Grønvik 1981 and others), probably r<unoz>, I depart from the current communis opinio in proposing that side B consists of two independent subject-initial clauses. I argue that the first word in B1 is likely to be a personal name ending in -z and the subject of a verb meaning something like ‘erect’, of which staina ‘stone’ is the object. Moreover, I reject the analysis of dalidun in B2 as ‘made (nice), prepared’ (Seip 1929), presenting arguments supporting the emendation da<i>lidun (Bugge1891, in NIæR), thus giving þrijoz dohtriz da<i>lidun arbija ‘three daughters shared the inheritance’. Finally, I resuscitate the old idea of Läffler (1892, 1896a, 1896b) concerning sijostez, taking it at face value and considering the phrase sijostez arbijano to reflect an archaic legal term meaning ‘the closest family heirs’. Following Läffler I assume that the form is derived from a reflexive (rather than a root meaning ‘bind’, Bjorvand 2008), an analysis supported by a parallel in archaic Latin (suus heres ‘family heir, self-successor’). I conclude that the three daughters of Wōdurīdaz shared the inheritance as the closest family heirs, while some other person (perhaps Wīwaz) erected the stone