The Franks Casket / The Auzon Casket
A Replica of the Right Panel
A Germanic Legend

Description:
The right-hand end poses special problems of interpretation. The apparently episodic scene is evidently from Germanic legend but has not been satisfactorily identified. Three labels read: 'risci' = 'rush', 'wudu' = 'wood' and 'bita' = 'biter'. The main runic text is in alliterative verse partly encoded by substituting cryptic forms for most of its vowels and perhaps certain other letters.

Inscription Translation:
Here Hos sits on the sorrow-mound; she suffers distress in that Ertae had decreed for her a wretched den of sorrows and torments of mind.

Culture/period: Middle Anglo-Saxon
Date: 8th century (early)
Findspot: Found/Acquired: Auzon, Haute-Loire, Auvergne, France
Materials: whalebone
Technique: carved

Source: British Museum 1867,0120.1