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Article published In: NOWELE
Vol. 78:2 (2025) ► pp.216–220

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The runic inscription on the spearhead from Mos

 | Uppsala University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

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Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Uppsala University.

Published online: 11 December 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/nowele.00100.fri
Abstract
The inscription sioag or gaois on the spearhead from Mos is usually understood as Gothic *Gaujis ‘the barker’. There are linguistic difficulties with that interpretation. One can also doubt whether ‘the barker’ really is a suitable name for a weapon. The author suggests that sioag/gaois is an anagram of agiso, corresponding to Old High German agiso ‘fear, terror’. The Gothic counterpart would be *agisa. Thus, there is reason to consider if the language of the inscription is Burgundian, Herulic or West Germanic. There are very few examples of anagrams in older runic inscriptions: lau, lua and aul for alu and Rahswia for haswiaR ‘the grey-haired’. The reason for obscuring *Agisō ‘the terrifying one’ through an anagram could be magical.
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