Viking Love Letter

A pair of Vikings exchanged a message in runic code about 900 years ago. The nature of the message was forgotten for many years, and thus became known as the "jötunvillur code." Was it carrying out preparations to attack a village? A mead recipe, perhaps? An epic poem about warriors contending for Valhalla? Not quite.

A piece of wood has runes engraved into it. The message was brief and characteristic of the times because so many straightforward runic messages were employed for countless purposes. Although there were likely several ciphers in use at the time, the jötunvillur code is one of the least frequent. Only nine examples of the code have ever been discovered, and it's thought that rather than being used to deliver coded communications, it was more often used to learn how to utilize runes.

These runic writings were utilized by the Vikings to create graffiti and love letters, as well as other writings. Due to the dearth of examples, the jötunvillur code was the most difficult to decipher. Fortunately, researchers discovered one where two individuals signed their names using both the runes and a far more popular alphabet. The coded message's translation, which was simply "kiss me," was made possible as a result. Who said Vikings weren't fun-loving people?