Ancient Viking valentine message decoded: 'Kiss me'

Researchers have cracked a runic code that has baffled scientists for years—in a development that may help them decode much of the Vikings’ other secret messages.

Science Nordic reported runologist K. Jonas Nordby managed to crack a code called jötunvillur, which he had likened to "solving a riddle."

“After a while I started to see a pattern in what appeared to be meaningless combinations of runes,” he said.

'Da Vinci Code' got it wrong

More importantly, this development  belies the romantic notion ancient codes were all about treasure hunts and conspiracies, as shown in "The Da Vinci Code."

The use of runic codes was imaginative, but not quite mysterious - one coded message dating to the 12th or 13th century etched into a piece of bone found in Sigtuna in Sweden went “Kiss me.”

The code is in cipher runes, the most common code known from medieval Scandinavia. This variety is called ice runes.

“Many think the Vikings used cryptography to conceal secret messages. But I think the codes were used in play and for learning runes, rather than to communicate,” says Nordby.

The report noted real-life Vikings and medieval Norse people carved runic codes on sticks of wood, stones and other objects, and the codes are in many forms and contexts.

Vikings loved language games

Nordby said it was "very common" to use codes, and much of the population mastered them even if there were no rune schools, as the knowledge was passed from generation to another.

The passing of such knowledge could be by linking it to games, poetry, drills and codes, according to Nordby, the first person to study around 80 inscriptions of runic codes in Northern Europe.

Nordby said jötunvillur can only be written, not read, and it "would be pointless to use it for messages.”

He said this may explain other possible uses for the code such as memorizing rune names with the help of the jötunvillur code.

Also, Nordby believes  the use also indicates a whimsical use of runes in the Viking Era and the Middle Ages.

“We have little reason to believe the runic codes were used to conceal sensitive information. People often wrote short, routine messages,” he said.

Viking kids boasted their sexual prowess in code

The report said coded messages like “Kiss me” show the use of code was not limited to politically significant issues.

It said many of the messages in runic codes included a challenge to the reader to crack the code.

“People challenged one another with codes. It was a kind of competition in the art of rune making. This testifies to a playfulness with writing that we don’t see today,” Nordby said.

A separate report in Popular Science noted the runes also show some playfulness, as in the case of a long stick showing a row of bearded men.

"The number of lines in each man's beard indicates which rune he stands for," it said.

It added many messages Nordby deciphered were merely being teenagers horsing around, telling "tall tales about treasures and their own sexual prowess." — TJD, GMA News