page_title: Seax of Beagnoth
section_title: The inscribed futhorc
hierarchical_section_title: Seax of Beagnoth / Significance / The inscribed futhorc
caption_attribution_description: English: Copper alloy gilded disc-headed pin inscribed with eleven runic letters (ᚠᚢᚦᚩᚱᚳᚷᛚᚪᚫᛖ).
context_page_description: The Seax of Beagnoth is a 10th-century Anglo-Saxon seax. It was found in the River Thames in 1857, and is now at the British Museum in London. It is a prestige weapon, decorated with elaborate patterns of inlaid copper, bronze and silver wire. On one side of the blade is the only known complete inscription of the twenty-eight letter Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, as well as the name "Beagnoth" in runic letters. It is thought that the runic alphabet had a magical function, and that the name Beagnoth is that of either the owner of the weapon or the smith who forged it. Although many Anglo-Saxon and Viking swords and knives have inscriptions in the Latin alphabet on their blades, or have runic inscriptions on the hilt or scabbard, the Seax of Beagnoth is one of only a handful of finds with a runic inscription on its blade.
context_section_description: The runic inscription on the seax not only identifies the maker or owner of the seax, but also provides a rare example of the twenty-eight letter Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet.  Examples of the earlier, twenty-four letter Elder Futhark and sixteen letter Younger Futhark alphabets are relatively common in continental and Scandinavian runic inscriptions, but inscriptions of the historically later Anglo-Saxon futhorc are rare in England, with most examples of the Anglo-Saxon futhorc being known from manuscript sources.  This seax represents the only surviving epigraphic inscription of the basic twenty-eight letter Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, although an incomplete inscription of the first sixteen letters of the futhorc occurs on the disc-shaped head of a Middle Saxon pin from Brandon, Suffolk, and the first seven or eight letters of the futhorc are inscribed on the head of a pin from Malton, North Yorkshire.
  It is unclear what purpose the inscription of the futhorc served, but Page suggests it cannot be simply decorative, but must have had a magical significance.  He notes that the carving of runic letters on swords as a form of magical protection was an ancient practice, but by the 9th century rune lore was probably on the decline in the Kingdom of Kent, and the owner of the seax may have commissioned an archaic runic inscription for prestige purposes.  The fact that there are errors in the order and design of the runic letters suggests that the smith who made the seax was not used to adding such runic inscriptions to the weapons he made, and they may have been copied inaccurately from a manuscript text.
caption: Anglo-Saxon disc-headed pin from Malton, North Yorkshire, engraved with the first seven or eight letters of the futhorc,[note 3] followed by the three vowel letters (ᚠᚢᚦᚩᚱᚳᚷᛚᚪᚫᛖ).
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