Old Norse
Most runestones had a practical, rather than a literary, purpose and are therefore mainly of interest to historians and philologists. Several runic inscriptions are also nonsensical by nature, being used for magical or incantatory purposes. The most notable literary exception is the Rök Runestone from circa 800 AD. It contains the longest known inscription, and encompasses several different passages from sagas and legends, in various prosodic forms. Part of it is written in alliterative verse, or fornyrdislag. It is generally regarded as the beginning of Swedish literature.
Read more about this topic: Swedish Poetry
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“Carlyle has not the simple Homeric health of Wordsworth, nor the deliberate philosophic turn of Coleridge, nor the scholastic taste of Landor, but, though sick and under restraint, the constitutional vigor of one of his old Norse heroes.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)