Jötunvillur
This is a Viking runic cipher system that was remarkably popular in its use [1]. The system uses the Younger Futhork, which is a subset of the Elder Futhark. Younger Futhork was derived around the 7th or 8th centuries to provide a less complex system of characters [2].
Enciphered runic messages were fairly common in their use. Kahn states that 'All systems of runic cryptography replaced runic letters by groups of marks indicating the number of a letter's group and the number of its place in that group.' (p.87). This approach works well when discussing the Elder Futhark, as it 24 characters long and can easily be split into 3 groups of 8. The Younger Futhork could potentially use this approach but the more restricted set of 16 characters would significatly reduce the overall complexity of the cipher. An example of a system such as Kahn describes can be seen in the so-called 'Kiss Me' cipher.
According to Kvittingen, it is not uncommon to find inscriptions that say something like 'interpret these runes' and launch off into some kind cipher or another. It is also not that unusual to find runic graffiti talking up stories of the author's martial or sexual conquest [1].
Jötunvillur, on the other hand seems to have taken quite a different approach. Unsolved until 2014 this cipher system substitutes runes based on the phonetic ending of the 'plaintext' rune. For example, the rune for f (pronounced 'fe') would be replaced with the rune representing the 'eh' sound (Is). This adds an extra degree of complexity as the younger futhork have some glyphs which can be used for similar sounds. Ur, for example, represents a normal 'o' sound while Óss sounds like the 'o' is 'oh'. The key is as follows:
Plaintext: f u þ o r k h n i a s t b m l y
Character: fe urr Purs oss reio kaun hagall nauo iss ar sol tyr bjarkan maor logr yr
Cipher : e r s s þ n l þ s r l r n r r r
As you can see, multiple plaintext characters map to single cipher characters. Reio, for example, is the enciphered rune for 6 plaintext glyphs. This significantly added to the complexity of the the cipher as a degree of knowledge of the content, or luck/brute force, is required to know which plaintext character Reio is representing at a given point in the message [5].
Performing a Latin alphabet, to plaintext rune alphabet, to enciphered runes, transformation will take a little work. As you can see, there is a non-trivial number of transformations to be taken into account. For the purpose of this work I will presume the following key. 1: Latin Alphabet. 2: Younger Futhork. 3: Chosen YF Alphabet. 4: Jötunvillur for chosen alphabet
1 2 3 4
a Ar Ar Raeidh
b Bjarkan Bjarkan Naudhr
c Kaun Naudhr
d Tyr / Thurs ('dh') Tyr Raeidh
e Is Is Sol
f Fe Fe Is
g Kaun Kaun Naudhr
h Hagall Hagall Logr
i Is Is Sol
j Is Is Sol
k Kaun Kaun Naudhr
l Logr Logr Raeidh
m Madhr Madhr Raeidh
n Naudhr / Tyr ('nt', 'nd') Naudhr Raeidh
o Ur / Oss Oss Sol
p Bjarkan Bjarkan Naudhr
q Bjarkan Naudhr
r Raeidh / Yr Raeidh Hagall
s Sol Sol Logr
t Tyr / Thurs ('th') Tyr Raeidh
u Ur Ur Raeidh
v Bjarkan Bjarkan Naudhr
w Ur Ur Raeidh
x Ur Raeidh
y Ur / Is Ur Raeidh
z Yr Yr Raeidh
It is probably worth pointing out that the Jötunvillur cipher was only broken in 2014 and, to the best of my knowledge, nobody has tried to shoe-horn it onto the English language or even a Latin alphabet. That being said... FIRST POST. :-)
- http://sciencenordic.com/mysterious-code-viking-runes-cracked
- http://www.therunesite.com/younger-futhork-rune-meanings/
- Kahn, D. (1996). The codebreakers: The story of secret writing. New York: Scribner.
- https://thornews.com/2014/02/04/the-vikings-jotunvillur-runic-code-is-solved/
- http://destinationsigtuna.se/en/2014/02/14/runic-love-letter-from-sigtuna-deciphered/