Myths of the Rune Stone: Viking Martyrs and the Birthplace of America Paperback – October 1, 2015

A general reader (especially one outside Minnesota) might be excused if he thought this book was intended to present definitive evidence that the Kensington Rune Stone was a fake. Certainly the author—like a century’s worth of historians and runologists before him—believes the rune stone to be a fake.But (this being scholarship after all) Krueger instead spends most of his time in this revised dissertation addressing the sorts of questions that elicit clucks and coos from the academy: in Krueger’s words, “how the Kensington Rune Stone emerged as sacred, civic totem that embodied the aspirations and anxieties of Minnesotans in the twentieth century.” So, Krueger channels a good deal of angst about white hegemony, a crisis of masculinity, the glorification of Aryans, and the plight of displaced Scandinavian immigrants trying to find their place in the New World. Krueger further claims that proponents of the rune stone story transferred a horror of uncivilized native savages to the fear of other minorities and of godless communism.Personally, I read around these trendy professional myths and still learned a lot about the rune stone story itself. Most interesting to me was why the Catholic church lent its weight to the authenticity of the stone and how the stone’s chief proponent, Hjalmar Holand, a hater of organized religion, was perfectly willing to generate support for the stone “by framing it in a narrative of a Christian crusade.” (128) (There is still an Our Lady of the Runestone Church on Runestone Drive in Kensington.)Krueger admits that town fathers had little difficulty appreciating the commercial opportunity being handed to them on a 200-pound slab of greywacke. I would also argue that the continuing popularity of the rune stone story had a lot to do with its (in the words of Chip and Dan Heath,  Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die ) “stickiness.” Like many urban legends of our own time, the Kensington Rune Stone story was simple, unexpected, and made a roaring good tale. Who could not be charmed by the possibility of seafaring Vikings deciding to slog it out overland from Hudson Bay to central Minnesota in 1362?

This was well written, interesting, authoritative, and with a style of writing that feels like I was sitting with Krueger at the bar.I admit, being from the "birthplace of America," I had more than casual interest. I grew up with the legends and have heard the Rune Stone debated many times. However, Krueger turns over another stone, focusing on how this legend formed and flourished instead of focusing on the question of legitimacy.I really enjoyed this look at the Rune Stone and the evolution of the story. Most will be pleasantly surprised.

A balanced and interesting account of how the Kensington Runestone has been received in the century and more since its alleged discovery. The focus is on the reaction of laypeople rather than academic Norse specialists, who have almost unanimously been sceptical at best, and usually dismissive of its authenticity. One fascinating chapter records the enthusiasm displayed by Catholic clergy for what they saw as evidence of a Catholic presence in North America long before the Pilgrim Fathers.My only complaint as a reader of the book is that a remarkable amount of the text is relegated to a very lengthy and detailed collection of endnotes.