The Charnay Fibula is a mid 6th century fibula or brooch which was discovered in Burgundy in 1857. It has a runic inscription consisting of a horizontal partial listing of the first twenty of the twenty-four rune sequence of the elder futhark

Elder Futhark

The Elder Futhark is the oldest form of the runic alphabet, used by Germanic tribes for Northwest Germanic and Migration period Germanic dialects of the 2nd to 8th centuries for inscriptions on artifacts such as jewellery, amulets, tools, weapons and runestones...

 and two undeciphered vertical lines. The full listing of the elder futhark is known from the inscription on the Kylver Stone

Kylver Stone

The Kylver stone, listed in the Rundata catalog as runic inscription G 88, is a Swedish runestone which dates from about 400 CE notable for its listing of each of the runes in the elder futhark.-Description:...

. The shape of the "z" rune algiz

Algiz

The Algiz is part of the ancient Nordic and Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, often equated to the modern day z, however was traditionally pronounced yr. The letter has come to symbolize many neo-pagan religions and is often worn as a pendant...

 and the "p" rune peorð

Peorð

' is the rune denoting the sound p in the Elder Futhark runic alphabet, in the Anglo-Saxon rune poem named peorð. It does not appear in the Younger Futhark. In the poem, it is glossed with the enigmatic:...

 differ somewhat from that of other known elder futhark inscriptions.

The inscription apparently is in the Burgundian language, and its transliteration into Latin letters reads:

fuþarkhnijïzstpbem

Unþfinþai Iddan Liano

Kr(istus?)

Ïian(ö?)

One translation into English is that the inscription means, "May Liano discover (be led to) Iddan. Christ. Iaô." The inscription would then appear to be a charm to obtain a lover, with the last words an abbreviation for Christ and a Gnostic

Gnosticism

Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...

 word for God the Father.

Other sources

• The article Charnay Fibula in the Encyclopædia Britannica
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