Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Bodley 572

Also called Codex Oxoniensis Posterior, this is a miscellany of booklets, mostly in Latin but including glosses etc. in Cornish, Welsh and Old English. These date from the 9th and 10th centuries with 11th-century additions.

At the bottom of the otherwise blank page folio 41 recto there is a line of cryptic runes (some non-standard) followed by two lines, each containing a fuþark with additional strokes of the same kind as the cryptic runes.

Detail from folio 41 recto, page bottom

The two fuþarks have the same rune-forms, which are clearly identifiable though some are slightly deformed in order to fit the extra cryptographical brances. The runes are long-branch, with m having developed into the open-topped form while ą retains one-sided twigs. An unusually wide variety of punctuation is used as separators.

The first line consists of two groups of cryptic runes separated by a cross of dots and a stave with a horizontal crossbar. The latter can hardly be transcribed as short-twig h given the consistently long-branch runes below, and dotted i for e seems unlikely in combination with the early form of ą. From the context, it is more probable that this is not intended as a rune, but as the main separator between the groups, while the cross of dots might be an afterthought or even added at a later stage.

The three cryptic runes to the left of the separator correspond to k s ʀ. The last could instead be transliterated y, but as is evident from the context, this distinction is not relevant, as the runes are not meant to have any linguistic meaning. Instead, they are merely exemplifying the normal way of writing cryptic runes; presenting the last rune in each of the three ættir. These are as usual numbered in reverse, and because the last rune from each ætt is chosen, attention is drawn to the fact that there are six runes in the first ætt and five in the last two. The fuþark in line 2 completes this summary. Its division into three ættir is shown both by dot separators, and by each rune having additional strokes according to the (reverse) number of the ætt.

The unique content in this manuscript is the right-hand part of the first line and the fuþark in the third line. Together, these describe in the exact same way as described above an alternate system of cryptic runes based on a division of the fuþark into five pseudo-ættir with three runes in each of the first four and four in the last. The cryptic runes after the separator thus correspond to þ k i t ʀ. In normal cryptic runes, the first two would be impossible, and the final three þ i l.

The variety of separators consisting of dots in vertical lines and crosses is entirely redundant. There is a tendency that the vertical lines contain the same number of dots as the following ætt or pseudo-ætt, but this is not consistent.