The Germanic peoples who settled in Britain from the later 4th century AD are usually described as illiterate: unable to read or write. However some did carve inscriptions, made up of individual letters called runes. Runic was not writing as we understand it: the Old English word writanmeans ‘to inscribe’, and runes were usually cut into wood, metal or stone. The runic letters consisted of vertical and slanting strokes, with no curves or horizontals, because these were more difficult to carve. The alphabet had 24 letters and when written in a special order was known as a futhorc.

Runic script was never used for long texts. To begin with, it was used for short messages or names. Wooden merchants’ ‘labels’ inscribed with their names have been found in medieval Bergen (Norway). One of the earliest known runic inscriptions in England, from the 5th century, comes from the large cremation cemetery at Caistor-by-Norwich in Norfolk. The word raïhan(roe-deer) is inscribed on a deer’s ankle-bone, which was probably used as a gaming piece.

Most of the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon inscriptions are in the south and east of England, the first places to be settled by Germanic invaders. In the Christian period, runes spread into the north, where they were carved on stone crosses and memorials.