Gerlög and Inga

• 1. Introduction

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  Gerlög, also spelled Geirlaug, and her daughter Inga were two rich and powerful women of 11th-century Uppland, Sweden. Their family saga was dramatic and tragic, and it was carved onto several runestones so that it would survive them. The stones speak of marriages, early deaths and a valuable estate changing hands. Why would a family set its losses into stone for strangers to read? And what could a few carved lines settle for the people who commissioned them?

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• 2. Faith and Turmoil

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  Uppland in the 11th century was a region torn by religious wars between Pagans and Christians. The fighting centred on the sacrifices at the Temple at Uppsala. Gerlög and Inga belonged to the social class that had a great deal to lose in such a conflict, and like many people of their standing they had chosen the new faith. Their names survive not because of that choice, however, but because of what they carved afterwards. The first stone to read is the one at Hillersjö.

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• 3. The Hillersjö Stone

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  The Hillersjö stone is the main inscription of the saga, and it begins with Gerlög as a young woman. In her maidenhood she married a man named Germund, and the couple had a son. The stone does not give the boy's name. Germund drowned, and the son died as well. Gerlög then married again, this time to Gudrik, and they had several children. Only one of them survived, a daughter named Inga. When Inga grew up she married Ragnfast of Snottsta, a name also spelled Snåttsta. They too had a son whom the stone leaves unnamed. The family of Ragnfast owned an estate, and four more stones at Snottsta and Vreta speak of what happened to it.

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• 4. Snottsta and Vreta

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  Four stones at Snottsta and Vreta announce that Ragnfast, the husband of Inga, had died. Ragnfast had been the sole heir to the estate of Snottsta after his own father, Sigfast. Their son died too, which left the property without an obvious heir. The Hillersjö stone says that Inga inherited the estate. One of the Snottsta and Vreta stones gives the key line: "she inherited her child". That agrees with Hillersjö, where Inga takes the estate in place of her son. He was probably unnamed because he was very young. The central message of all these stones is that Inga inherited Snottsta after Ragnfast. Yet the carvings also name a few other people, beginning with a man called Assur.

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• 5. Assur, Estrid and Gyrid

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  A housecarl named Assur served Ragnfast, and the runestones mention him without saying why. The source suggests he held a strong position in the clan and may have inherited some of Ragnfast's property. The Snottsta runestone U 329 adds two more people, the women Estrid and Gyrid. It states that Ragnfast was their brother. Their mention may point to a disagreement over the inheritance, though the stone does not say so. What is clear is that the carving explains how the two women were related to Inga. With the estate accounted for, the Hillersjö stone returns to Inga's own life.

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• 6. A Mother Inherits

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  The Hillersjö stone continues with a second marriage for Inga, this time to a man named Eric. Apparently both of them died soon afterwards, and they left no children. Because of this, Gerlög inherited her own daughter. Runestone U 20/U 21 completes the account by recording that Gudrik, who was Gerlög's second husband and Inga's father, had died, and so had Eric. Today the saga stands at the centre of an exposition at the Stockholm County Museum, which dramatizes the story of the two women.

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