Laudator Temporis Acti

Erik Moltke, "The Kensington Stone," tr. John R.B. Gosney, Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society 13.4 (July, 1952) 33-37 (at 35):

To show how every Scandinavian scholar regards the inscription I will quote what Professor Jon Helgason, professor in Icelandic at the University of Copenhagen, said to me when he read my first article on the Kensington Stone: "In my opinion the inscription on the Kensington Stone is such that no philologist with any self-respect could in any decency write about it; any more than an archaeologist would trouble to publish a grave-find of the Iron Age if he found a telephone book under the urn." In my heart of hearts I agree with Jon Helgason.

Such sentiments may have scared off many a professional linguist from writing in defense of the genuineness of the inscription. At least two philologists did publish extensive defenses of its authenticity, however:

• S.N. Hagen, "The Kensington Runic Inscription," Speculum 25 (1950) 321–356
• Robert A. Hall Jr., The Kensington Rune-Stone Is Genuine (Columbia: Hornbeam Press, Incorporated, 1982)

Hall was a Romance linguist who candidly admitted (p. 1), "I am not a Scandinavianist, nor even a Germanist." Hagen, on the other hand, was an expert in those areas. Because Hagen is comparatively obscure, I decided to collect some information on his life and work. He is not mentioned at all in Theodore C. Blegen, The Kensington Rune Stone: New Light on an Old Riddle (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1968), or in David M. Krueger, Myths of the Rune Stone: Viking Martyrs and the Birthplace of America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015).

Here is a transcription of Hagen's obituary in the Lancaster New Era newspaper (February 19, 1966), with the title "Dr. Hagen Dies, Retired Prof":

Dr. Sivert N. Hagen, ninety-three, professor emeritus of English at Franklin and Marshall College, died at 11:50 a.m. Friday in General Hospital after an illness of 15 months.

He taught at the University of Iowa, Vanderbilt University, and Gettysburg College, before coming to F&M as the chairman of the English Department in 1924. He retired from F&M in 1944 and was named professor emeritus.

He was born in Mylan, Minn., and was a son of the late Niles K. and Kari Einerson Hagen. His wife, Nertha Marie Borge Hagen, died in 1958. The couple had been married 58 years.

Dr. Hagen, who lived at 558 W. Lemon St., graduated from Luther College, Decorah, Iowa in 1896 and received his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in 1900.

He was a member of St. John's Lutheran Church and the Sphinx Club, both of Lancaster; the Clio Society; Phi Beta Kappa; the Linguistic Society of America and the Modern Language Assn. of the United States.

Surviving are two sons, Sigurd B., Philadelphia, and Olaf E., Closter, N.J.; two daughters, Agatha, wife of Jerome Cosgrove, Glen Cove, N.Y.; and Mrs. Hildegarde Sheidegger, Baltimore, Md.; two grand-children and one great-grandson.

For "Mylan, Minn." read "Milan, Minn.," a town in Chippewa County, Minnesota.

The following photograph accompanied the obituary: Here is a transcription of Hagen's obituary in the New York Times (February 20, 1966), with the title "Sivert Hagen, Philologist, Dies; Called Kensington Stone Real":

Prof. Sivert Nielsen Hagen, philologist, who made an intensive study of the Kensington rune stone found near Kensington, Minn., in 1898 died Friday in Lancaster, Pa. He was 93 years old.

The Kensington stone is believed to describe an exploration journey made by 8 Swedes and 22 Norwegians from Vinland in 1362. The stone had been pronounced a forgery by 19th-century scholars soon after its discovery. In a philogical analysis published in the July, 1950, issue of Speculum, the journal of the Mediaeval Academy of America, Dr. Hagen concluded that the stone was authentic. The philologist made his study of the inscriptions at the urging of the late Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the explorer and author.

Born Near Kensington

The rune stone was found on the farm of Olof Ohman, about three miles northeast of Kensington. The stone, which was found during a land-clearing operation, was covered by six inches of soil and was enmeshed in the roots of a poplar or aspen, which had grown around it. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1948.

Kensington is 60 miles from Dr. Hagen's birthplace. The future philologist received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1896 from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and a doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University in 1900. That year, he became an instructor in English at the State University of Iowa, where he remained until 1905, when he joined Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Hagen taught at Gettysburg College from 1916 to 1924 and then joined Franklin and Marshall College as a professor of English. He retired in 1944.

In his translation of the rune stone, Dr. Hagen contended that an the words and forms had been in use at the time mentioned in the inscription. He said that certain words and forms used in the inscription were not rediscovered or identified by scholars until long after the stone had been found.

Dr. Hagen is survived by two sons Sigurd B. of Philadelphia and Olaf E. of Closter, N.J.; two daughters Mrs. William J. Cosgrove of Glen Cove, L.I., and Mrs. William Scheudegger of Baltimore; two grandchildren, and a great-grandchild.

See also W. Norman Brown, Johns Hopkins Half-Century Directory (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University, 1926), p. 144:

Hagen, Sivert Nielsen [g 97-99, Fel 99-00 PhD (Engl)] AB Luther 96; Instr Engl Iowa State 00-05; Instr, Asst Prof Engl, Ger Vanderbilt 06-16; Prof Engl Gettysburg 16-24; Prof Engl Franklin and Marshall 24——. Franklin and Marshall College Lancaster Pa.

Hagen's Ph.D. dissertation was on The Norse Loan Words in the York Mystery Plays, probably directed by James Bright (1852-1926). Besides the article on the Kensingston stone, his articles include:

• "The Origin and Meaning of the Name Yggdrasill," Modern Philology 1.1 (June, 1903) 57-69
• "Mūspilli," Modern Philology 1.3 (January, 1904) 397-408
• "Classical Names and Stories in the Bēowulf," Modern Language Notes 19.3/4 (March-April, 1904) 65-74, and 19.6 (June, 1904) 156-165
• "On the Origin of the Term Edda," Modern Language Notes 19.5 (May, 1904) 127-134, reviewed favorably by G. Neckel, Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 50.3 (1908) 159-161
• "ON. Nornir 'Fates'," Modern Language Notes 39.8 (December, 1924) 466-469
• "The Skodborg Runic Inscription," Acta Philologica Scandinavica 20 (1949) 339-344 (non vidi)

Hagen's papers are in the manuscript collection of the Norwegian-American Historical Association, St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, according to the Guide to Manuscripts Collections of the Norwegian-American Historical Association (Northfield: The Association, 1979), p. 40.

I'm unqualified to take a stand on the controversy surrounding the Kensington Stone, but I do find the arguments by Harold Edwards, "The Kensington Runestone: Geological Evidence of a Hoax," Minnesota Archaeologist 77 (2020) 6-40, to be persuasive. Among many other anomalies, Edwards points out that the 202 lb. stone is of a type that "does not match any sandstones found in the glacial deposits in western Minnesota, let alone around the Ohman farm," but rather resembles flagstones that started to be imported to Minnesota from Pennsylvania and New York in the 1880s (pp. 16-17).