Utrechts Rune stone.

Welcome to the channel and welcome to the show and welcome to lovely lovely Utrecht. For the people from abroad who don't know Holland that closely there are four large cities in Holland. Utrecht is by far my favorite city. You have Amsterdam which is lovely but it's overrun by tourists. You have Rotterdam which was totally destroyed during the second world war so everything is modern and new. I'm not really into that. And then you have The Hague. That's a city where I was born in. There's the government there so I try not to get too close because there's this stench of corruption in the air as soon as you enter the city. So what's left is Utrecht and that's where we are today. What made me make this video was an old Instagram message by somebody who says I appreciate your content. I live in America but my ancestors came from Holland and my dream is to return to Holland and to visit a runestone there. So I had to tell him I had to be honest. I said listen sorry no runestones in Holland. So he was very polite about it but I could tell he was very disappointed. It took a couple of weeks and then I got another message saying hey listen wait a minute there is a runestone. There's a runestone right dead smack in the center of Holland. There's a large runestone dead smack in the center of the city we're in right now in Utrecht. So that's what this video is about. Exploring the runestone and telling you the story. So let's go take a look. So here you have it folks. Massive stone dead smack in the center of the country with with you can see runic inscriptions. But the point is it's a harsh truth this one actually isn't real. What makes a runestone a real runestone? Well for one thing this one was made in 1938. So that's why it's not a real runestone. This was a gift from our friends in Denmark to the people in Holland to the University of Utrecht and it's a replica. It's a replica of the largest runestone in Europe the Jelling stone. Now I actually visited this stone when I was in Denmark and it's a stone that represents the first king of Denmark King Harald. He united the tribes and he kind of created the blueprint for what is Denmark today. Harald the first. His nickname was Harald Bluetooth by the way because he was so good at diplomacy. If you're wondering Bluetooth technology actually got his its name from King Harald Bluetooth which is represented on this runestone. Actually the logo for Bluetooth is actually a bind rune of several runes in honor of King Harald. But this was given in 1938 as a gift. Now there are also replicas of this stone in London and in Paris. So if you're ever wandering the streets of London or Paris and you just happen to see a giant runestone it's a replica of this one and this is what it represents. Now if you'll follow me I'll show you what it says in translation because on the back they translated the runes for us. Oh I have a camera woman for this episode. Here are the runes which is pretty cool. If you look at the runes there seem to be it's not elder futark it seems to be younger futark because there are some runes that are not in the elder futark. King Harald gave this as a sign of respect to his father Gorm and his mother Tyr Harald who conquered all of Denmark and parts of Norway and who made sure that all Denmark and his part of Norway converted to Christianity. So is this a true runestone? No. Is it a pagan stone? No not really. But still there's a massive stone with rune inscriptions and you have some bonafide runes right here dead smack in the middle of the country. That's pretty cool.