The Heavener Runestone

This article was first published July 13, 2025, at fieldethos.com.

In the far reaches of eastern Oklahoma, just shy of the Arkansas line and smack dab in the center of Le Flore County, lies the sleepy town of Heavener. A few miles outside of Heavener’s city limits, deep in the leafy foothills of the Ouachita Mountains, stands a slab of sandstone, ten feet by twelve. The stone has every right to be there. The Norse runes chiseled into the stone’s surface, however, do not.

Norse runes are probably the last thing you’d expect to find in the hills of eastern Oklahoma, but the discovery might not be as farfetched as it sounds. Runestones have been found elsewhere in North America. There’s one in Kensington, Minnesota, and another near Spirit Pond, Maine, but for whatever reason, it’s easier to imagine Vikings leaving their mark in those places than in eastern Oklahoma.

The runes inscribed on Heavener’s stone don’t offer much in the way of explanation. They are a confusing combination of Elder Futhark, the oldest form of runic alphabets, and Younger Futhark, which, as I’m sure everyone knows, didn’t come along until late in the 8th century. Those who specialize in the study of inscriptions on ancient monuments – epigraphists, they’re called – translate the runes as Glome Valley or Gnome Valley. Either one of those two, or G. Nomedal, but nobody has a clue as to who he might have been. Apparently, Glome Valley translates as sundial valley or monument valley. Nobody seems to know what that means, either, but both of those options sound more plausible to me than G. Nomedal.

So, how did the runes wind up there? That’s the burning question, right? Unfortunately, that question is easier asked than answered. Romantics whose hearts long for the thrill of adventure are just sure that the runes were made by sightseeing Vikings, but there are certainly skeptics.

So, let’s start with what we know. The first modern knowledge of the Heavener Runestone dates back to the 1830s, when a Choctaw hunting party stumbled upon the slab of sandstone. In the years that followed, it came to be known as Indian Rock, the local population incorrectly but understandably assuming that the carvings had been made by Native Americans. The Smithsonian documented the discovery nearly a hundred years later, but made no definitive decision regarding the runes’ origins.

That brings us to the speculation. As you’d expect, the further back you go, the murkier things get. Were the runes carved, as some believe, by a Swedish captain who led German colonists to the area sometime between 1718 and 1720? Was the deed done by a member of the La Salle expedition circa 1687, when explorer René-Robert Cavelier claimed the area for France? Were the runes inscribed by Scandinavian settlers, by some bored Swede working at the local train depot?

Nobody knows for sure, but try arguing any one of those possibilities with someone from southeastern Oklahoma, I dare you. Locals are so attached to the lore of visiting Vikings that a nearby community college changed its mascot from the Trojans to the Vikings. The Carl Albert State College Vikings. And who can blame those Okies for wanting to believe? I mean, isn’t it so much more fun to imagine a Viking longboat easing up the Arkansas River and a warrior stepping out to make his mark on the new world, the braids in his beard blowing in the breeze? Better that than to think that it was some punk kid pulling a prank on his summer break, surely.

So thanks, G. Nomedal, whomever you were, for taking the time to carve your name into history and giving us Okies something to argue about.