Applying a transaction cost perspective to decode viking Scandinavia's earliest recorded value relation: insights from the forsa ring’s runic inscription

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article reevaluates the inscription of the Viking-era Forsa Ring, which contains Scandinavia’s oldest extant legal codex. The inscription’s fine reads ‘uksa … auk aura tua’, previously translated as ‘ox … and two öre [silver]’ and interpreted as a payment of both ox and silver, suggesting cumbersome transactions. This study applies a transaction cost perspective and draws on economic, legal and etymological contexts to propose that the fine could be paid with either an ox or two öre silver, not mandatorily both. This reinterpretation positions the Forsa Ring as Scandinavia's earliest documented instance of a value relation. The value of an ox at two öre of silver corresponds to the valuation of an ox at 30 pence in Anglo-Saxon Laws during the same period.