The papers in this volume were first presented in 1994 at an International Colloquium devoted to language and writing in the German-Danish border area. The time period covered ranged from the first short inscriptions on the weapons found at Thorsberg in the territory of the Angles to the medieval runic inscriptions discovered in the cities of Schleswig and Oldenburg in Holstein. Central themes of the colloquium were the linguistic history of this area and the historical events documented in the linguistic records. The papers reflect the current state of research and provide significant new insights; they come from a variety of disciplines - runology, linguistics, history, and Scandinavian literary history. An edition of the medieval runic inscriptions from Schleswig and Oldenburg make this book an indispensable research tool.