Does the runstone from Söderby (Gs 13) witness the first train in Sweden? Runfilology and the art of reading as it stands

Does the runestone from Söderby (Gs 13) bear witness to the first Swedish levy? Runic philology and the art of reading what is there.From the farm Söderby in the province of Gästrikland we know a runic inscription which in 1981 was interpreted by Sven B. F. Jansson in the following way:“Brúsi had this stone erected in memory of Egill, his brother. And he died in Tafeistaland, when Brúsi led the land’s levy(?) after his brother. He travelled with Freygeirr. May God and God’s mother help his soul. Sveinn and Ásmundr, they marked.”The Söderby inscription was mentioned in earlier historical sholarship on the levy (‘warlike expedition with appropriate equipment’) organisation in Scandinavia. The present author tries to demonstrate that for runological and semantic reasons the runic sequence cannot be deciphered as førði læiðang(r) lands ‘led the land’s levy’. Rather, the runic record should be interpreted as førði langlænz ‘bore long-spear’, suggesting that Brusi took over the office of battle standard bearer at his brother’s death. The interpretation rests on the fact that spears decorated with banners could be used as battle standards (Icelandic merkispiót) and on the surmise that langlænz was the term for this phenomenon in Runic Swedish. The Söderby inscription should then be translated:“Brúsi had this stone erected in memory of Egill, his brother. And he died in Tafeistaland, when Brúsi bore long-spear (=battle standard) after his brother. He travelled with Freygeirr. May God and God’s mother help his soul. Sveinn and Ásmundr, they marked.”