The text is carved on the stone, probably by the same person who does the memorials for Holmes City's newly-established Lutheran Cemetery. Then the newly carved surfaces of the stone are "aged", and it is carefully buried among the roots of a small tree on a hill in the almost-empty community immediately west of Holmes City. The plan is to leave it until it is needed, then point out to a would-be settler the advantages of the attractive little hill among the lakes; in the meantime, as some settlers are likely to spot those advantages for themselves, it will have to be designated as "reserved" land for some imaginative reason. In 1867, the Dakota uprising is finally defeated, so the immediate need for the secret weapon disappears- but having devoted so much effort to the project, there's no harm in keeping it, just in case. Decades pass, more and more plots in the township which becomes known as Solem are allocated; the coming of the railway even prompts the creation of a whole new town, Kensington. The little tree keeps growing, the stone suffers season after season of genuine ageing. Eventually, the people who had arranged for one plot to be reserved are all dead, and along comes Olof Ohman... Do I have evidence for any of this? Nothing beyond what you have just read- good conspirators get rid of evidence (sadly, they would probably have taken the decision to burn the hypothetical runic source document, which would be an absolute giveaway if it was ever revealed). All I claim is that this hypothesis fits the available evidence (see my Primesauce pages for some useful links) far better than any 1890s jokery, and frankly rather better than any medieval expedition- explorers who forsook the major rivers in favour of the Minnesota backwoods would probably deserve to get massacred; and if the survivors stopped a day or so in one place making hammer-and-chisel noises they probably wouldn't long outlive their comrades. Besides, I hate multiple co-incidences- a stone about "Goths and Norsemen" being found next to an immigrant community of their modern compatriots; the dates 1362/1862; the reserved plot... And if my story is even close to the truth, it's pretty interesting in its own right, don'cha think?