Talk:Merseburg Incantations

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Good article Merseburg Incantations has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
October 24, 2005 Good article nominee Listed
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[edit] Comment 1

Shouldn't Sunna be the same as Sol (goddess)?--Wiglaf 22:52, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Invented or written down, that is the question

What bugs me is whether the spells were invented in 10th century, or had existed before and only written down in 10th century. If the former was the case it was already Christian era, and its "purer pagan religiosity" will be difficult to be claimed, no? I think this issue should be stated clearer in the article. Anyone willing to assist? --BorgQueen 20:58, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it is genuine, because there is a very similar poem from the Faroes, but in that poem the gods have been replaced by Christian characters.--Wiglaf 21:23, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
So what you are saying is that the Merseburg spells had existed before Christian era and only written down in 10th century? I am confused because the introductory paragraph of the article says it has been "composed" in 9th-10th century. (This part was translated by User:Salleman, not by me) --BorgQueen 21:28, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
How could we possibly know when it was composed?--Wiglaf 21:36, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Ok I am going to do a little copyediting then... --BorgQueen 21:41, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
It is done. I hope I made it clearer in the context concerned. --BorgQueen 21:52, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Good :-).--Wiglaf 08:01, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I read somewhere on the internet that very similar healing spells are found in ancient

India texts, so possibly this type of spell goes back to ancient aryan/indo-european times. Sorry I can't be more specific. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.122.23.174 (talk) 17:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC).

I found a site containing an Indian spell text. It's from the Atharva Veda Saunaka 4.12

I have put an external link to it (http://uweb.cas.usf.edu/~clopez/CAL/AV/DIS/ch1a.htm)

[edit] English

This is an extremely good article, but the English was a little out of focus at some points. I have left the content entirely alone, as I have nothing to add to it, but have re-worked the English to try to do justice to it (I have at some points gone back to the original German and re-translated).Staffelde 14:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Bracteate

the caption reads "Scandinavian Bracteate from the time of the migrations. Odin riding his horse." Is it? The image has no source at all. The inscription appears to be (mirrored) Elder Futhark, which may support the "time of the migrations" claim, but not the necessarily the "Scandinavian" one. Is it Odin? Can anybody decipher the inscription for us, or how can we check if this is true? I can only make out gibu alna at the end, which sounds more German than Norse to me. dab (ᛏ) 17:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

This is the piece known as Seeland-II-C, or the Sjaelland bracteate 2: the inscription is discussed here:

http://www.nordic-life.org/nmh/InEnglish/2eng.pdf
There is an image here: http://www.yale.edu/german/whobrey/runepics.html
Staffelde 11:01, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Healing or riding?

Still with the bracteate, the English caption says that this is Odin riding a horse, whereas the German caption says that it shows Odin healing a horse, as is also mentioned in the intro text to the second spell. Which? Staffelde 21:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I just corrected the caption. Thanks for pointing it out. BorgQueen 21:31, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
that's much better, thanks! although, I'm afraid, the bracteate does not seem to be among those pictured on the page you linked. dab (ᛏ) 10:24, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
It is there, I assure you! picture 10 - Sjaelland Brakteate - shows all three, of which the central image is this one: it supports the present position, ie, with the horse and rider facing to the right. User:Staffelde (not signed in)
I made a stub at Seeland-II-C, putting {{fact}} to the claim that it is Odin healing his horse, since it is less than obvious, and I couldn't find an attribution. I will also flip the image: I have never heard of mirrored runes, so I suppose the natural explanation is that it is simply the jpg was mirrored. dab (ᛏ) 10:44, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I realized that the interpretation of "Odin healing his horse" is common to all 400 or so C-bracteates. It would still be nice to have a source discussing this. dab (ᛏ) 11:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Quite - it's why I raised the point! User:Staffelde (not signed in)

Seeing that Image:Vadstena_bracteate.jpg also has mirrored runes, I am thinking I may have been too hasty in mirroring the image. Is it possible that these bracteates inscriptions are mirrored because they were made from a mould or something? If so, that should be noted on bracteate! Any help? dab (ᛏ) 15:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

See above comments on directin of images of Seeland Brakteate

[edit] epic?

I've been adjusting links to the Epic disambiguation page. I know nothing of The Incantations (except what I've read here!), but wonder if someone could help me out with the word "epic" used here. Usually, an epic story would be very long with many characters, etc. so I'm wonder if "epic" is appropriate and whether to have a link to Epic poetry or not. Could someone enlighten me and/or edit the page as appopriate? John 20:08, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

A good point, and thanks for raising it. "Epic" occurs in this article simply as a direct translation of "episch" in the corresponding German article. Doubtless a case could be made for referring to Germanic mythology as "epic" in a technical sense, but it would be simpler and more comprehensible to change "epic" to "mythological", which I will do accordingly, making the necessary changes in the rest of the sentence. Staffelde 02:47, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Looks good! Can "some previous" be replaced by "a"? The sentence still seems strange. John (Jwy) 05:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
The fresh eye sees all... You're right - it didn't quite work. I've had another go at it, and I am happier now that it has got the meaning properly AND sounds like English - let me know what you think. If there are any other bits that don't read quite right, please point them out. Staffelde 17:09, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Delisted - Relisted GA

This article did not go through the current GA nomination process. Looking at the article as is, it fails on criteria 2b of the GA quality standards in that it does not cite any sources. Most Good Articles use inline citations. I would recommend that this be fixed, to reexamine the article against the GA quality standards, and to submit the article through the nomination process. --RelHistBuff 09:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Citations fixed, relisted GA Atom 00:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proofed

Proofread. Added additional inlince citations, enlarged document image. Will review later for second pass at proofing. Atom 23:17, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA

I've passed this article, yet I'd like to encourage further improvements and more citations. The line translations are somewhat difficult to follow in three column format. Perhaps the example at Beowulf could improve the presentation here. I agree this is GA material, but doubt it will advance to FA in the near future due to length. Is there no more that can be said about such a culturally significant find? Durova 20:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC)