Talk:Merseburg charms

message: 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)
thread_title: English

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: The Bracteate

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Looks good!  Can "some previous" be replaced  by "a"?  The sentence still seems strange. John (Jwy) 05:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  epic? 

message: 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)
thread_title: Delisted - Relisted GA

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

message: 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)
thread_title: GA

message: Why is there a 'citation needed' on each of the original language versions of the spells, when you can clearly read every word of it on the picture of the original handwritten spells that is included in this article? I have references for the exact wording in books I own but those are secondary sources compared to that photograph of the original handwriting! --Feuerrabe (talk) 22:02, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for taking out these tags! As far as the frua/friia thing goes the German Wikipedia gives an exact transliteration and uses friia but I can't see which source that has. On another note 'idisi' does quite likely not mean 'goddesses'. The author of the Heliand uses that same word to describe the women who find Jesus' grave empty and those are just ordinary women.--Feuerrabe (talk) 21:46, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not sure where you are taking such a fixed reading for 'idisi' from. There are only two known uses of the word (one of the Hadrian fragments and this spell) and I am more than sceptical of making such a statement as you did. My professor who was the first to analyze the Hadrian fragment found in Leipzig interpreted it as simply 'women'.--Feuerrabe (talk) 14:54, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spell text 

message: I suggest the following in all humility to trained philologists who I greatly hope might have have more scientific means of testing this hypothesis than I can think of.
Couldn't the Merseburg Incantations actually have been a part of a marriage ceremony? With a little imagination, I could go line by line and describe a reason these words might have been affirmations of the new role of the bride. The final lines, variations on joining, make this theory most tempting. Further, in a land that had been converted to Christianity for centuries, would not such an invocation of ancient symbols be most tenaciously preserved in something as universal and necessary as a marriage litany?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.64.161.30 (talk) 18:11, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why not a Marriage Ceremony 

message: Balder and Phol are applied to same character so how about Lord Apollo? 19 November 2012  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.22.186.133 (talk) 23:12, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Balder Phol

message: I worked on the /*Parallels*/ section in a series of edits, but I feel it has become somewhat inflated, partly because of the numerous citations that deal with parallels, but may not be all that much of interest to people strictly interested in the OHG interpretations. (Since all of the Scandinavian and Scottish parallels are modern or near-modern). It might make sense to then spin off an article on the "Second Merseburg charm type" of spells.
I suppose it is all right to spin-off such a child article, since it is done all the time. Though I have my reservation on this because this categorization may not have gained general acceptance. There is apparently a "Charm Indexes" project in the works, along the lines of Stith Thompson (Aarne-Thompson) folktale motif indices and the TSB Scandinavian ballad index, this is still in the works and hasn't gained a foothold (general familiarity). The "Second Merseburg charm" type is one of fourteen(?) categories established by Ebermann () and is discussed in English in the following aritcle: Tatiana Agapkina, Andrei Toporkov (Moscow), "Charm Indexes: Problems and Perspectives" (pdf) --Kiyoweap (talk) 00:44, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Spin off Parallels section?

message: I propose that the  Parallels section should be split off and put in a new page called Germanic healing spells or something similar. As it stands, this section is much too long for this page, considering that it's not the main topic (the current Norwegian section is longer than all the material on the Merseburg charms). The suggested new page would allow the incorporation of material on other relevant spells, as well as more general material on this type of spell. It would, of course, need a new lead and a new section with a summary of the material on second charm. As far as I can see, almost all of the items listed in the "General" section of the references are relevant only for the to-be-split-off material. --Pfold (talk) 12:24, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: , perhaps an article just on "Germanic magic" would be in order? See the related discussion over at Seeress (Germanic).--Ermenrich (talk) 23:21, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split proposal 

message: Info on parallels in Slavic folklore considered as fringe and reverted by Ermenrich. So ancient India parallels seem not fringe, while nearby nations' data do. Why so? Lapchenko (talk) 05:21, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: , what do you think?—Ermenrich (talk) 14:00, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Outside my area of competence, I'm afraid. --Pfold (talk) 17:15, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we need sources in English or German to establish that these parallels are notable, and certainly ones more recent than 1909.—Ermenrich (talk) 21:15, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Why not let the new text stand but precede it with a maintenance tag asking for better sources? I don't see that material needs to be removed immediately unless it's demonstrably wrong or misleading. --Pfold (talk) 23:19, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agree Lapchenko (talk) 05:57, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Fine with me I guess.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:24, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  Strictly speaking it was consent to Pfold. But your resistance to Eastern European parallels is so interesting a cultural fact by itself that let it be documented here in the talk. So I agree with your actions too) Lapchenko (talk) 09:08, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: , talk page discussions are not between two people and you're verging towards WP:NPA. Remember  The Merseburg charms are in Old High German. Any relevant scholarship on them should be published in German, English, or (unlikely) French. It is in these languages that scholarly discussion of them is conducted, this isn't a topic like The Song of Igor's Campaign where relevant scholarship would be in Russian and not translated into a different language. As we summarize the according to wp:WEIGHT, any parallels only discussed in Russian should not get much (or potentially any) weight, particularly when the fact that wp:AGEMATTERS is factored in and one of your sources is from 1909.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:43, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

text: 1) "Hindu" isn't a language; 2) no scholarship in Hindi is cited on this page. The Indian parallels are cited to scholarship in English and German; 3) and WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a valid argument anyway. You do not appear to be willing to have a serious discussion on this topic.--Ermenrich (talk) 22:17, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

text: , you're sort of the resident folklore and Germanic mythology expert around here, what do you think?--Ermenrich (talk) 00:40, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that this material needs to go. Like the Germanic 'worm' charms (most famously the "Nine Herbs Charm"), these 'bone' charms are often compared by scholars to Vedic material. This observation is perfectly mainstream. Any mantion of purported Slavic parallels will need to be transparently cited here from modern scholarship. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:09, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eastern European parallels