Talk:Merseburg charms

Comment 1

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

fixed.

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I think it is genuine, because there is a very similar poem from the Faroes, but in that poem the gods have been replaced by Christian characters.--Wiglaf 21:23, 20 October 2005 (UTC)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)

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)

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)

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

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)

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)

Proofed

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

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)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Merseburg Incantations/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

I am doing the GA Reassessment on this article as part of the GA Sweeps project. H1nkles (talk) 15:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

My main concern with the article is a lack of citations in certain areas. The citations in the article are credible and well-formatted. I put a couple of templates in where I felt that citations needed to be added. There are a couple of templates on the article since March of 2008, those have not been removed but I have a feeling that they have been addressed. I will put the article on hold for a week pending work on the citations. Other than that the article is fine. Please contact me on my talk page if you have any questions. H1nkles (talk) 15:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The article has been on hold for a week with no work done. At this point I will delist the article as it does not meet the GA Criteria for proper referencing. H1nkles (talk) 15:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Hm. Well, let's see about getting those tags fixed. As far as I can tell, there are four:

- Regarding the first tag, I'm not sure why it's there at all. The MS is listed as Codex 136, f. 85r in the Merseburg Cathedral Library Index. This does not seem to be in dispute. Why the tag?

- According to [1], the translation in question was done by D.L. Ashliman, formerly of the University of Pittsburg. I have not been able to track down a published source, if there is one. There is his website, which is mentioned in the text of the article, and which is dated to 1998. This seems good enough to me, but I'm not wise on the ways of citing webpages vs. published works.

- The second translation also comes from Ashliman, but for this one I found the published source:

Ashliman, D.L. 'Folk and Fairy Tales: A Handbook'. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004. pg. 90. ISBN 0-313-32810-2

- As for the last tag: Anyone can look the songs up on youtube. Do we really need documentation for this? Especially something so trivial?

I'm not pushing for this article to get GA status, so I'm not going to make any changes to the article itself. But if this is all that's holding the article up, then the involved parties should spend 2 minutes and get this done. Thanks. Aryaman (talk) 10:42, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Spell text

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)

The text is also taken, word for word, from the printed reference already given at the end of the paragraph (Jeep 2001). This was just an example of improper use of the tag. This happens sometimes, either because people just go about randomly tagging sentences without bothering to consult the references already given, or sometimes deliberately to push some sort of agenda. What was actually lacking a citation was the insertion of "(so did)" suggesting that four goddesses rather than just two were involved. This was inserted with no basis in the reference cited, but it was not tagged because the paragraph had a footnote. This is an example of how "checking references" on Wikipedia too often means "check if there is a little number attached". In reality, it is ambiguous whether two or four goddesses are involved. Opinions to either effect can be cited, of course, but with attribution. --dab (𒁳) 13:11, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

in fact, there seem to be variant readings. The text as given is indeed referenced, it is as given by Jeeps 2001. But looking at the manuscript, I find it hard to make out if it is "thu biguol en friia" or thu biguol en frua". And indeed Simrock read "frua". This is significant, as Frua is cognate with Old Norse Freyja, and Frija is cognate with Old Norse Frigg. Simrock like Jeeps gives "Freya". This seems to be a mistake, as Simrock bases his "Freya" on his reading "frua", while Jeeps persists in translating "Freya" even though he opts for the reading "friia".

The reading "frua" appears to be obsolete in recent publications, but it is certainly well represented in 19th century literature. This needs elaboration. In the meantime, it is perhaps wise to take the translation by Fortson (2004)[2] as it is more literal. --dab (𒁳) 13:35, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

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)

The friia reading is the most widespread today. In fact, I only find the frua reading in 19th century sources. But since most recent sources seem to ignore the fact that there even was a variant reading in the past, I am not sure what its status is.

As for 'idisi', it means "ladies" (disir), and could be applied as a honorific to supernatural as well as to mortal women. --dab (𒁳) 14:25, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

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)

Concerns about "Frija" "Friia" and retouched photo of manuscript

Look at the actual Mereseburg manuscript - actual manuscript unretouched and closeup of "frija" section - the alleged mention of "frija" is almost obliterated and looks like rrua. To be generous maybe frua. Maybe it said frija, doesn't look like it though. Whose authority are we taking that this does not read "frua" or "rrua"? Who retouched the copy of the manuscript we have on wikipedia which still shows "rrua"? In fact if you look at either version of the manuscript photo we do not have an accurate transcription of it on wikipedia (there are a number of places that are not accurately transcribed in OHG). Where is Frija coming from? Obotlig (talk) 04:05, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, there has been some discussion about whether it's Frija or Frua in the past, and this article has long needed a rewrite. While I don't have time at the moment to dig into these images and I feel that producing our own transcripts based off of internet images falls well into the category of WP:OR, I note that I have tagged these [High German texts for references before] while doing sweeps and adding some references and placing some new material here. These tags were, however, removed by Dbachmann thereafter. Further, note that Dab's edits also seems to have minced some sources.

I would like to remind users that, yes, quoted primary sources require references, even if there is some image on its article or elsewhere that may lead one to some impression or another. As I currently have my library with me, I will now add the texts in questions from a reliable source. :bloodofox: (talk) 06:09, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Not all primary sources require a reference to be quoted (particularly, for example, in an article about a book or movie or screenplay - perhaps I misunderstood "require references") but obviously in this case we will need expert citation for any transcriptions or translations.

Due to concerns about accuracy, lack of any mention of the source, and no release of copyright, the retouched version of the manuscript has been replaced on wikimedia with a photograph. This seemed the best course given the number of articles linking to the questionable version. Obotlig (talk) 19:37, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Why not a Marriage Ceremony

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)

Balder Phol

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)

Spin off Parallels section?

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 (Ebermann, Oskar (1903). Blut- und Wundsegen in ihrer Entwicklung dargestellt. Palaestra:Untersuchungen und Texte aus der deutscehen und englischen Philologie. Vol. XXIV. Berlin: Mayer & Müller.) 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)

Requested move 14 January 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: MOVED to "Merseburg charms" (non-admin closure) Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:09, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

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Merseburg Incantations → Merseburg Charms – "Merseburg Charms" is the normal name for these texts in English-language scholarship. A free-text search of JStor finds 42 hits for "Merseburg charms" and not a single one for "Merseburg incantations". As far as I can see, "charms" is the only term used in the standard handbooks and reference works on German language and Old High German literature:

• the histories of Waterman and Wells
• Bostock/McLintock
• Encyclopedia of German Literature (ed. Matthias Konzett)
• Murdoch's German Literature of the Early Middle Ages
• Edwards's The Beginnings of German Literature
• Jeep's Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia
• and further afield, Norse Mythology: A Guide to Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs (John Lindow).

The only occurrence I can find of "Merseburg incantations" in a peer-reviewed print publication is Stefan Jänicke's "On the Impact of the Merseburg Incantations", though no doubt there are a few more. Google, of course, finds lots, but as far as I can see the majority of these are just mirrors and adaptations of the WP article, and in any case there are still more hits for "charms" Pfold (talk) 11:13, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

• Move to Merseburg charms; it's a descriptive term, not a proper name (doesn't qualify under MOS:TITLES, which says not to over-capitalize such things). The sources do not consistently capitalize it [3], so we use lower case per MOS:CAPS (especially MOS:ISMCAPS) and WP:NCCAPS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:37, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, you're quite right about the case - I'd overlooked that. --Pfold (talk) 21:24, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

What needs doing?

Well, rather a lot, in my view. I think the German article is clearly superior and some of it could usefully be incorporated here.

• An awful lot of the references are to very old scholarship. It's one thing to quote Grimm, whose historical role is important, but to cite works over 100 years old for facts and interpretations makes this article look rather unreliable. There should be no need to cite any research more than, say, 50 years old unless it was truly groundbreaking, or relates to some of the parallels that may not have been the focus of as much scholarship as the two charms. These are problematic and contentious texts, the subject of a great deal of research (or at least discussion) - we ought to be giving readers an up-to-date view.
• There is a severe imbalance between the material on the charms and that on the parallels, as Kiyoweap pointed out some six years ago. In principle I would support moving that material to an independent article, leaving just a summary here, but I must admit I'm not sure what one woudl call it. Perhaps "Germanic bone-setting spells", placed in the Category:Germanic mythology, would do.
• The basics are there, to be sure, but the material about the individual charms doesn't do much more than identify the gods, and there's a lot more to be said.
• I can't see the merit of the split between "monographs" and "general" in the bibliography.

I'm happy to make a start on some of this, and I will add some more recent publications to provide pointers for further development, but there's a lot to do, and the question of a child article for the parallels could do with some discussion. --Pfold (talk) 07:13, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Don't create sections like this saying a lot needs to be done and list a bunch of issues. Create one section for specific issue. Otherwise people can respond to different issues in the same thread and it becomes a mess.

• If you think there are specific contents in the German version that you think should be transplanted here, go ahead and incorporate them. If your want to complain about it but you are not inclined to put in much effort yourself, follow WP:TRANSLATETOHERE and place a {{expand}} and/or put in a request.

• If you think the parallels section has become too bloated, start a WP:SPLIT discussion in a separate section.

• If newer scholarship says something that contradicts outdated scholarship, deleting the outdated one would be fine. If the newer authorities is on an old claim with enduring support, then the older citation showing the original discoverer should still be retained to show precedence, IMO.--Kiyoweap (talk) 15:04, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Split proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was that there was no consensus to split off material as proposed ... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:21, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

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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)

@Pfold:, 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)

• Oppose - I gave the article another glance, and I believe for each parallel given, there has been attached some reliable source that characterize each as a parallel for the Merseburger charm(s) specifically, rather for healing spells in general. So the suggested re-contexting is not warranted. --Kiyoweap (talk) 10:33, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

 Comment: - I will concede that inserting a full quote (or a quote in extenso) for each parallel is not mandatory, only rather convenient. These full quotes (and bibliographical fine details) might be abbreviated here, if it is given in 1) a separate article that exists, or in 2) German incantations, Scandinavian healing spells, Anglo-Saxon metrical charms or whatever. --Kiyoweap (talk) 13:28, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

• oppose per Kiyoweap - unless the new article is specifically a sub-topic of this article (e. g. "incantations related to the second merseburg charm"), they would more specifically belong here (this being the sub-topic). in addition, i expect a standalone list-like article would run a greater risk of evolving into an example farm (the current amount of examples seems quite within reason to me), although that's not to say no such articles should exist. "germanic magic" (or somesuch) sounds like a good place to start, but definitely too broad to split anything off into. k kisses 02:34, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Eastern European parallels

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)

Pfold, what do you think?—Ermenrich (talk) 14:00, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Outside my area of competence, I'm afraid. --Pfold (talk) 17:15, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

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)

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)

Agree Lapchenko (talk) 05:57, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Fine with me I guess.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:24, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

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)

Lapchenko, talk page discussions are not between two people and you're verging towards WP:NPA. Remember Comment on content, not on the contributor. 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)

Just serves to confirm my conviction that a lot of this stuff (not just the Slavic) doesn't really belong in this article, but would be much better served with its own page elsewhere on WP. --Pfold (talk) 17:34, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

You forgot to mention Hindu in your list of relevant languages to discuss since Ancient Indian parallels are ok to be taken into account Lapchenko (talk) 18:24, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

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)

@Bloodofox:, 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)

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)

"Pure Danish"

@Mårtensås: It is absurd to claim that language from the 1629 is "pure Danish" when Danish has changed considerably since this time. Moreover, according to Kungälv, the city was originally Norwegian and was destroyed and then only it was rebuilt in 1612. We don't know when the Dombok was written or what time period it represents. Without a reliable source we can't say whether it is "Danish" or not, and saying something is "pure x-ethnicity" has some very problematic associations we want to avoid. It's not encyclopedic.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:08, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

It is in Danish. The differences to contemporary Swedish are minute, but kiöd and fod reveal it to be in Danish, as the last letter is -d and not -t (Norwegian and Swedish have -t). I don't see why it has to be called "pure", though.--Berig (talk) 14:11, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

PS. An educated person in Norway-Denmark at the time, would have written in 17th c. Danish.--Berig (talk) 14:16, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

At this time the Kingdom of Norway-Denmark was heavily dominated by Denmark, and the educated people wrote in Danish, as Berig said above. Also, it says both in the source and on the page that it's from the 1629 Dombok, so I don't know how you can say "We don't know when the Dombok was written."

Also I'm Swedish and have studied the development of North Germanic for several years. The language is clearly Danish, it has traits like word-final -d instead of Swedish -t, ved instead of widh/wedh, lagde instead of lad(h)e, vor instead of wahr/war/waar, igjen instead of i gen and naffn instead of nampn.

I think it would be better to change the headers Denmark/Norway/Sweden to Danish/Norwegian/Swedish (since language should be more important for a comparison like this than modern, arbitrary borders), and then move this to the Norwegian section. Mårtensås (talk) 14:30, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

I am not convinced that it is so important to state if the attestations are Norwegian, Swedish or Danish. We are talking of essentially the same language with a continuum of mutually intelligible dialects where the attestations are coloured by the written standards established in Stockholm-Uppsala (Swedish) and Copenhagen (Danish).--Berig (talk) 14:47, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

As a case in point: the attestation written in Danish was hardly spoken in standard Danish. It was most likely spoken in the local dialect of southern Bohuslän, which I estimate would have had traits of both Norwegian and Götamål, right?--Berig (talk) 14:54, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Parallelomania?

A lot of the parallels have only very old sources such as Grimm and Viktor Rydberg. Bloodofox, do you know if they continue to be discussed in more recent material? I'm not sure we should include things that are only cited to 19th century scholars, who often had raging cases of parallelomania. This was also an issue when someone tried to add some Slavic parallels last year. Austronesier, you were able to find some better sources for the Indic parallels, what do you think about the various Scandinavian and "Germanic" ones?--Ermenrich (talk) 14:23, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Here are the WP Library links for the two sources which I have used:

• Lincoln, Bruce (1986). Myth, cosmos, and society: Indo-European themes of creation and destruction, chapter "Magical Healing" (don't be misled by the different chapter heading that pops up first).
• Ködderitzsch, Rolf (1974). [https://www-degruyter-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/document/doi/10.1515/zcph.1974.33.1.45/html "Der Zweite Merseburger Zauberspruch und seine Parallelen".

Lincoln does not go into details and does not mention the Scandinavian parallelisms, but Ködderitzsch's broad review covers them, together with other examples from other languages including Latvian, Russian and also non-IE Balto-Finnic lgs. –Austronesier (talk) 14:48, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Because the migratory formula is so well attested, comparative discussion about the charm's structure seems have been a core element of analysis since its discovery, and remains so today. Also, since it's one of those items from early Germanic culture that also has a notable correspondence with a much earlier Vedic precursor, the Merseburg item receives notable discussion in texts focused on the Vedic item (the same goes for the striking parallels among the so-called worm charms found especially in West Germanic sources). I believe both Lindow and Simek provide a little discussion regarding comparative material in their handbooks. That said, these charms—and especially the second one—remain some of the most important items in the ancient Germanic corpus, and I've been meaning to expand this article for a long time with more recent secondary stuff. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:44, 16 September 2021 (UTC)