The picture to the left contains at least two chants, one to release prisoners and one to heal an injury on an animal.I'm thinking of having students in my fall course, "Medieval and Early Modern Studies in German," do a Wiki. I'm going to speak with Melissa, our lab director, about it. I'm also going to provide a sample entry, and the students can work together to create new entries. Here is the draft I'm working on, and it IS long.
Wiki World: Texas Students Interpret Medieval and Early Modern German Literature, as Read by Scholars of Various Periods and Texts in David E. Wellberry’s Edited A NEW HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE, Beginning in September, 2009
(Thus wrote some writers such titles in the early modern period in German….)
I want students to attempt to “live” visually and intellectually, if not viscerally in those times, seeing how ideas/ideologies/values/beliefs were the same and different from theirs or others’ today. I want them to be interested and make their own writing interesting.
744. The Charm of Charms: "The Merseburg Charms," or "die Merseburger Zaubersprüche"
Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich. “The Charm of Charms,” in David E. Wellerby, ed., A New History of German Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 1-7.
“Bishop Boniface founds a monastery at Fulda, where – nearly two centuries later – magical formulae in Old High German are recorded on an empty codex page” (p. 1).
Fulda is located in the center of present-day Germany. In 744 the English (missionary) Boniface founded a monastery, and from this central location the Christianization of the area known today as “Germany” happened. (“Germany” is in quotes, because a nation state called Germany simply did not exist back then. But the term refers, roughly, to what we call Germany today – very roughly.) This is the context of the “Merseburg Charms” which were written down on a blank part of a codex about 200 years later, in the tenth century. We do not know why the monk wrote them down on a Christian codex, (it contained texts for the Mass,
I had known that Charlemagne (“Karl der Große” in German) had used political strategy and military force in Christianizing “Germany" (actually his empire included present-day France, Germany, Switzerland, northern Italy, and parts of Austria), but I had not made the connection consciously (though now obvious to me) that missionaries and monasteries were instrumental in Christianizing “Germany.”
So to the charms themselves. They are quite interesting for me, because I remember reading about them in graduate school. I know I read about them in undergraduate school as well, but I don’t know whether they made an impression or not, because I couldn’t read the German very well, in which they were explained. I cannot help but think that they are similar to what I call “incantations” in some religions today. I think, for example, of the Protestant ministers who heal people, or of a specific story about my Catholic mother. Now, I know many of the Protestant “healers” may well be fakes, but I wonder if there are some who actually believe in what they do, and whose “healed parishioners” feel better, at least psychologically, and at least for a period of time. I never really used to believe any of it, but then my mother had a psychological “healing” experience.
My mother, who lived alone with her mother, was devastated by my grandmother’s death. Grandma was 89 when she died, and Mom would have been 66. For two years my mother had a very difficult time of it, became a much more devout Catholic, and became a follower of the Virgin Mary. I had not known that the Catholic Church also had charismatic types, but it did. At some point two years after Grandma died, my mother went to a meeting or service in which the priest was doing “laying on of the hands.” My mother reported that the priest laid his hands of healing on her, and just like I remember seeing in the Protestant services, she fell back and was laid on the floor. She reported that it was a feeling of healing, that when she was on the floor she could not move, she knew what was going on around her, and she felt a state of well-being, even a calm euphoria as I would name her description of what she described. Now, I believe my mother. Her interpretation was that God healed her psychologically, for when she walked back into her apartment afterwards, it was the first time in two years that she did not cry. My interpretation is that the mind is an amazing thing, that the mind and body are not so separate as we make them, that emotional happenings produce chemical effects, and that for a while my mom’s chemistry was indeed altered. And it is true that after that she did much better in life, psychologically speaking.
Although I interpret what happened to my mother differently from the way she interpreted it, nevertheless I believe, as I said, that something physical actually happened to my mother. There are many different ways of reaching altered states, in different religions or secular spaces. The people of the Kalahari dance(d) until exhausted and see/saw spirits. Some people take/took LSD for an altered state. Some people meditate and reach an altered state. It is said that some people use physical pain to reach altered states. They all interpret those states according to their religious and secular beliefs. And there are some present-day people who believe in miracles, although they would NEVER call them “magic.” But what is the difference, except that our culture defines miracles as something positive that our religion does, while magic is something negative that other religions do, or that is of the devil, or that really does not exist?
Now I’m not saying that healing actually took place when the Merseburg charms were spoken. But I wonder if they were accompanied by actual medicine, or splints, or some other means the people of the time had to heal. I could be totally wrong, but I wonder. I know when a friend of mine was in the hospital, religious co-workers came to the hospital and asked it they might pray with us. They held our hands, and the husband said a prayer aloud. This, to me, is quite similar: prayer AND medicine. So I wonder.
Now to the text of the charms themselves, and this one in particular. I’ve attempted a truer rendering of the original manuscript. Gumbrecht’s version below is what scholars call “normalized.” Note that a ‘w’ was literally a ‘double u.’ I’ve also attempted to think of the contemporary German words that might correspond, even if meaning has changed over the centuries.
Phol rndr(ende) uuodan uuorun ziholza duwarz
(duwart) demobalderes uolon sin uuoz birenkit /
thubiguolen zinhtgut * sunna eraswister
thubiguolen friia uolla eraswister thu
thubiguolen uuodan mhe?(sohe) uuola conda
sosebenrenki sose?????(sose bluotrenki) sose lidi
renki ben zibena bluot zi?bluoda?
lid zigeliden sosegelimmdasin *
Below I’ve put the normalized version, together with contemporary German words and the English possibilities below my rendering of the original, so that you can see make some comparisons yourself:
Phol rndr(ende) uuodan uuorun ziholza duwarz
Phol ende Wuoadan vuorun zi holza.
Phol und Wodan fuhren zu Holze
Phol and Wodan went(by horse) to the woods
(duwart) demobalderes uolon sin uuoz birenkit /
du wart demo Balderes volon sin vuoz birenkit.
Da war dem Fohlen Balderes sein Fuss verrenkt.
At this/then Balder’s foal’s foot was dislocated.
thubiguolen zinhtgut * sunna eraswister
thus bigul en Sinthgunt, Sunna era swister;
da beschwör es Sinthgunt, Sunna ihre Schwester;
Thus conjured it Sinthgunt, Sunna her sister;
(I wonder if ‘beguile’ is in any way related to ‘bigul’?)
thubiguolen friia uolla eraswister thu
thus bigul en Friia, Volla era swister;
da beschwör es Friia, Volla ihre Schwester;
Thus conjured it Friia, Volla her sister;
thubiguolen uuodan mhe?(sohe) uuola conda
thus bigul en Wuodan, so he wola conda:
da beschwör es Wodan, so er wohl konnte:
Thus conjured it Wodan, so well he could (as well he could):
sosebenrenki sose?????(sose bluotrenki) sose lidi
sose benrenki, sose bluotrenki, sose likirenki:
so wie Bein verrenkt, so wie Blut verrenkt, so wie Glied verrenkt:
So like leg dislocated, so like blood dislocated, so like limb dislocated:
renki ben zibena bluot zi?bluoda?
ben zi bena, bluot zi bluoda,
Bein zu Bein, Blut zu Blut,
Leg to leg, blood to blood,
lid zigeliden sosegelimmdasin *
lid zi geliden, sose gelimida sin.
Glied zu Glied, so wie geleimt sein/seien?
Limb to limb, so like (it) were/was glued.
Gumbrecht maintains that the charms had a threefold nature within an alliterative unity. Hm: trinity in unity, three in one, ancient ideas, pre-Christian ideas, Christian ideas! I wonder if there is any link there. I don’t know. Anyway, his interpretation is that the charms had to have a past conjured up into the present, for a future healing, and the unity is the alliteration that was used in the verses. In other words, alliteration unified the text.
I also think there is some wonderful assonance in the verses: the ‘o’ sound and the ‘uo’ sound are in many of the words, especially in the first part, the first five lines, and when spoken aloud produce a sonorous sound, talking about the gods, perhaps the sounds of the gods? (Just my speculation.) Justaposed to them are the “renkit” and “renki” sounds of dislocation, sounding to me like ‘rent,’ as in ‘rent asunder,’ meaning broken into pieces. In both the second part describing injuries and at the end during the healing you have three different vowel sounds, ‘eh’ in ‘ben,’ ‘uo’ in ‘bluot,’ and ‘ee’ in ‘lid,’ etc. I’m not sure what that could mean. (Webster's has a dictionary definition of assonance.)
Gumbrecht states that in line six there is a caesura, but looking at the original text I wonder. Perhaps one could write the three types of dislocation one after the other on separate lines, even a caesura between each, giving them all equal weight, instead of writing them in one line. In the original they are simply all together on one line and just a small part of the next.
Possible:
Sose benrenki
Sose bluotrenki
Sose lidirenki
Currently printed:
Sose benrenki, sose bluotrenki, sose lidirenki:
In the original:
Sosebenrenki sosebluotrenki sose lidi
renki
One must also be careful when looking at the printed text of the charms, because scholars have placed spaces and punctuation where they did not occur in the original. Now, I know scholars place the spaces, because evidently there were indeed caesuras in poetry of the time, but the punctuation is their interpretation, and I’m not saying it is wrong, I’m only saying one must also be careful.
All the repetition (“poetry”) also makes the words sound more “magical,” if one will.
Why are they called the Merseburg Charms? Gumbrecht states that they “are named after the town of Merseburg, near Halle in Saxony, whose cathedral flourished in the 11th century and which still owns today the codex containing the two charms” (2). But why do they call them charms? The word ‘charms,’ also meaning ‘spells,’ in the public’s imagination, invokes ideas of paganism and, for many people, negative connotations. Yet for these Germanic peoples they were anything but “paganistic” (although they were pagans, they did not perceive of themselves as negative), and they were not negative at all. So what word fits better? Evidently people believed in the power of these sounds and words used together, so they were a kind of conjuring, but is there anything comparable in the Christian religion today that would make us understand the positive connotations of the ancients’ ideas better? Certainly baptism is a kind of “conjuring,” because it wipes away Original Sin and it allows one to go to Heaven. In the Catholic Church, as far as I know, taking Holy Communion is not considered symbolic. The priest has the power to ACTUALLY change the host and wine into Christ’s body and blood through his words. And people also believe in the healing of various Protestant ministers. They say such things as “In the name of our Lord BE HEALED.” So in my opinion those are “incantations,” too, and are very similar to the Merseburg texts. What, then, should they be called? The Fulda-Merseburg Healing Poems? I’m not sure. The Fulda-Merseburg Healing Liturgy? I don’t think that would be very accurate either. Maybe they are the Fulda-Merseburg Healing Prayers. But they are more than a prayer, they are a healing chant or incantation. (I give up!) What might the Germanic people have called them? Magic spells? But those two words would have had very different meanings from what they do today. It is very difficult to “translate” culture from one time to another, especially religion, for we have such a negative view of others’ religions and such a positive view of our own, especially if we are monotheistic. (My God is the one true God. All the other gods are false – or worse, demons.)
Finally, I was really surprised to see that there are contemporary bands who sing, adapt, or refer to the Merseburg charms! One of them is In Extremo, a medieval metal and folk metal band!! On German youtube (http://de.youtube.com) you can find their musical rendition of the Fulda-Merseberg Healing Chant/Incantation that we’ve been discussing here, as well as video showings of their other music. It’s amazing what one can find on the web! Their wikipedia entry, their myspace site, are also accessible, as are other examples of their music on youtube.
There is also another group who pioneered medieval folk rock, Ougenweide, who first put the Merseburg spell, or blessing, "Eiris sazun idisi," to liberate prisoners, to music in recent times. You can also hear their rendering on German youtube.
Finally, Gumbrecht discusses another incantation, a house blessing in Latin and Old High German, the Zürcher Haussegen (Zurich House Blessing), which, by the way, one cannot find online:
“How good, wight (devil), that you know that your name is wight, / that you can neither know nor speak chnospinci (also devil)” (7).
According to Gumbrecht, the devil will never be able to learn the word ‘chnospinci,’ because it is magical, complex, and “the evil spirit will never be able to learn it—and thus will never regain power over himself” (7) or the house! Today I believe priests (maybe ministers, too?) come to people’s houses when they’ve just moved in and bless them.
According to Gumbrecht “[i]n modern times, the German charms are as thoroughly forgotten as the Germanic culture which began to recede by the 8th century, as if it could no longer hold onto the Christian present, into a past that appears much more remote to us than Greek and Roman antiquity” (7). (When this was written, then published in 2004, youtube was not as available as it is today, and perhaps In extremo and other bands were not yet singing the charms. Certainly, the charms have to be known by some German fans today.) On the other hand, he sees a relationship to the more modern world, because Western poetry suggests “a relationship of immediate tangibility to the things of the world” (7).
Coda. After finishing this post, I put the following words into the search engine: "be healed," and I came across a site that says you can be healed, and there is even a healing prayer, which seems from the context and explanation of it, a healing incantation:
Jesus is Lord. God raised Him from the dead, victorious over satan, sin, and sickness. There is healing in the Name of Jesus. So, sickness and disease, I command you to leave my body now, in the Name of Jesus. Leave me alone satan. Jesus is my Lord. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I receive healing for my body, and I declare in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I am now well. I believe I receive my healing, in the Name of Jesus. http://www.belivers.org/tr111.htm, accessed February 21, 2009
One could even make the stretch and say that Gumbrecht's interpretation of the threefold nature of the charm, i.e. a statement of a situation in the past in which God (the gods) was a part, then the healing incantation, and then the future outcome that is desired, is partially played out here in this healing prayer created by a Christian, although the healing that is to occur is to occur within the next second -- now. Is this too far a stretch?
(Note for fall: It took me 4-1/2 hours to re-read Gumbrecht's article, to write and link the above post. It would have taken me longer to add pictures, music of the times, etc. I had also read the article several times in the past, and of course I have background knowledge about the incantations that I brought to this task. I figure that students working together can do this, but working alone would have to take too much time, because I want them to read, write, access information, sound, video, print, etc. from the web, and write. In addition, I want them to read other texts that come from the same era. So I'm considering taking just one essay a week, having students "milk it to death," and then perhaps at mid-semester and semester's end, do a full wiki post themselves, by themselves, to demonstrate that they can read these complex essays in the book, access information online in a way that is fairly academically acceptable, and write about what they find. The wiki I wrote is somewhat informal, and I'll allow them to do that as well, I suppose, as long as they learn the difference between formal and informal writing. I just think that a more informal wiki will be of more interest to German students, or students of medieval and German literature, who come after them and read their writings. I'll also allow them to agree and disagree with each other and provide reasons why.)
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