Old high German slumber song
The Old High German Schlummerlied , sometimes also called Lullaby , is an Old High German poem made famous in 1859 by the Viennese private scholar Georg Zappert . The poem, which is rich in information on Germanic paganism and which is said to date from the 10th century, is, in the opinion of most of the experts who have commented on it, a forgery .
The slumber song
Zappert writes that in 1852 he noticed some Old High German words on a strip of parchment that belonged to a paper manuscript from the 15th century ( Wiener Hofbibliothek Codex Suppl. No. 1668). Zappert acquired the manuscript in 1858 because the removal of the strip from the spine of the book required its destruction. On the parchment that had been removed he found a five-line Old High German slumber song, the writing of which he dated to the 9th or 10th century:
- Tocha slaslumo uueinon sarlazes triuua uuerit craftlicho
- themo uuolfa uurgianthemo slafes unza morgane manestrut
- sunilo ostra stelit chinde honacegirsuoziu hera prichitchinde
- pluomun plobun rotiu zanfana sentit morganeueiziu scaf
- cleiniu unta einouga herra hurt horsca asca harta
Zappert reads this as seven alliterating verses:
- Tocha slafês sliumo / uueinon sar lazzês.
- Triuua uuerit kraftlicho / themo uuolfa uurgiantemo.
- slafês unz za morgane / manes trût sunilo.
- Ostârâ stellit chinde / honak egir suozziu.
- Hera prichit chinde / pluomun plobun rotun.
- Zanfana sentit morgane / ueiziu scaf kleiniu,
- unta Einouga, herra hurt! / horska aska harta.
Its translation is:
1 Dock, may you sleep quickly, / may you let us cry.
3 Triwa defends vigorously, / The wolf that chokes.
5 May you sleep until morning / man's darling son.
7 Ostara provides the child with honey and eggs.
9 Hera breaks blue red flowers for the child / flowers.
11 Tanfana sends tomorrow / white sheep, little white sheep,
13 And Wuotan, herra hurt! / Swift spears hard.
Explanations: Docke is supposed to be a term used to address a child. Triuwa stands for personified fidelity, Ostara for a hypothetical spring goddess . That it is mentioned here in connection with eggs would be a remarkable testimony to the pagan origins of the Easter egg tradition. The testimony of Tanfana , a goddess who otherwise only appears in Tacitus in the 1st century, would be very unusual . With the "one-eyed" Odin is undoubtedly meant, who is represented in the North Germanic culture as one-eyed (an attribute that this god does not otherwise have in the West Germanic sources).
The Old High German text is preceded by a list of seven Hebrew words: קשת רוח רנל רנע רנש רזון רחץ. On the back of the parchment strip there is another line in Hebrew:חכמה ואדם יפיק תבונה לך אל- a fragment of two verses of the Proverbs (end of 3.13 EU and beginning of 6.6 EU ). It is evidently a feather test. Based on this, Zappert suspects (p. 12) that the entry was made by a German Jew , perhaps a rabbi or doctor, who may have heard the slumber song from a wet nurse.
Some vowels of the slumber song are notated in the form of Hebrew vowel symbols.
Debate about the authenticity
If the text were real it would be a rich source for Germanic paganism. Its significance might even exceed that of the Merseburg magic spells , which were discovered in 1841.
Kelle (1860) criticized Zappert's analysis and contradicted him practically in all of his conclusions and improvements, but did not doubt the authenticity of the source. Jacob Grimm referred to Zappert's publication as an independent testimony to the name Zanfana , apparently without doubting its authenticity. Edwards writes that Grimm planned to publish a defense of the slumber song and promoted it enthusiastically.
Grohmann (1861), on the other hand, came to the conclusion in a 46-page article that it was a clear forgery. Since Zappert died in 1859, he could no longer defend his position.
Kletke (1867) still considered the text to be genuine, but the prevailing opinion since the late 19th century and to this day remains that of Grohmann. Nevertheless, some scholars defended the authenticity of the poem as late as the 20th century (see Diamant 1960, Howard 1976).
Fichtenau (1970) in turn comes to the conclusion that the poem is undoubtedly a forgery. Edwards notes that of six essays on the slumber song published in the 20th century, three argued for and three against the authenticity of the poem. Edwards himself concludes that the evidence he cited in his essay against the authenticity of the slumber song indicated a falsification, but was not sufficient to be able to establish such with certainty.
Arguments for the authenticity:
- Howard (1976, p. 34) argues that the text presupposes linguistic knowledge that Zappert could not have known at the time. He particularly mentions the writing of the sound e in uuerit with the Hebrew sere, which represents a closed / e / sound. According to Howard, researchers at the time considered the / e / sound that had emerged from the i umlaut to be open, and one would have to expect that a forger would therefore have chosen the Hebrew seggol instead of the sere.
Arguments against the authenticity:
- According to Fichtenau (1970), Zappert is suspected of further forgeries. The text of one of them, an old map of Vienna, is said to have striking palaeographical similarities to the Old High German Schlummerlied (Edwards 2002, p. 156).
- According to Edwards (p. 160 f.), F. Mairinger examined the ink of the slumber song text and the Hebrew line and found that, in contrast to the Hebrew pen samples, they were not written in the typical medieval soot-containing iron gall ink . This indicates a fake. (The parchment and the Hebrew feather samples, however, seem to come from the Middle Ages).
- It is known that the unusual connection between Germanic and Hebrew culture, as evidenced by this strip of parchment, was an area that Zappert, himself of Jewish origin, was particularly interested in (Edwards 2002, p. 160). Thus a plausible motive for a forgery would be found.
- The new information about the Germanic deities in the slumber song fits conspicuously to passages in J. Grimm's book Deutsche Mythologie (first published in 1835), in which Grimm comments on these deities and repeatedly complains about a lack of sources. This suggests that Zappert was looking for “holes” in Grimm's German mythology and wanted to plug them (Edwards 2002, p. 157).
literature
- Georg Zappert: About an Old High German slumber song. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna, 1859 ( digitized in the Google book search).
- Johann Kelle: About an Old High German slumber song. From the c. M. Georg Zappert. [Review] In: Heidelberger Jahrbücher. 1860, pp. 81–91 ( digitized in the Google book search).
- Josef Virgil Grohmann: About the authenticity of the Old High German slumber song. in the codex suppl. No. 1668 of the KK court library in Vienna, 1861 ( archive.org ).
- Franz Pfeiffer: Research and criticism in the field of German antiquity II .: IV about the Viennese slumber song. A rescue . In: Vienna meeting reports. 52: 43-86 (1866).
- Ph. Jaffé: To the slumber song . In: Journal for German Antiquity and German Literature , 13, 1867, pp. 496–501.
- CA Kletke: About German poetry in pagan times: especially about an Old High German slumber song discovered in 1858. 1867 ( archive.org ).
- Paul J. Diamant : Old High German Schlummerlied: A scholars' dispute about German-Jewish relationships in the Middle Ages. In: Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook , 1960, 5 (1), pp. 338-345.
- Heinrich Fichtenau: The forgeries of Georg Zappert. In: MIÖG , 78, 1970, p. 444 ff. Reprinted in: Contributions to Medieval Studies , I. Stuttgart 1975.
- John A. Howard: About the authenticity of an old high German lullaby . In: Studia Neophilologica , 48, 1976, pp. 21-35.
- Cyril Edwards: The Strange Case of the Old High German Lullaby. In: The Beginnings of German Literature: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Old High German. Camden House, 2002, pp. 142-165.