Charm wiþ ymbe
Charm wiþ ymbe is an old English bee blessing . He is on a parchment handed (MS 41) in the possession of Corpus Christi College of Cambridge University is located. John Mitchell Kemble found the manuscript and made it available to Jacob Grimm . English linguists, such as Felix Grendon , found a similarity between the spell and the Lorsch bee blessing .
Old English
The original version of the Anglo-Saxon spell Charm wiþ ymbe is:
- Wið ymbe nim eorþan, oferweorp mid þinre swiþran
- handa under þinum swiþran fet, and cwet:
- Fo ic under fot, finds ic hit.
- Hwæt, eorðe mæg wið ealra wihta gehwilce
- and wið andan and wið æminde
- and wið þa micelan mannes tungan.
- And wiððon forweorp ofer greot, þonne hi swirman, and cweð:
- Custom ge, sigewif, sigað to eorþan!
- Næfre ge wilde to wuda fleogan.
- Beo ge swa minor mines godes,
- swa bið manna gehwilc metes and eþeles.
German translation
- Bring earth to a swarm of bees, throw it with you
- your right hand from below
- your right foot and say:
- If I reach under the foot, I will find it.
- Yes, the earth has power over every being
- and about the anger and about the forgetfulness
- and over the tongue of the mighty man.
- And now throw sand on them if they
- rave, and say:
- Sit down, you victorious women, come down to the land.
- You never fly wild to the forest.
- You bees consider, for my good
- just as every man expects to receive his flesh and inheritance.
interpretation
The saying is addressed to a swarming colony of bees and encourages them to settle down near the hive . Sigewif ( Pl. ?) ("Victory Women") is a name for the bee, but was also seen as a name for battle maidens, who supposedly could transform themselves into bee-like beings. The bees with their defensive sting are compared to the Valkyrie armed with a spear . Jacob Grimm found Sigewif in Old High German with siguwip and in Old Norse with sigrvif. In recent research, it is believed that the term Sigewif stood for the queen bees . The form of address Sigewif is seen by the linguist Henk Jongeboer as a respectful form of courtesy.
In the second part of the spell, the speaker urges the bees not to fly into the forest, because there they would develop into a wild colony of bees that would be used by the wild honey collectors. The beekeeper is not allowed to collect wild honey.
literature
- John Mitchell Kemble : The Saxons in England, A History of The English Commonwealth, Till The Period of The Norman Conquest, Volume 1 . Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, London, 1849.
- Jacob Grimm : German Mythology . Dieterichsche Bachhandlung, Göttingen, 1854.
Web links
- Digitization of the manuscript on stanford.edu
Individual evidence
- ↑ Anglia, Volume 1, 1963, p. 189 online
- ↑ a b Teutonic Mythology, Volume 1, by Jacob Grimm, translated into English by James Steven Stallybras, p. 431. Online
- ↑ The Saxons in England, vol. 1, John Mitchell Kemble, pp. 403-404 online
- ↑ Georg Basecke: Smaller writings on the Old High German language and literature. Edited and with an afterword by Werner Schröder , p. 424. Online
- ^ The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, p. 297. Online
- ^ Felix Grendon: The Anglo-Saxon charms, 1909, p. 209 Online
- ↑ http://www.galdorcraeft.de/zs_biene_e_ueb.htm
- ^ George Philip Krapp, Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie: The Anglo-Saxon poetic records: a collective edition, Volume 6, Columbia University Press, p. 137. Online
- ^ John George Robertson, Charles Jasper Sisson: The Modern language review, Volume 6, Modern Humanities Research Association, 1911, p. 264.
- ↑ Globus, Volume 79, F. Vieweg and Son, 1901, p. 384. Online
- ↑ Edith Elizabeth Wardale: Chapters on Old English literature, Russell & Russell, 1965, p. 24 Online
- ^ Oral tradition, Volume 5, University of Missouri-Columbia. Center for Studies in Oral Tradition, Slavica Publishers, 1990 Online , p. 24.
- ↑ a b The mankind quarterly, Volume 27, Cliveden Press, 1986, pp. 454 ff. Online
- ^ Russell Gilbert Poole: Old English wisdom poetry, p. 186 online
- ^ John Mitchell Kemble: The Saxons in England: A History of the English Commonwealth Till the Period , Reprint 2011, Cambridge University Press, p. 404 Online