Merseburg Charm II: FOR AN INJURED HORSE

AN ILLUSTRATED AND ANNOTATED TRANSLATION

Joseph S. Hopkins for Mimisbrunnr.info, December 21, 2019. Updated September 2023.

Phol ende uuodan uuorun zi holza
du uuart demo baldares uolon sin uuoz birenkict

thu bigolen sinhtgunt * sunna era suister
thu biguolen friia, uolla era suister
thu biguolen uuodan so he uuolaconda

sose benrenki
sose bluotrenki
sose lidirenki

ben zi bena
bluot zi bluoda
lid zi geliden

sose gelimida sin.

Notes:
English translation by Joseph S. Hopkins, 2019; Old High German from Merseburg Domkapitel Cod. 136, fol. 85r, viewable from TITUS (Goethe University Frankfurt) here (formatting and light emendation by Hopkins).

About the charm

In 1841, German historian Georg Waitz encountered a series of manuscripts in Merseburg, Germany, only to discover one of the most important items in ancient Germanic studies: two brief Old High German charms. These charms are known in German as die Merseburger Zaubersprüche, variously translated into English as the Merseburg Charms or Merseburg Incantations (and hereafter abbreviated as MZ I and MZ II). Brief as they are, both charms provide an extraordinarily rare window into the pre-Christian beliefs of the continental Germanic peoples and appear to have played a significant part in fueling the efforts of landmark philologists such as Jacob Grimm, who swiftly analyzed the charms and published them with commentary the year after their rediscovery (Über zwei entdeckte gedichte aus der zeit des deutschen Heidentums, 1842 — read an 1865 reprint here, in German).

While both charms have been the subject of extensive study and discourse since Grimm’s publication, we focus here on MZ II. MZ II’s contents yield major implications for the North Germanic and Old English records, particularly in its mention of entities otherwise known only in the records of the North Germanic peoples. These include the personified Sun, a goddess (Old High German Sunna, Old Norse Sól, and likely the subject of the entire Germanic Sunday weekday name complex), and the only non-North Germanic mention of the goddess Volla (Old Norse Fulla, in Norse myth also closely associated with the goddess Frigg, a goddess whose name is cognate with the charm’s Friia). Additionally, the widely attested god Odin (Old High German Wodan) features in MZ II in the role of healer, an association that also occurs in the Old English Nine Herbs Charm and in the Old Norse record, wherein the god revives the disembodied head of Mímir by way of singing charms and applying herbs (Ynglinga saga, 4). Odin also seems to appear with healing a horse on bracteates (coins repurposed as jewelry) of the so-called “C-type” around the 5th and 6th centuries CE. The charm also mentions Baldr, who appears as Odin’s son in the North Germanic sources.

The ancient Germanic record strongly associates deities with forests, and sacred groves and holy trees receive frequent mention in the records of the ancient Germanic peoples. In turn, gods riding to “the forest” (zi Holza) in the charm appears to be notable. In the Old Norse poem Grímnismál, we are told by Odin that the gods ride their horses to hold council everyday at the immense cosmic tree Yggdrasil, and another Old Norse poem, Völuspá, refers to Hoddmímis holt, which is generally held by scholars to be one of several names for Yggdrasil (compare Mímameiðr and Mímisbrunnr). Old High German Holz, Old Norse holt, and archaic modern English holt are all cognate common nouns that mean ‘forest’, but the poem’s grammatical structure indicates notable specificity for this particular Holz. Does the poem indicate that one day the gods were headed to hold counsel at Yggdrasil—the Holt—and along the way Baldr’s horse wrenched its foot? Given the central focus on sacred trees and groves common in records of Germanic paganism, this does not seem unreasonable. Whatever the case may be, the historical record allows us to safely conclude that heathen ears would find it only natural to combine gods and groves in this charm, as anywhere else.

Beyond its contents, the structure of the charm also tell us a few things of interest. Throughout the ancient Germanic record, the number three receives great emphasis, as does three multiplied by itself, the number nine. For example, in the Old Norse record, most notable numbers consist of either three or nine, whether in reference to a person, place, or thing. It therefore appears that the number three and its multiplicands, particularly nine, played a particular role in the beliefs of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples. Both MZ I and MZ II are no exception to this pattern: As scholar Patricia Giangrosso notes, “no other charms show so clearly a structure based on the number three. This is especially striking in [MZ II]” (Giangrosso 2001: 113).

The charm’s recording as it appears to us today seems to stem from the 10th century, but appears to have been copied from an earlier manuscript, and seems to ultimately derive from oral tradition. Explicitly invoking heathen gods, the charm is flatly pagan and its preservation among Christian scribes, likely monks, raises a host of questions.

This is particularly notable in light of the profound efforts by Charlemagne and his allies, who sought to replace the native religious beliefs and political systems of the heathen continental Germanic peoples in the 8th century by any means necessary. For example, consider the now notorious 8th century Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, which sentenced anyone who might refuse to convert to Christianity to death (alongside whoever might shelter them); the organized religious terror of targeting pagan Germanic religious sites such as sacred trees (for example, Boniface’s felling of Donar’s Oak and Charlemagne’s destruction of the Irminsul); and bloody mass executions such as the Massacre of Verden. Despite all this, an unknown Old High German-speaker (or group of speakers) decided to record these two explicitly pagan charms and, against all odds (perhaps even risking danger, depending on when and where the charms were recorded), they exist for us to read and discuss today.

While unique to the Old High German record, MZ II belongs to a much broader complex of similar charms in the textual record, and plays an important role in modern understandings of Germanic mythology (which readers can discover further here). While many are Christian, some Scandinavian examples continue to invoke Odin well into the Christian Era. This complex of charms may be quite ancient, reaching back long before the development of Christianity (for example, numerous scholars have noted similarities in the Vedic record—compare Atharvaveda 4.12) .

ABOUT THE IMAGES

Artist Rim Bitik illustrated all the images that appear on this page for Mimisbrunnr.info in collaboration with Joseph Hopkins, who requested specific elements and concepts. Each image depicts the gods working together to heal an injured horse, as described in MZ II, and both occur in both color and grayscale versions.

In image set A, each deity appears with tattoos with imagery drawn from narratives or symbols with which they are associated elsewhere in the Germanic record, a concept primarily influenced by the tattoo-like markings on the Rällinge statue, which is generally considered to depict the deity Freyr (for images, see the National Museum of Sweden’s catalogue entry for the statue here). For example, the personified Sun, Sunna, appears with a sun motif on her chest, and Wodan’s arms feature tree and raven motifs. Some imagery draws influence from Bronze Age Nordic imagery (for a brief overview of the rather mysterious Nordic Bronze Age, see the National Museum of Denmark’s site here).

In image set B, the deities appear as if they are carved from wood in a style reminiscent of the above mentioned bracteates. Again, we find the deities wearing or holding items with which they are associated in primarily North Germanic records.

Various elements form the continental Germanic material culture record make their way into the image, as well. For example, Wodan wears a Seubian knot-influenced hair style, and to give the imagery a ‘timeless’ impression, the gods wear basic garments in line with Roman historian 1 CE Tacitus’s garment description of the clothing of the ancient Germanic peoples (Germania, 17). One of the major goals of this image was to leave behind the romanticist classical and Wagnerian depictions of the gods that dominate the art record, and embrace a different approach.

FURTHER READING

The charms have historically received much more discussion in German than in English. A solid English language overview of medieval charms in what is today Germany, see the following source:

• Giangrosso, Patricia. 2001. “Charms” in Jeep, John (ed.). Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia, pp. 111-114. Routledge.

Note, however, that Giangrosso translates Old High German Friia as Freyja, a deity in fact not attested outside of the North Germanic record. The Old High German cognate form would be normalized along the lines of Frouwa (compare modern German Frau),

Readers can also find brief overviews and translations of the charm in the following tertiary sources:

• Simek, Rudolf. 1996. Dictionary of Northern Mythology, p. 278-279 . D. S. Brewer.

• Lindow, John. 2002. Handbook of Norse Mythology, p. 227-228. Oxford University Press.

As of December 2019, English Wikipedia’s entry for the Merseburg Charms also contains a variety of quotes from various reliable sources on the topic, including other members of the charm complex.