On the Impact of the Merseburg Incantations

StefanJänicke stjaenicke@informatik.uni-leipzig.deLeipzigUniversity,Germany

Whilesearchingformedievalmanuscriptssuitablefor the “Monumenta Germaniae Historica” (a collec-tion of German historical sources) in 1841, GeorgWaitzvisited the libraryof theMerseburgCathedral(Jankofsky, 2013). Rather coincidentally, he found apagewithtwomagicspellsinatheologicalcompositemanuscript: theMerseburg Incantations (seeFig. 1).Realizingtheimportanceofhisdiscovery,heaskedJa-cobGrimmtoanalyzeandevaluatethetext.ThefirstMerseburg Incantation is ablessing of release tellingabout “Idisen” (female dieties) freeing either them-selvesorcapturedwarriors fromchains.ThesecondMerseburgIncantationisahealingspelltocureadis-locatedhorsefoot.ThespellsinOldHighGermanwerewrittendown in the10thcentury,but theirorigin isstillunclear,maybeseveralhundredyearsearlier.Thefirst time publicly presented at the Royal PrussianAcademyofSciencesinBerlin, JacobGrimmdenotedthe value of the Merseburg Incantations by callingthemagem,andnothingfromthemostpopularlibrar-ieswouldhaveasimilarvalue(Grimm,1842).

Figure 1: Merseburg Incantations manuscript

Anumberofworksinterpretcontent,meaningandoriginoftheMerseburgIncantations(e.g.,Schu-macher,2000,Beck,2003,andSchmitt,2011).Incon-trasttotheseratherprofoundanalysesandinterpre-tationsoftheMerseburgIncantations,ourprojectaimsatexaminingtheirglobalimpact.Wethereforedesignaplatformthatbringstogethervarioustypesofsources––taggedwithcitationyear,sourcetype,referencepurpose––citingtheMerseburgIncanta-tions.Someexamplesarelistedbelow.

Sources citing the first Merseburg Incantation: • “DieSüdharzreise”,FrankFischer,2010,

travelog• “Mara und der Feuerbringer, Band 03:

Götterdämmerung”, Tommy Krappweis,2012,novel

• “Angelina Jolie - The Lightning Star”, C.Duthel,2012,biography

• “Seelenriss: Depression und Leistung-sdruck”,InesGeipel,2013,psychology

• “DassiebteBuch:ObjektorientierungmitC++”, Ernst-Erich Doberkat, 2013, pro-gramming

• “Die Schwarzen Musketiere - Das BuchderNacht”,OliverPötzsch,2015,novel

• “Charlemagne”,JohannesFriedandPeterLewis,2016,historiography

Sources citing the second Merseburg Incanta-tion:

• “TheKeytoMusic’sGenetics:WhyMusic isPart of Being Human”, Christian Lehmann,2014, musicology (example for healingthroughsinging)

• “Ring of the Nibelungs”, German dubbing,2004,TVMovie(entertainment)

• “DieLeutevomDomplatz”,Episode1,1979,GermanTVSeries(entertainment)

• “ToRideaWhiteHorse”,PamelaFord,2015,novel

• “Healing Symbols in Psychotherapy: ARit-ualApproach”,ErikD.Goodwyn,2016,psy-chology

• “Harzer Pferdezucht im Spiegel der Ges-chichte”,BerndSternal, 2015,horsebreed-ing

• “Metallische Implantate inderKnochenchi-rurgie”, Erich Frank and Herbert Zitter,1971,medicine(bonesurgery)

• “Norse Magical and Herbal Healing”, BenWaggoner,2011,medicine(medievalmedi-caltextcollection)

Sources citing both Merseburg Incantations:

• “HandbuchdergermanischenPhilologie”,Frie-drichStroh,1985,philology

• “GötterundKultederGermanen”,RudolfSimek,2004,mythology

• Anumberofmusicsongs,e.g.,performedbyInExtremo, Saltatio Mortis, Corvus Corax or Ti-betréa,music(entertainment)

• MerseburgIncantationsGeocache,https://opencaching.de/OC07B5,since2004,geocachingpuzzle

Althoughthisisonlyatinysnapshotofsourcesrefer-ring to theMerseburg Incantations,sometendenciesarealreadyvisible.WhereasbothMerseburgIncanta-tionsarecitedinanumberofbooksonmythologyandphilology(onlyoneofeachcategoryis listedabove),therearealsosomedifferencesdependentonthespellcontents, e.g., historiography for the first spell, andmedicine for the second. Next to these reasonablesource types, therearealsounexpected findings likeprogrammingforthefirstspell,andhorsebreedingforthesecond.BothMerseburgIncantationsarealsoof-ten used for entertainment purposes in the form ofnovels,inmusicsongs,orinmovies.Alsoaninterest-ing finding is a Geocaching puzzle guiding to a Geo-cachethatishiddeninMerseburg. Theprojectisdesignedasatwo-stagestudentin-ternship, where Masters students of the humanitiesandcomputersciencecollaborativelyworktogetherinordertogainexperiencesforfuturedigitalhumanitiesprojects.Thefirststepisdataacquisition,whichisper-formedbyhumanitiesstudents.Althoughwebsearchengines,e.g.,platformswithdigitizedcontentssuchasGoogleBooksorInternetArchivefortextualsources,aretheentrypointsfordataacquisition,dataextrac-tionandstructuringisdonemanuallytoensurehighdataqualityandtocapturethepurposeof therefer-enceaspreciselyaspossible.Forexample,weextractdetailedinformationaboutthecontextinwhichaspelliscited,e.g.,inthebiographyaboutAngelinaJoliethefirstMerseburg Incantation is referenced in amoviedescription of Beowulf, in which Angelina Jolie par-tookasa supportingactress.Thesecondstepofourprojectisthedevelopmentofaninteractivevisualiza-tionsystemtosupportthedynamicexplorationofthedatacollection.Therefore,computersciencestudents

designseveralvisualinterfacesthatsummarizediffer-entmetadatainformation(e.g.,atimelinetovisualizethetemporalimpact,oratagcloudtoillustratesourcetypes).Oneof themajor functionsof thesystem isacomparativeviewon thedifferent contexts inwhichthe Merseburg Incantations are cited together andeach of them individually. Although the data is col-lectedinatimelimitedproject,thesystemisdesignedas aweb-based crowdsourcing platform, so that thedatabasecanbeextendedaftertheproject.Aspecificfeatureofthesystemisgenericity,whichmakesitap-plicabletoothertextsinquestion.Forexample,creat-ingacollectionofcitationsoftheTriererZaubersprü-cheortheHildebrandsliedwillbepossible,alsointheformofacomparativeanalysis. Aninterpretiveapproachusingourproposedsys-temwillbecomplicatedduetothefactthatthecollec-tioncontainsseriousscholarlyaswellasartisticalref-erences,anditisnotpossibletodrawaclearlinebe-tweensuchgroups.Also,weconsidereachcitationasequallyrelevant,whichmightnotevolveaconvincingrepresentationofimpact.Whileitisfurthermorenotpossibletocollect“all”citations,supportinghypothe-sesgenerationafterdistantreadinganalysesisnotthepriorpurposeofoursystem.Ouraimisrathertoes-tablishastartingpointforexploringthefar-reachingsignificance of the Merseburg Incantations––one ofthemost importantwritten samples of German lan-guage,eventheoldestandonlyknownpreservedtextaboutGermanicPaganism inOldHighGerman.Withourproject,wewanttofulfilltheresponsibilitytosus-tainablyhighlightthisuniqueness.

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Jankofsky,J.(2013).Merseburg:1200Jahrein62Porträts

&Geschichten.MitteldeutscherVerlag.Schmitt, M. (2011). Althochdeutsche Zaubersprüche als

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Schumacher, M. (2000). Geschichtenerzählzauber. Die'MerseburgerZaubersprüche'unddieFunktionder"his-toriola"immagischenRitual.InR.Zymner(Ed.),ErzählteWelt-WeltdesErzählens.FestschriftfürDietrichWeber(pp.201-215).Köln:Chora.