What a pity it is that the manuscript of the Poetic Edda (the collection which includes Havamal) has no illustrations, for contemporary visual material would settle this! It occurs to me that one might equally well interpret 'I hung in the tree' to mean merely 'I was lashed to the branches of the tree'. There used to be a punishment in the British navy known as being 'hanged in the rigging' which simply meant being forced to climb high into the rigging and lashed to it and left there for a day or so -- unpleasant, but not fatal. A comparable experience lasting nine nights and days would certainly be an ordeal worthy of a god. I'm not making a serious proposal of this, just pointing out that the words of the poem are simple to translate but not so simple to interpret.
There are one or two pre-Christian Scandinavian artefacts which do carry images of men hanged by the neck from a tree. One is the Oseberg tapestry, and another on one of the Gotland carved memorial stones. But there's no way of telling whether they represent a sacrifice TO Odinn, or Odinn's own self-offering, or King Vikar, even just some character from a lost heroic saga who happened to get hanged.
Thanks for correcting my OI grammar. I had better be wary, for what I learnt fifty years ago seems to be fading from memory!
Jacqueline Simpson
--- On Fri, 14/11/08, Michael Moynihan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: Michael Moynihan <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Havamal
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Friday, 14 November, 2008, 11:23 AM
> Hello,
>
> Regarding the interesting Havamal discussion I would like
> to contribute a few
> comments and minor corrections.
>
> As someone remarked, it is indeed best to go back the
> original text and examine
> exactly what it says. Of course there will always be a
> degree of subjectivity to
> this. But grammatical matters are pretty clear cut most of
> the time, semantic
> ones less so, since we are so far removed from the culture
> that produced the
> text.
>
> In this regard, however, I would point out that “hekk”
> is not a
> conflation/contraction involving the pronoun “ek” (I),
> although such first-
> person pronoun & verb contractions are indeed something
> that one sees in poetry,
> and especially in runic inscriptions.
>
> One clue to this is that the actual pronoun “ek”
> appears right before “hekk”. A
> contraction would be redundant. “hekk” is simply the
> 1st person sing. preterite
> form of the verb “hanga” ('to hang'). It is a
> normal phonetic outcome in Old
> Icelandic that in this particular tense and environment the
> /ng/ becomes /kk/,
> but I won’t bore anyone with the historical linguistic
> reasons why. However, a
> comparative example is the verb “ganga” (‘to go, to
> walk’--cf. the first part of
> English “gang-plank” for a similar-looking form of this
> verb which is cognate to
> “go”). The 1st person sing. preterite form is
> “gekk.”
>
> Further relevant words in the text:
>
> “nysta” (1st person sing. preterite form of verb
> “nysa”, ‘to pry, to peer’) = ‘I
> pried’ or ‘I peered’
>
> “nidhr” (dh= the Icelandic letter ‘eth’) is, as Ms.
> Simpson notes, an adverb and
> thus describing something about the action of the verb.
> Thus we have ‘I peered
> down’ or ‘I pried downward.’
>
> “nam” (1st person sing. preterite form of verb
> “nema” ‘to take, take in use,
> take possession of’) in the next line definitely has the
> sense of picking up
> something in an almost tangible way.
>
> Now to get back to the original question on this topic, you
> could certainly make
> the case that Odin may be hanging upside down here. From a
> practical/physiological standpoint, if one is hanging by
> their neck it might not
> be very easy to either peer or pry downward, or to pick up
> anything that is
> below oneself.
>
> Therefore the idea that he could have been hanging upside
> down as part of a
> ritual act is not to be derived from the hanged man image
> of the tarot card, but
> rather an interpretation in the above sense. Such an
> interpretation has been
> pursued at length, using comparative Indo-European evidence
> to bolster the case,
> by the Germanicist Jere Fleck in the following lengthy
> (two-part) scholarly
> article:
>
> Jere Fleck, Odhinn’s Self-Sacrifice--A New Interpretation
> I: The Ritual
> Inversion, Scandinavian Studies 43, No. 2 (1971) 119-142.
> Odhinn’s Self-
> Sacrifice--A New Interpretation II: The Ritual Landscape,
> Scandinavian Studies
> 43, No. 2 (1971) 385-413.
>
> This is merely one interpretation of the text, one could
> make arguments the
> other way too.
>
> Regards,
>
> Michael Moynihan
>
>
> Quoting ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC automatic digest system
> <[log in to unmask]>:
>
> > There are 2 messages totalling 190 lines in this
> issue.
> >
> > Topics of the day:
> >
> > 1. Havamal (2)
> >
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:38:52 +0000
> > From: jacqueline simpson
> <[log in to unmask]>
> > Subject: Re: Havamal
> >
> > 'Hekk' =3D 'I hung' -- conflation of
> past tense hengja=3Dhang and ek=3DI (t=
> > hese conflations fare common, especially in verse).
> It's becaue it's a past=
> > tense that it does'nt appear as a word in its own
> right in the dictionary,=
> > though in a big one there should be a
> cross-reference.
> >
> > 'Nidr' (I can't do the crossed d on this
> email facility) is not a noun but =
> > an adverb, =3D 'downwards'.
> >
> > 'meidi' I don't recognise, and I don't
> have the OI text here to check. Are =
> > you sure you copied correctly?
> >
> > Yes, It's a Germanic language, a sort of cousin to
> Old English and Old germ=
> > an.
> >
> > Jacqueline Simpson
> >
> >
> >
> > --- On Tue, 11/11/08, mandrake
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > > From: mandrake <[log in to unmask]>
> > > Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Havamal
> > > To: [log in to unmask]
> > > Date: Tuesday, 11 November, 2008, 11:05 AM
> > > Jez wrote:
> > > >=20
> > > > But let's have a go...
> > > >=20
> > >=20
> > > Jez et al
> > >=20
> > > good one -
> > > I'm presuming "hekk" is to hang -
> > > although cant find that in OI dictionary (online)
> > > meithi* in second line is tree -
> > > I guess one has to look into the meaning of
> > > "hekk" to see if it has any
> associations with
> > > punishment etc
> > >=20
> > > nithr* for down below, underworld or abyss - its
> ambigious
> > > as you say -?
> > > although hung from a tree seems certain - but not
> killed or
> > > hung by the neck?
> > >=20
> > > Mogg
> > >=20
> > > I don't actually know OI - but seems like it
> is related
> > > to English and has some Indo-European word roots
> -
> > > my languages are Sanskrit and Middle Egyptian.
> > >=20
> > >=20
> > >=20
> > >=20
> > >=20
> > >=20
> > >=20
> > >=20
> > >=20
> > > > /138/
> > > > Veit ek at ek hekk
> > > > vindga mei=C3=B0i =C3=A1
> > > > n=C3=A6tr allar n=C3=ADu geiri unda=C3=B0r
> > > > ok gefinn =C3=93=C3=B0ni sj=C3=A1lfr
> sj=C3=A1lfum m=C3=A9r =C3=A1 =C3=
> > =BEeim mei=C3=B0i
> > > > er manngi veit
> > > > hvers hann af r=C3=B3tum renn =09
> > > > I know that I hung
> > > > upon a windy tree
> > > > for nine whole nights,
> > > > wounded with a spear
> > > > and given to Othinn,
> > > > myself to myself for me;
> > > > on that tree
> > > > I knew nothing
> > > > of what kind of roots it came from. /139/
> > > > Vi=C3=B0 hleifi mik s=C3=A6ldu
> > > > n=C3=A9 vi=C3=B0 hornigi n=C3=BDsta ek
> ni=C3=B0r nam ek upp r=C3=BAnar
> > > =C5=93pandi nam fell ek aptr =C3=BEa=C3=B0an =09
> > > > They cheered me with a loaf
> > > > and not with any horn,
> > > > I investigated down below,
> > > > I took up the runes,
> > > > screaming I took them,
> > > > and I fell back from there.=20
> > > >=20
> > > > --
> > > > Jez
> > > >=20
> > > > --
> > > > If ignorance is bliss why aren't more
> people
> > > happy?
> > > >=20
> > > > Leonard Rossiter
> > > >=0A=0A=0A
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:42:25 +0000
> > From: jacqueline simpson
> <[log in to unmask]>
> > Subject: Re: Havamal
> >
> > The error referred to is that there should be a
> negative in the line -- Odi=
> > n is saying they did NOT feed him
> >
> > I've now found 'meid--- poetic for
> 'tree'
> >
> >
> > --- On Tue, 11/11/08, Jez <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> > > From: Jez <[log in to unmask]>
> > > Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Havamal
> > > To: [log in to unmask]
> > > Date: Tuesday, 11 November, 2008, 9:51 AM
> > > But even this is not a good transliteration, only
> a
> > > translation, and =20
> > > contains at least one major error in line one of
> stanza
> > > 139.
> > >=20
> > > It's difficult to get the real stuff on line
> and out of
> > > copy-right.
> > >=20
> > > --
> > >=20
> > > Jez
> > >=20
> > >=20
> > > On 11 Nov 2008, at 09:48, Jez wrote:
> > >=20
> > > > But let's have a go...
> > > > 138
> > > > Veit ek at ek hekk
> > > > vindga mei=C3=B0i =C3=A1
> > > > n=C3=A6tr allar n=C3=ADu
> > > > geiri unda=C3=B0r
> > > > ok gefinn =C3=93=C3=B0ni
> > > > sj=C3=A1lfr sj=C3=A1lfum m=C3=A9r
> > > > =C3=A1 =C3=BEeim mei=C3=B0i
> > > > er manngi veit
> > > > hvers hann af r=C3=B3tum renn=09
> > > > I know that I hung
> > > > upon a windy tree
> > > > for nine whole nights,
> > > > wounded with a spear
> > > > and given to Othinn,
> > > > myself to myself for me;
> > > > on that tree
> > > > I knew nothing
> > > > of what kind of roots it came from.
> > > > 139
> > > > Vi=C3=B0 hleifi mik s=C3=A6ldu
> > > > n=C3=A9 vi=C3=B0 hornigi
> > > > n=C3=BDsta ek ni=C3=B0r
> > > > nam ek upp r=C3=BAnar
> > > > =C5=93pandi nam
> > > > fell ek aptr =C3=BEa=C3=B0an=09
> > > > They cheered me with a loaf
> > > > and not with any horn,
> > > > I investigated down below,
> > > > I took up the runes,
> > > > screaming I took them,
> > > > and I fell back from there.
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Jez
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > If ignorance is bliss why aren't more
> people
> > > happy?
> > > >
> > > > Leonard Rossiter
> > > >
> > >=20
> > > --
> > >=20
> > > Do the things which you have promised to do, to
> the best of
> > > your =20
> > > ability.=0A=0A=0A
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > End of ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC Digest - 12 Nov 2008 to 13
> Nov 2008 (#2008-159)
> >
> ***************************************************************************
> >
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