medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Otfried,
I have no idea whether it would apply in this case, but fingernails were
implicated in medieval "mirror magic". From the little I've read about
this (I believe, in Lynn Thorndike's A History of Magic and Experimental
Science), some sort of liquid, I believe, was applied to the fingernail
and gazed at for visions. Whether fire might have been seen, or
otherwise involved, I know not. Interesting question.
Cheers,
Jim
On 11/01/2012 6:35 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
>> I would observe that candles stuck to fingertips would be impracticable.
>> Why wouldn't the 'nagel' in question merely have been the nail (spike)
>> on which the candle was impaled to keep it upright? One sees these
>> employed still in any church... with the candles frequently burnt down
>> to them.
>
> Dear Theresa, thank you for your keen observation! The same was suggested by our
> member Karl Brunner who kindly contacted me off the list, and it was anticipated
> also by the German philologist and school teacher Carl Müller in Dresden, who
> published it in 1899, yet without finding due attention in later discussions of
> this proverb. It is true that "Nagel" in German can mean "clavus" as well as
> "unguis", but I am not so sure (and have not yet tracked down textual
> descriptions of candelholders for verifying this question) that "Nagel" would
> have been used in early modern German (or in MHG) for the spike ("Dorn") of a
> candle holder.
>
>
> Early modern phrasings like "wan unsz das feuer uff den nagel brennet" (1583),
> "daß ihnen das liecht zimlich auff den nagel gebrant" (1652) seem to suggest by
> their use of dative personal pronouns ("unsz", "ihnen") that the nail in
> question is rather an attributte of the person (finger-nail) than of a
> candleholder (spike), unless we are dealing with a kind of dativus ethicus.
>
>
>> The elaboration of the term into "finger-nail" would be typical of the
>> 19C love of making the M Ages even more colorful (and odd) than they
>> were...?
>
> The understanding "finger-nail" is more or less explicit in the plural variants
> "auf die Nägel brennen" (since 1735), "in die Nägel brennen" (since 1742) or
> "unter die Nägel" (1746, rare and not to be confounded with the later form
> "unter den Nägeln"): if this is not the original understanding, it is at least
> too old for being a typical 19C medievalism; whereas the notion of monks glueing
> candelsticks to their fingernails feels exactly like being such a thing!
>
>
>
> Kind regards, O.L.
>
>
> Dr. Otfried Lieberknecht
> D-48157 Münster
> Dorbaumstr. 86
> Tel. +49 (0) 173 864 7127
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.lieberknecht.de
>
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