Old Saxon language and literature

This essay seeks to root the poem Genesis B’s well-known divergence from doctrine within the pre-Christian folktales of Continental Saxony. First it is argued by comparison with Old Icelandic poetry and prose mythography that the devil in the Garden of Eden is modelled on a Saxon version of Loki. I extend the argument to include the devil’s scene with Adam which is attributed to a Saxon version of Loki’s dealings with Þórr. Then I argue that the secondary devil’s temptation of Eve is enabled by a Saxon version of Loki’s interaction with the goddess Iðunn. Loki’s former friendship with Óðinn is thereafter taken to furnish the type-scene for this devil’s volunteering to help his chained master Satan in hell. Finally, I suggest that this reconfiguration of old gods into good and bad biblical roles, humans versus demons, was undertaken as part of a recasting of biblical history in local form, the better to bring the still heathen-inclined Saxons of Carolingian Germany back into the arms of the church.
To come out in 'Between the Worlds', ed. Wilhelm Heizmann and Matthias Egeler

This article deals with the origin of the oldest core of borrowed Christian terminology still extant in Icelandic, i.e. those words which were introduced in Old Norse in the period ranging from the first evangelical missions in Scandinavia (9th c.) to the establishment of the archbishopric in Niðarós (1153).

After a short introduction (1), a brief overview of the aforementioned historical period is given (2). The corpus, which consists of 45 words, is subsequently presented alongside its semantic classification (3), of which a chronological (text-based) reading is given. In the next section (4), particular attention is drawn to a sample of ten words, which have been chosen for their importance both from a historico-linguistic and etymological perspective. Special emphasis will be placed on addressing the role of Old Saxon in the dawn of Christianity in Scandinavia and Iceland and on revising some of the etymologies proposed by the three major Icelandic etymological dictionaries (AeW, IeW and ÍOb). In the last paragraph (5), it will be stressed that a methodology which rests upon historical, alongside linguistic and philological, facts is needed if one wants to better understand the cultural and linguistical background of a particular portion of the lexicon: here, the oldest part of the Christian borrowed lexicon is analysed as a particularly interesting example.

Water, fundamental to life on earth, plays a prominent role in Medieval Culture. It was not only a powerful physical element, but also had a symbolic meaning, being a key concept in the semiology of the creation of myths and cosmologies. Moreover, from the allegorical point of view, water has indeed a dual function: it is a destructive force purging the wicked and cleansing the earth from their sins, as the Biblical Flood well exemplifies, but at the same time it plays a purifying action on the bodies and on the souls of the good explicated in the baptismal sacrament. Thus, water was part of the natural landscape, but also of the cultural and religious lives, as well as of the practical and physical needs of medieval people; it also involved climatic issues, together with economic and social aspects to name but a few.
This one-day symposium aims to broaden our understanding of the overlapping secular and symbolic aspects of water in the Middle Ages from an interdisciplinary perspective: it involves literature, ecocriticism, history of climate, Medievalism and Digital Philology among others. The symposium will explore different aspects of water in Anglo-Saxon England, Medieval Ireland, Old Saxon, Old Norse, Gothic and Middle English Literatures.

Nell’immaginario del tardo Medioevo occidentale, costellato di figure dai poteri straordinari, miti e leggende celebrano il valore rituale e perfino magico di una gamma di oggetti portentosi, il cui valore simbolico non riesce a superare in molti casi i limiti della propria clamorosa comparsa. Considerando inoltre il carattere guerriero attribuito unilateralmente alle società germaniche altomedioevali, non sorprende che una percezione radi-cata vi rilevi la frequenza di armi dai poteri magici, in un’epoca bersagliata come nessuna da luoghi comuni inerenti il buio, la guerra e la barbarie.
Tuttavia, tenendo conto che il medium di trasmissione medioevale più prestigioso e duraturo (il codice manoscritto) rimase per secoli tra le prerogative esclusive della Chiesa, qualsiasi allusione letteraria a caratteristiche ‘magiche’ di oggetti assimilabili alla sfera bellica rappresenta il risultato di un processo di decantazione e di inevitabile mediazione operata in ambito monastico, quando non il frutto di un rimodellamento funzionale di natura dottrinaria.