LL-L "History" 2008.01.22 (08) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  22 January 2008 - Volume 08
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From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>
Subject: History

Dear Lowlanders,

I recently read in a newspaper a report about foundings of birch bark
documents found in Nowgorod. From the 10th to 15th century they used
birch bark as a cheap replacement for paper to pen (mostly private
and/or less important) messages. The newspaper mentioned, that they
found Low Saxon texts too. I was curious about it and I wrote an e-mail
to the person named in the article. Well, I was a little bit
disappointed, when she answered me, cause actually it was just _one_
text they classified as being Low Saxon. Like two words. Not very much...

But still, it's interesting. She said the text was found in 1993 in a
stratum which comes from the mid 11th century, a period when Low Saxon
was not used in writing (Old Saxon literature ended in the 9th century
and Middle Saxon literature started basically with the Sassenspegel
around 1225 [at least, that's what I always read, if anybody knows other
texts from the period inbetween, please let me know]). The text is
undeciphered too. It's not even confirmed it's Low Saxon, but they
assume so.

Fortunately, pictures of all the found birch bark documents are online.
The Low Saxon one is Nr. 753:
<http://gramoty.ru/index.php?no=753&act=full&key=bb>. Its a bit hard to
recognise, but  Mrs Bobrik, to whom I wrote, provided me the transcription
ílgefal
im<k>ie
from a book about the documents. The book further said (translated by me
from German, which was translated from Russian before):
"document Nr. 753 has no thorough interpretation until now. One can read
the words GEFAL IM (imperative 2nd/3rd singular + personal pronoun 3rd
singular masc. dat.). The prefix GE- and the pronominal form IM point to
a German (no Scandinavian) origin of the text.

One sign in front of the first row is vague. Maybe its initial P or T.
But it's possible, this sign has no meaning at all.
If interpreted as P, the word in the first row could be Old Saxon PÌL
(arrow). If so, the sentence could be something like 'may the arrow hit
him' (incantation for bringing harm to an enemy?).
But if the vague sign is a T, the word is TIL (aim, target).
If its only IL, then its maybe the root ILL (bad, compare english
'ill'). connected with FALL: ILL-FELLI ' (Unglück, harm).

The characters KIE at the end have no plausible interpretation at all.
Maybe the K even should be read as N.
If KIE is right, it could be connected to Middle Low German KEIE (KEIGE)
(some kind of) 'spear'. The text then could be interpreted as: "May the
spear hit his target at 'em".
If its N, its the adverb NIE and the whole could be interpreted as
protecting phrase: "May never hit 'em an arrow.""

Anybody any thought or ideas on it? Alternative interpretations?

Marcus Buck

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: History

Thanks a lot for sharing that, Marcus. It's fascinating stuff, isn't it?

It's really hard to read, even if you enlarge and enhance the image.

I wouldn't be be too surprised to find an 11th-century Saxon text in
Novgorod. True, the Hanseatic League started in earnest in the 12th century,
but I'm sure that trading contacts around the Baltic Sea, including Novgorod
(both from the southern and northern shores), had been underway prior to it.
The League started in large part to secure existing trade routes, primarily
to protect ships from piracy. It's not as though they said, "All right,
let's set up a guild and then go and find places for trading posts out
there!" I'm pretty sure they knew most of those places already, and many of
those trading posts existed before the beginning of the League. It's only
once the League was up and running and it's record-keeping system got going
that serious numbers of records started being kept. The Baltic Sea coast has
been an important trade route for a long time, important enough for Arab
travelers to visit and do anthropological research and large numbers of
Arabic coins to be stored and later be unearthed (which may have reached the
area from Byzantium).

Yes, Novgorod -- a.k.a. Veliky Novgorod (Великий Новгород "Great Novgorod")
-- officially became a Hanseatic *kontor* (office) in the 13th century, but
this is not to say that Saxony just started contacts with it at that time.
Novgorod had been known as a major station on the trade route from the
Baltic Region to Byzantium at least since the 9th century. I bet our busy
little Saxon forebears wanted a piece of *that* action as soon as they could
get their greedy little hand on it.

Furthermore, just because we don't seem to have in hand significant numbers
of extant texts doesn't need to mean that there was no Saxon writing in the
apparent gap between Old Saxon and Middle Saxon literature. Surely some
people wrote, even if it was in the form of cursory notes or, as may be the
case here, in the form of blessings or charms, or, possibly also, in the
form of instructions or record keeping.

I pretty much go along with your basic hunches, Marcus:

   - Old Saxon *gifallan* means 'to fall'; imperative *gifal -- *I wonder
   if *gefal-* ~ *geval-* had already made the transition to meaning 'to
   please' in the 11th century. (I believe I've come across
*gevallen*'to please' in Middle Saxon, and it does go with dative
   *im*, thus **gefal im* '(may it) please him!')
   - Old Saxon *imu ~ imo* > Middle Saxon *im* 'him'
   - Middle Saxon *til* ~ *tel* 'aim', 'target'; Old Saxon
*til*'suitable', 'convenient' (probably related to the former);
   *tilōn* 'to reach', 'to attain', 'to acquire' (Old Franconian *tilon*,
   Old German *z**ilōn* > *zielen* 'to aim')
   - Instead of *il* or *til*, could it possibly be *wil* (*uuil*),
   either as in 'will' or as in 'well' or 'welcome' (e.g. Old Saxon *
   wilspel* 'welcome news'), hence something like German
*wohlgefallen*'to well please'?
   - If it's *nie* it could be derived from Old Saxon *nigên* ~
*nigê*'none', 'no' (German
   *kein*), which occurs in Middle Saxon as *nien* also (perhaps even *
   nie*?), I believe. It could also come from Old Saxon *niuwi ~ nīgi*'new'.

I furthermore wonder if, in case it's *til*, **tilgefallan* (German *
zufallen*) 'to go (to)', 'to be due (to)', is a possibility. In that case we
might have something like **tilgefal im nie* 'none is due him' or 'he is
entitled to none'.

I'm beginning to talk to myself now. So I'd better give it a rest and hit
the hay.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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