Talk:Nordendorf fibulae

abjuration or invocation?

Düwel (1982) lists interpretations from both camps but his own opinion is that the gods are named from a Christian perspective, as devils to be abjured. He concludes with a remark on the unzulässige aber offenbar unausrottbare Gleichsetzung von Götternennung und Götterglauben.

Now of course there are Christian abjurations naming devils or demons, but as far as I can see these are never named without an explicit mention of God or Jesus. It is entirely contrary to the pagan or magical worldview to name demons in order to abjure them. If you name them, you're going to have to call on the power that is supposed to drive them out, otherwise they'll just descend upon you...

The real philological question is, what are the parallels. I know a single other inscription that mentions Wodan explicitly, the Arguel pebble, arbitag | wodan | luïgo[?h]aŋzej | kim |. This is clearly from a pagan context, even thogh it isn't clear what is being said ("inheritance - Wodan - something". I know a couple of clearly Christian inscriptions, Bad Ems god fura dih deofile (perhaps "God before you, Devil!") and Whitby dæus mæus godaluwalu dohelipæ "my God, almighty God, help!" As I say, when Christians want God's help, especially in the face of devils and demons, they will name God.

Düwel wrote in 1982. I would welcome more recent literature that might take into account at least some of the above aspects. Obviously I'm not going to push this view in the article without basing it on published literature.

images

The image of Nordendorf II currently shown is unattributed. A public domain drawing of Nordendorf I can be found here (1869).An unattributed image of the inscription is [1] here. --dab (𒁳) 08:20, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Wrong picture

The shown picture of the Nordendorf Fibula type I is wrong, indeed this here is the right one: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Fibula_Nordendorf_I_1889.jpg 2003:FD:3702:6700:C9E5:3638:7226:5BD5 (talk) 09:14, 17 September 2023 (UTC)