Template:Did you know nominations/Gevninge

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:36, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Gevninge

(

• Back to T:TDYK
• Article history

)

The Gevninge helmet fragment

• ... that the poetical hero Beowulf may have passed through Gevninge, a Viking outpost with an associated helmet fragment (pictured)?

• Reviewed: Picway Power Plant

Created by Usernameunique (talk). Self-nominated at 16:42, 28 April 2018 (UTC).

• The article was created on 28 April, so is new enough, it has 1640 characters, so is long enough to comply with the rule, and is neutrally written and well-cited. The problems are with the hook and the image.

1. The text in the article can be taken as based in good faith on the offline sources, but the first part of the hook offered here says something not claimed by the article. What the article does say is "Gevninge may have thus served as the "port of Lejre"... This role is evocative of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, for the titular character passes through such a place..." and that is quite different.
2. There's also the problem that Beowulf is legendary and we have no evidence that he ever lived or did anything at all. We can't really treat him as if he were a historical figure.
3. The second part of the hook, about the helmet fragment, can be accepted AGF, but the image of the fragment is of very low quality, and there is no link from the Wikimedia image to a Lejre Museum page, no photographer name, and nothing to say how or why or by whom a CC licence was created for this low-grade image. "An email containing details of the permission for this file has been sent in accordance with Commons:OTRS" does not really meet the case.

This hook needs rethinking: perhaps an actual quotation from one of the sources could be added to the article and the new hook could be based on that? Or it could be cut down to just the second part, as the two parts are trying to marry up quite unrelated facts. To be used on the Main Page, the image should really be of better quality and there should be some details of how it comes to be in the public domain. Please ping me here when you have the answers. Moonraker (talk) 05:23, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the review, Moonraker. How is ALT1 instead? (Grendel isn't mentioned in the article at the moment, but can be easily added.) I think "poetical" describes Beowulf's nature adequately, though "legendary" or "fabled" would also work. The image is OTRS pending, which I understand to be allowed for the main page; there's a 66-day backlog for such emails, so it would be hard to do otherwise. The email in question was sent on April 12 by the head of communication for ROMU, who kindly offered a commercial-use-allowed license for a low-resolution photo (would want it to be non-commercial for anything higher). I think it looks nice in the small size afforded for the main page, although I agree with you that when blown up it gets fuzzy.

• ALT1: ... that the poetical warrior Beowulf passes through a place like Gevninge, a Viking outpost with an associated helmet fragment (pictured), on his way to fight the monster Grendel? --Usernameunique (talk) 05:58, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

• • All right, we are now on ALT1. On the image, the Reviewing guide says "Make sure the image is free of any copyright restrictions... Consider the quality of the image, and its clarity at 100 by 100 pixels, the size at which DYK images appear on the Main Page". The volunteer moving this on might feel we have made sure of the copyright status here, not sure. The clarity is all right at 100 by 100 pixels, but it's still a low-grade image, and it might or might not be used. Without it, the hook doesn't work well. Another reviewer has drawn my attention to Rule C6, "If the subject is a work of fiction or a fictional character, the hook must involve the real world in some way." That might help, although here the subject is Gevninge and not Beowulf. Also, I can't find Grendel mentioned in the article, and I don't think Grendel can be parachuted into the hook like that, we are supposed to be able to verify everything in the hook. Could you please quote the exact passage from Christensen (2002), p. 45, that you are relying on? It's just that I think we need to see what Christensen actually says. Could you give it in Danish and English? Moonraker (talk) 01:07, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
    • Moonraker, taking some issues in order:

1. The image is clear at 100x100 pixels; it is up to the promoter whether to include it or not.
2. I've added Grendel to the article.
3. If Rule C6 applies here (I don't think it does), it is clearly satisfied by the hook, which involves the real world in some way: Gevninge is a part of the real world. Indeed, the hook is really about how the fictional world of Beowulf intersects with contemporary reality.
4. The offline Danish sources could be accepted as good faith, but since you asked:

For en besøgende, der kom sejlende til Lejre, matte vejen mest naturligt gå via Gevninge. Her skulle man stige i land og foretage resten af turen langs ådalen til fods eller til hest. Her må man også have mødt en af Lejrekongens betroede mænd, der bevogtede vejen til Lejre. En sådan strandvagt optræder i kvadet om Bjovulf. Her modtager han helten og hans mænd, da de stiger i land på kysten på vej til danerkongen Roars kongsgård (i Lejre?):
“Ridende på sin hest drog Roars stridsmand
så ned til stranden, i næverne svingede han
kraftfuldt sit spy dog spurgte med hofpli:
‘hvem er I, som er kommet kampklædte her
skærmet af brynjer, med skibet det høje
sejlende hen over havets vej,
over bølgerne til landet? længe har jeg været
vogter af grænsen, holdt vagt ved havet
for at ingen fjende skulle anrette skade
i danernes land med ledingsflåde”

For a visitor who came sailing to Lejre, the road that made the most natural walk was through Gevninge. Here you should go ashore and take the rest of the trip along the river valley on foot or by horse. Here one must also have met one of the trusted men of Lejre's king, guarding the way to Lejre. Such a shore-guard appears in the quarters of Beowulf. Here he receives the hero and his men as they go ashore on the way to Hrothgar's kingdom (in Lejre?):
"he rode to the shore,
this horseman of Hrothgar’s, and challenged them
in formal terms, flourishing his spear:
'What kind of men are you who arrive
rigged out for combat in coats of mail,
sailing here over the sea-lanes
in your steep-hulled boat? I have been stationed
as lookout on this coast for a long time.
My job is to watch the waves for raiders,
and danger to the Danish shore.'" --Usernameunique (talk) 02:29, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

• • Usernameunique, progress. I agree with your points (1) and (3), thank you for (2), and (4) overcomes my doubts. So ALT1 is cited for everything except Grendel. If you want Grendel, there should really be a reference to cover it, I don't believe the rules allow us to parachute things into hooks (or, indeed, articles) that rely on people's general knowledge. Please would you ping me here when it's sorted? Moonraker (talk) 17:26, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
    • Thanks Moonraker. I've added a source for Grendel to the article. It's paywalled, but the relevant part reads: " The news of the inroads of Grendel reaches the ears of Beowulf, and he sets out to the court of Hrothgar. But the departure, the journey, and the landing are shrouded in a fog of hazy speech that not only makes the geographical identity of their destination a matter of question but has given modern scholars cause to write reams about the nationality of the Geats. The journey is safely accomplished and the warriors disembark. They are met by a mounted sentry, who challenges them and then points out the hall? [Same Beowulf passage as above.] This seems to indicate that the distance from the ship to the hall was not very great. The warden of the coast rides with them a little way until the hall may be seen in the distance and then lets them follow the path. If the march were long, it seems reasonable to suppose that there would be a definite reference to a somewhat more involved journey." --Usernameunique (talk) 22:27, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• Article created on 28 April, so is new enough, is long enough, and is neutrally written and well-cited, with no copyvio found. Offline sources for the ALT1 hook can be accepted AGF. On the image, we read that this small version of it has been licenced by the museum organization it belongs to, per Commons:OTRS, and it looks all right at the size of 100 x 100. The ALT1 hook is rather a complicated one, and the words "with an associated helmet fragment" might be better left out if the image is not used. Moonraker (talk) 04:28, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• As you know Usernameunique, I pulled this hook last night, mainly because I was unable to confirm the hook in a timely manner. But my issue with it at the time is that the hook says the warrior "may have passed through a place like Gevninge", but Gevninge isn't mentioned in the supplied source (Herbert), indeed Herbert doesn't mention any kind of settlement where Beowulf lands, and neither, apparently (judging by what I presume is an extract above) does the poem. So how can he have passed through "a place like Gevninge"? Also, Herbert (page 937) says that the notion that the Heorot of Beowulf was the same place as modern day Lejre is "utterly untenable", and says that Heorot was "miles away". Gatoclass (talk) 04:50, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• Gatoclass, as mentioned above, Herben is used only for verification of plot summary, i.e., for the fact that Beowulf's journey to Heorot is to fight Grendel. His own theory of where Heorot is is an outlier, and has been debunked (see p. 290 n.8: "Since the time of Chambers and Klaeber, most scholars have been willing, if pressed, to locate Heorot at Lejre even if with caution. n.8: Again, voices dissenting from this orthodoxy have occasionally been heard. In an article published in 1935 titled simply "Heorot," Stephen Herben proposed to locate the action of Beowulf at a village to the northeast of the city of Roskilde, ... but the connection that he proposes remains practically groundless."). As also noted and quoted above, Christensen 2002 is the source for linking Gevninge with Beowulf. --Usernameunique (talk) 16:19, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Firstly Usernameunique, your new source doesn't "debunk" Herbert, in fact, it says the opposite to what you claim (page 292): "No one today would agree with Sarrazin that this landscape "is" that of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf ... traces of ancient halls are being excavated now, in "the very place" (as Sarrazin liked to say) where the Beowulf poet may have imagined Heorot to have stood, even if the poet never ventured near that place in person." (my emphasis). Also, note that Christenson above doesn't assert that Heorot and Lejre are the same place, he merely suggests, very tentatively, that it might be. But it appears that his subject is Lejre and how one might have got there in ancient times, and is only touching on the Beowulf connection in passing. Regardless, saying that Beowulf "may have passed through a place like Gevninge" is highly misleading IMO, because it implies that he passed through a similar settlement when the poem itself only mentions a "lookout" on "the coast". [Addendum: I notice you added a quote while I was researching my response - I missed that before making this post. I'm not sure it changes anything substantive though]. Gatoclass (talk) 17:08, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Usernameunique, I can see both sides of this, but for now I am agreeing more with Gatoclass. In the middle of this page I asked you to quote Christensen (2002), so that we could see what he actually said, and you gave us a passage including "For a visitor who came sailing to Lejre, the road that made the most natural walk was through Gevninge". At first sight that supports Alt1; at second sight, it does name Gevninge, but it says nothing about "a place like Gevninge", and when Christensen later says "to Hrothgar's kingdom (in Lejre?)" that seems to suggest that a reasoned link with Lejre might be beside the point because Lejre may not be the real or fictional seat of Hrothgar. Also, we now gather there is scholarly controversy on these matters. If you want Beowulf in the hook and he does get into it, I see no problem with Grendel as well, but to link Beowulf and Gevninge you need to rely on something actually said in a reliable source. Can you perhaps come up with a hook that does exactly that, without any interpretation of it? If not, then I see nothing wrong with Vanamonde's suggestion of "Gevninge, a small village, may have been the port for a royal capital?" as that is a fair summary of something you can cite from the sources. Moonraker (talk) 22:02, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• ALT2 ... that two scholars passed through Gevninge in Denmark in their attempt to recreate the journey of Beowulf to Heorot to destroy the monster Grendel, arriving at Lejre?
• Source 1: Gillian Overing, Marijane Osborn, Landscape of Desire: Partial Stories of the Medieval Scandinavian World (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1994), pp. 1-2
• Source 2 (for Grendel): Stephen J. Herben Jr., "Heorot" in Publications of the Modern Language Association (Modern Language Association, December 1935) L (4): 933–945. JSTOR 458100

Vanamonde93, do you have time to review this, as I have suggested it? Moonraker (talk) 05:41, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

@Moonraker: The hook looks okay. Given the previous discussion here, though, I'd like to see a quote (or quotes) just in case; and I'd suggest omitting the "arriving at Lejre", as it is distracting from the main point of interest. Vanamonde (talk) 07:04, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm not keen on the proposed alt as it again conflates the fictional and real worlds and again implies that this was the location of Heorot when its location isn't known. What is wrong with Vanamonde's proposed hook? That seems more than sufficiently interesting to me and we have had a surfeit of Beowulf-related hooks lately. Gatoclass (talk) 08:57, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Gatoclass, as I said before, I see nothing wrong with Vanamonde's suggested hook, but it hasn't been proposed here for review yet. If he would like to do that, perhaps you would review it. On mine, which is trying to rescue something of what Usernameunique wanted to say, please see Rule C6, "If the subject is a work of fiction or a fictional character, the hook must involve the real world in some way." That doesn't apply here, as the subject is Gevninge, not Beowulf, but it does suggest to me there's no problem with fiction and the real world going into the same hook. The words "attempt to recreate the journey" don't seem to me to imply that they succeeded in doing that. Moonraker (talk) 23:24, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Moonraker, Gatoclass, & Vanamonde93, sorry for the delay in responding. Perhaps it's worth focusing on something other than Beowulf, partly for Gatoclass's point that the poem has been well represented on the main page recently; and much as I still think the link between Beowulf's journey and Gevninge is appropriate, it's clear that trying to force that point here would take a lot more discussion. What about something along the lines of:

ALT3: ... that Gevninge, a Viking outpost with an associated helmet fragment (pictured), may have been the port for the seat of the Scylding dynasty? --Usernameunique (talk) 22:03, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

• Usernameunique, the main elements of this can probably be taken AGF, but I am doubtful about the term "Viking outpost". The article says there is evidence of occupation during the Viking age, but my understanding of Vikings is that they are seafarers rather than villagers, and I don't quite see why this would be an "outpost". Does Christensen use the terms "Viking" or "outpost"? Moonraker (talk) 00:58, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

• Moonraker, I won't be able to look at Christensen until after the weekend, but Ulriksen also speaks about this, and has a detailed English résumé. Perhaps linking to Viking Age instead of Vikings, and using the word "settlement" instead of "outpost," would work. --Usernameunique (talk) 01:23, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Usernameunique, settlement would be fine if a reliable source says there was a settlement. Viking age also sounds better, but it tells us the period and not the location. If you can tell us exactly what the sources say that should make things easier. Moonraker (talk) 23:27, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Moonraker, the Ulriksen résumé can be found here. It explicitly uses the terms settlement and Viking. —Usernameunique (talk) 00:04, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Usernameunique, you may like to update ALT3? I'm not sure of the best way to bring in the helmet fragment, but the present form of words isn't ideal. Perhaps "where a helmet fragment (pictured) was later found"? On another point, the article talks about Scylding kings rather than dynasty, which is better. I don't see how a dynasty could have a seat. Moonraker (talk) 16:37, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Moonraker, sorry for forgetting about this and leaving it in purgatory. ALT4 has the suggested modifications:

ALT4: ... that Gevninge, a Viking settlement where the fragment of a helmet (pictured) was found, may have been the port for the seat of the Scylding kings? --Usernameunique (talk) 00:47, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

• Article was new enough when nominated, is long enough, and is neutrally written and well-cited, with no copyvio found. The ALT4 hook is mostly cited to online sources and others can be accepted AGF. On the image, this small version of it has been licenced by the museum organization it belongs to, per Commons:OTRS, and it looks all right at the size of 100 x 100. I believe this is ready to go with ALT4 only, but pinging Gatoclass, who pulled it before. Moonraker (talk) 02:15, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

I have no problem with the hook, but in looking at the article again, I am not at all happy with the content pertaining to Beowulf, which again, conflates the real and fictional worlds quite inappropriately and needs to be rewritten. I'd do it myself but I don't have access to the source. But quite frankly I think more than enough time has been spent on this very stubby article and that it probably should be failed at this point. Gatoclass (talk) 09:06, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Gatoclass, much as it seems unlikely that someone would conflate a tale about a mission to slay a monster with a statement of historical fact, I have added references to Beowulf being fictional. Since the DYK criteria would seem to be met (and since none of the criteria has anything to do with time spent on stubby articles), perhaps Moonraker could take a look at ALT4 with an eye to approving it. Thanks, --Usernameunique (talk) 12:25, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

You've got a stubby little article, half of which is not about the subject at all but a digression about a poem. Remove that and you've got about three sentences worth of article. It probably took you five minutes to write and I have spent literally hours already trying to get the issues sorted out and they are still not sorted, how much more of other peoples' time do you think you're entitled to in order to get your DYK credit?

I'm going to give it one more shot. Does Christenson have any more to say about the Beowulf connection other than the snippet from the book you posted above about the "visitor who came sailing to Lejre"? If so, at least I can rework the prose appropriately. If not, can you post the rest of what he said here please? Gatoclass (talk) 12:43, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Gatoclass, why don't you just rework the prose as you find appropriate from what's in the article; I can find and translate more information if necessary, but it's unclear why we would want to add more on Beowulf if you consider it tangential. Besides, since we already have some 1,250 characters without the section at issue in the middle paragraph, there's little danger of falling behind the DYK requirement. --Usernameunique (talk) 19:15, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Apologies for the delay in getting back to this Usernameunique, I've been struggling with burnout. I've rewritten the section of the article dealing with Beowulf to try and resolve the issues; take a look and see what you think. Gatoclass (talk) 11:12, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

No problem on any delay, Gatoclass; I’ve been busy and not editing much recently as well. The new wording, and in particular the paragraph break, look good. I’m happy with it if you are. —Usernameunique (talk) 04:08, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

The last symbol was a tick and the issues seem to have been resolved, so promoting this. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:36, 26 July 2018 (UTC)