Elves & Dwarves & How to Prevent Them

“That’s enough to begin with; there are plenty of hard words there.”  – Humpty Dumpty

This is my term paper from the Signum University “Introduction to Anglo-Saxon” class.  (Except that I deleted the jokes from the copy I actually turned in.) These are two healing charms, more or less in alliterative verse. I’m posting it here because I kept getting Tolkien connections as I did the translation.  T. S. Eliot said, “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal;” from which I extrapolate that a truly great writer steals from things that would otherwise be forgotten.

Dubious Tolkien references herein: Lembas, Elrond, barrow-wights, giant spiders, Galdor.

These are two charms to prevent illnesses that are ostensibly caused by supernatural intervention. The first is a sharp pain due to elf-shot. The second is sleep disturbance due to dwarf-riding. To effect a cure, the arsenal that a healer brings to bear on the problem includes knowledge of the natural world, familiarity with the supernatural, word-play, and personal authority.

The first modern scholarly edition of Lacnunga “of Leechcraft” was made by a Rev. Cockayne in 1866. (This has no relevance to the current translation project, but the medical aptonym is irresistible.) The original also contained a cure for cancer; alas, that part of the manuscript is now illegible. A 21^st-century critical edition by Edward Pettit is the source for these texts, altered as necessary by reference to the digitized Harley manuscript 585 made available by the British Library. Line numbers are from Pettit.

Wið Færstice: A charm against a stabbing pain

Lacnunga, CXXVII

This charm has three parts. First is an oily preparation of herbs that (as we now know) actually do relieve pain. The second is a chant in pretty-good alliterative form, interspersed with periodic imperatives commanding the elf-shot to get out of the body, and some lawyerly-sounding enumerations to make sure all the possibilities are covered. The third is a real knife, which plays a sympathetic role to help pull out the little elf-spear.

This charm may pre-date the Christian conversion. It has only the tiniest hint of Christianity, in a place where it could easily have been pasted on, long after the charm was originally written.

Notes on translation

760: Transcription error for feferfuge = “feverfew”, Tanacetum parthenium, which is still recommended as a cure for migraines. (I believe this to be the first citation of WebMD in a Signum term paper.)

reade netel is called purple deadnettle today; it’s an invasive weed that takes over fields between harvest and planting.  inwyxð I take to relate to the invasiveness, by analogy with in-weaxan, because that takes an accusative object, and purple deadnettles are really invasive.

“wegbrade”= “waybread”; not lembas, just a plantain. Plantago is not a pain-killer according to St. Hildegard von Bingen or Macer Floridus; the Anglo-Saxons must have had a different physiology from the continentals.

Line 775: Six is a pun on “seax”, I think. Also 6+1=7 smiths total, and any time you can use the number 7 in a spell, you’re doing great.

Line 777: Even a small splinter of iron might be the problem, so the spell includes it. Elrond clearly knew this spell.

Line 784: ic wille ðin helpan: “yours” means “your afflicted body-part”, which isn’t written out in full because it would destroy the meter.

Line 787: Lacnunga LXXVI mentions Woden, which I’m taking as permission to run with Bosworth-Toller and say “Thor’s house” for “fyrgenhæfde”. Following that line of thought, the genetive plural “esa” who are as likely as elves to shoot someone, I translate as “gods”, cognate with Norse Æsir.

Line 788: “the liquid” refers to the herbed butter made in line 760.

Wið dweorh – Against a dwarf

Lacnunga, LXXXVI

After thorough study, the only thing I know about dweorh is that whatever it means, it doesn’t mean a bearded guy with a pick-axe, nor a person deficient in pituitary hormones. This charm (galdor) seems to be aimed at thwarting something much more dangerous than elves or hags or Norse gods: the last lines seem to imply that the healer is in as much danger from a dweorh as the sick person, and the patient’s guardian who summoned the healer, too. It is probably not coincidence that Christian powers are called upon instead of natural forces. Like a modern doctor, when things turn serious he gets out the Latin.

This charm shows the syncretic enthusiasm for which alternative medicine is still famous today. The objective is to cure, not to adhere to any particular system. The alliterative verse is there because it’s part of the tradition, but it is metrically inept. Christian saints are a power-source, so the healer brings them in without apparent embarrassment. I agree with Matthew Lewis that this is a charm against sleep disturbance, of an apparently horrible kind.

Notes on translation

Line 645: The seven names to be written on the stolen communion wafers (!) are the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. The wafers evidently must be strung into a necklace of some kind, though this is not specifically stated.

Line 650: In the manuscript, inspidenwiht is written clearly, so no chance of a mistranscription. A scribo had an ascender where the “n” is, which was scraped off. Note that it was not a descender, which would be needed for this to be “inspiderwiht”, as most transcriptions have claimed. Here, wiht shall be translated as “creature”, and inspiden by analogy with aspide I take to mean “dangerous”, venomous, or something like that. Lewis, in common with lots of other people, think it should be translated “spider”, but there are three other objections to that besides the typographical: first, spider isn’t the Anglo-Saxon word for “spider”; second, the things that it does aren’t things a spider can do; third, it’s referred to as deor on second mention, which is an odd thing to call a spider. (Unless it’s a giant spider from Mirkwood?)

Line 651: Haman and teage, in keeping with the horse motif, shall be translated “saddle” and “reins”.

Line 652: the land is a metaphor for the physical world. Sleep is like a sea-voyage away from things that are familiar (and warm). A sea-voyage also lets in the pun on liþan (to sail) and ða liþu (in the limbs).

Line 654: I’m going to go out on a limb (I am not averse to continuing a pun a millenium later). Pettit, Lewis, and even Drout have com here. It’s written “cō” in the manuscript, so I’m going to replace that with con. We need a present/future-tense verb here or the spell doesn’t do anything. Also it prevents com ingangan from being redundant. (I realize that I am on shaky intellectual ground by claiming that there existed at least one Anglo-Saxon who worried about being redundant.)

Line 655: adlegan means funeral pyre, which is plainly wrong. Replace it with adlican, “the sick person” (accusative).

Works Cited:

Bosworth, Joseph, et al. “An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online.” Edited by Thomas Northcote Toller and Others, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, 21 Mar. 2010, http://www.bosworthtoller.com/ Accessed 30 Mar. 2019.

British Library Digitized Manuscripts. Harley MS 585: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=harley_ms_585_f167r for Dwarves. http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=harley_ms_585_f175r for Elves.

Drout, Michael D.C. “Against a Dwarf”, Anglo-Saxon Aloud. Feb 20, 2008. http://mdrout.webspace.wheatoncollege.edu/category/against-a-dwarf/

Hall, Alaric. “Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Belief, Health, Gender, and Identity (Anglo-Saxon Studies 8).” Woodbridge: Boydell (2007).

Lewis, Matthew Charles. Dreaming of Dwarves:Nightmares and Shamanism in Anglo-Saxon Poetics and the Wið Dweorh Charm. Diss. UGA, 2009.

Macer Floridus. “Des vertus des plantes” in Les Propriétés Médicinales Des Plantes: Textes des III^e, IV^e et XI^e Siècles. Clermont-Ferrand: Éditions Paleo, 2007.

Pettit, Edward. Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms, and Prayers from British Library Ms Harley 585: Commentary and bibliography. Vol. 1. Edwin Mellen Press, 2001.

Throop, Priscilla, translator. Hildegard von Bingen’s Physica: The complete English translation of her classic work on health and healing. Simon and Schuster, 1998.