Talk:Franks Casket

Deletions

The following text has been deleted by User:Berig:

"If this is the meaning of the picture the carver would have procured a glorious afterlife for his royal protégée."

"Again he has chosen a suitable name, as the rune for Æ refers to the sturdy trunk of the ash tree, which “offers stubborn resistance, though attacked by many a man.” (Runic Poem)"

The remarks struck me as usefully interpretive.--Wetman 21:24, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid that strikes me as idle speculation too. What is the rationale behind the letters associated with the individual parts? The article seems to be dominated by the idiosyncratic interpretation of a single author; we should avoid this sort of thing, and present Becker's stuff for what it is, according to its notability, but not inform the entire article by his ideas. dab (𒁳) 19:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd always add to achieve balance, rather than suppress. Or I'd rewrite any text that was misleading. The Franks Casket offers an interesting subject, but I'm not competent to enrich the material. --Wetman 20:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

well, yes, but there is no context. What "royal protégée"? What "suitable name"? What is this about? dab (𒁳) 21:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

looking into it, these are incoherent references to the theory laid out on http://www.franks-casket.de/ , and looking at that, it appears it is your usual numerological extravagance. We can certainly treat the theories of Becker (1973), but they will have to be contained to a clearly referenced "interpretations" section. dab (𒁳) 21:40, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Correct category?

Please see Category talk:Earliest known manuscripts by language. Enaidmawr (talk) 01:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

"Erta"

If anyone is interested in keeping the mention of the possibility of a connection between Erta, Erce and an earth goddess in reference to the Franks Casket (which is questionable to begin with), here's one place to start looking:

• Richard J. Schrader (1983). God's Handiwork: Images of Women in Early Germanic Literature, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1983. ISBN: 0-313-23666-6. pg. 28.

Schrader mentions the connection as purely conjectural, however. —Aryaman (Enlist!) 12:38, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

IMHO, Erta is plainly the personal name of the Earth Goddess, which becomes Eartha in modern English. Cp German Erde. Tacitus gives the Saxon earth goddess as Nerthus, but that's earlier and may be a dialect-specific variant (or mis-hearing). In any event, Erta could be the Anglish or Jutish version of the same name. Erta is often said to be a typo for Erce, but IMHO it makes more sense to think that Erce is a typo for Erta. HuMcCulloch (talk) 16:40, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Simmons' interpretation

I think the version of the article as at yesterday gave Simmons' interpretation a good deal of coverage, considering it is essentially an amateur web-only article. Becker is at least published, and his views less divergent from other scholars. Unless evidence is produced of scholarly support, I think today's additions tip the balance over to WP:UNDUE. His whole paper is available online, sadly unlike the more usual interpretations, and indeed has been added by an SPA to a large number of articles. What do others think? Johnbod (talk) 03:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

The amateur web-only stuff needs to go. For that matter, anything unreferenced, published not, needs proper attribution or it needs to get the axe until it does. There's enough tomfoolery out there on this subject as is. :bloodofox: (talk) 18:58, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Romulus and Remus

What exactly does the source say to cover "Carol Neuman de Vegvar (1999) observes that depictions of Romulus and Remus are very common in Anglo-Saxon art"? AFAIK, there are only the Larling & Franks carvings, and a series of early East Anglian coins, as mentioned here. This doesn't amount to "very common". Johnbod (talk) 21:29, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

"Very common" downgraded to "frequent", "Anglo-Saxon" limited to "East Anglian". My webpage dated 12/6 still a little overstated, but I'll leave it for now. Thanks. HuMcCulloch (talk) 22:25, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thanks - of course there may be more, but those all get mentioned by various people in this context, while nothing else does. Johnbod (talk) 19:08, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Link

Link with stuff on construction, including a useful diagram [1]. Johnbod (talk) 18:37, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good, Johnbod! Why don't you add it to the article? I'd suggest at the end of the second paragraph of the Description section, since it pertains to the structure of the box. I've already added more than my share already. HuMcCulloch (talk) 03:04, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

One day. Could you respond to the section above? Thanks Johnbod (talk) 04:26, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

MacGregor's book is already in footnote 21, but for some reason isn't listed in the references. The mention could be moved to the text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HuMcCulloch (talk • contribs) 15:33, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Referencing

I haven't looked at the body of this article in a while, but I noticed that a lot of the references put into place here are problematic. Namely there's some ibid.-style referencing going on that needs to be altered to explicit referencing' (there's no ibid referencing on Wikipedia; for an explanation see WP:IBID). Also there are references here without page numbers. This is particularly problematic and needs to be taken care or any editor can just come by and remove the improperly referenced text for any reason (see WP:PROVEIT). :bloodofox: (talk) 19:20, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Granted. Does the stuff I added need further references? I have no idea who added what before Dec. 6, and have tried to leave it all as was even if unreferenced. Anyway, I thought that anyone could just come by and remove anything, referenced or not, until someone else takes the trouble to restore it.  :-)

Some of the material may be from Leslie Webster's new book. I've ordered a copy but haven't received it yet. If I find anything when I get it, I'll add page refs. HuMcCulloch (talk) 18:48, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Mrs. Webster's book finally came last week. I had at first ordered it directly from Amazon ($10, SH included), but kept getting "temporarily out of stock" messages. Then I cancelled that order and instead ordered it from SuperBookDeals (which explicitly does US shipping) as linked on the Amazon page under other sources. This worked out to be about the same price and came right away! HuMcCulloch (talk) 13:48, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

The new Webster book is dated 2012, but we already had a Webster (2012), namely her book on AS Art. So I guess we'll have to go with Webster (2012a) and (2012b). The new book is only 64 pages long, so all the previous references are to the AS Art book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HuMcCulloch (talk • contribs) 03:01, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Krause and Peeters

The paragraphs on Krause and Peeters seem out of place in the Simmons section. The Peeters paragraph was added as a misformatted footnote at the end of the article on 4/30/10 by Rtorrez, and then moved by Johnbod to the Simmons section of the text. The Krause paragraph was added directly to the Simmons section by 188.96.71.99 on 4/17/12.

If no one objects, I'd like to move these both to the section on Becker (after tightening it up some), since they pertain more to his theories. Where they are gives undue weight to Simmons. I haven't been able to locate Peeters' 1996 article, but it surely can't be commenting on Simmons 2010. HuMcCulloch (talk) 19:34, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The layout was very different then & I'm glad to lose the named sections by theorist. Move them where they best fit. Johnbod (talk) 22:54, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Just added subsection on Rhiannon. At least 4 of these 5 theories of the Bargello panel must be completely wrong! HuMcCulloch (talk) 04:34, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I've replaced the B&W photo of just the left half of the front panel with a color photo of both halves, cropped from the lead photo and brightened. I could split it in two if there is popular demand. Or revert to old photos and captions. HuMcCulloch (talk) 14:39, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Although it hasn't been discussed here, Johnbod has noted in another discussion on Wikipedia that my incorporation of mentions of my own web essay could be consrued as a Conflict of Interest. I have therefore removed both mentions and moved my essay down to External Links. If someone else wanted to reverse this edit, I would have no objection. HuMcCulloch (talk) 13:44, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

If no one objects, I'm planning to do some more editing here. I plan to move the Becker and Osborne numerological considerations out of the lead subsection of Interpretations where they receive undue importance, and make this a final subsection, after all 5 panels have been discussed. Becker's rune connotations are interesting, but should be briefly mentioned at the end of the discussion of each panel, rather than given their present undue overview status. I plan to add sub-subsections to the right panel subsection on Leopold Peeter's Madness of Nebuchadnezzar theory and David Howlett's Death of Balder (Saxo Grammaticus version) theory, and to tighten up the Becker/Krause Goddess of the Wood theory. I'm presenting these right side theories more or less in chronological order as they have been proposed. If there is no objection, I will scratch the back and lid photo in the lead section, since we only need one lead photo and details of the back and lid appear farther down. 68.175.123.19 (talk) 18:36, 26 November 2013 (UTC) HuMcCulloch (talk) 18:38, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I had originally added the Sigurd Saga runestone image at 160px, to conform with other non-FC illustrations relating to other theories of the right side. Johnbod (who has been editing this page a lot longer than myself) upped this to 220px, thus singling out this one theory as more important than the others. While it has admittedly been around for the longest time, I think this gives it undue weight, and would now like to revert it to 160 px, if Johnbod has no objection. HuMcCulloch (talk) 17:04, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I haven't been following the changes, though if you let me know when they are finished I will take a look. I now have Webster's Objects in Focus book also. 220px is the default, and there is rarely a good reason to fix images smaller than this. The other images should be defixed, per WP:IMGSIZE. 160px is far too small anyway, especially for those with accessibility issues. Simple images of no direct visual relevance, like the heraldic horse, I'd allow to stay small as an exception. Johnbod (talk) 17:42, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Your size changes are fine by me. I'm now finished with my planned changes. HuMcCulloch (talk) 20:18, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

On 2/1/14, user Blueporch "corrected" the Front Panel translation by Page, but gave no reference for the revision. I concur with Blueporch that it is more reasonable to assume that the sea cast up the fish, than that the fish cast up the sea, per Page. I am therefore replacing the entire Page translation with that in Hough and Corbett, Beginning Old English, which agrees with Blueporch on this point, and is equally authoritative. Blueporch also adds an unreferenced objection to the runological theory of Becker in the Front Panel section. Since this paragraph was redundant to start with, I am deleting it entirely, leaving similar material in the last section. If Blueporch wants to add a referenced objection to Becker's theories there, that would be the appropriate place. HuMcCulloch (talk) 22:44, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

agl may not be such a mystery

The (unfortunately damaged) term agl[?] looks like a 1:1 cognate with Gothic agls "shameful, humiliating" (Feist 1939: 7, s.v. agls translated from the original German "schimpflich"). The sound correspondences of Goth a- and OE a- are a bit wonky, but it seems like Franks Casket has a bunch of weird phenomena happening to (specifically) a vowels (cf. hiæ for hīe, warþ for wearþ, hærmberge for hearmbeorg, etc.) Holthausen seems to interpolate this issue as well s.v. ā-, ǣglǣća 'wretched, miserable, etc.' (translated from the original German 'Elender, etc.' (Holthausen 1974: 3))

Feist, S. (1939). Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der gotischen Sprache. Leiden: Brill.

Holthausen, F. (1974). Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Heidelberg: Winter. Vindafarna (talk) 21:26, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, you'd need references specific to the casket. Johnbod (talk) 21:29, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

For this word exclusively? Or for all of the terms in that table that are not 1:1 with their West Saxon forms? Because there just seems to be that blanket statement above all the forms claiming they're from Hall's dictionary (even for forms that require interpretation and are not 1:1) Vindafarna (talk) 21:47, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

The glossary is secondary. The current note on the translation reads: "Page (1999, 178-9). Page's translations are endorsed by Webster (1999). See Napier (1901), Krause (1959), d'Ardenne (1966), and Peeters (1996) for discussion of alternative readings." You need stuff like that. Johnbod (talk) 01:46, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm really confused. I need stuff like that for what? I'm not advocating changing anything since the research seems to support the communis opinio of the word's meaning... But I'll take a look at the current literature anyways, I guess? Vindafarna (talk) 17:40, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Generally this page is for people "advocating changing" something, and I assumed you were. Johnbod (talk) 03:06, 16 August 2022 (UTC)