A Runic Calendar in the Vatican Library

In 2014, the present author came across a runic calendar — that is a perpetual calendar in which golden numbers and Sunday letters are represented by runes – stored in the repository of the Vatican Latin Collection as item no. 14613. It was known previously to scholars only through a set of photo­graphic repro­ductions dating back to the mid-1800s now in the Royal Library in Stock­holm. This paper is a short and corrected summary of the author's detailed ac­count of the Vatican runic item, which was published in the Miscellanea Biblio­thecae Vati­canae 22 (2016). This well-preserved artifact, dated 1684 and belonging to the Swedish "rune-book" type, consists of eight small wooden boards carved on both sides, bound together by a cord passing through two holes near one end. Both the contents of the calendar and its structure and over­all style allow an identi­fication of its origin as belonging to the post-medi­eval Swedish pro­duc­tion in the Baltic area, more specifically in the Swedish settle­ments in present-day Estonia. Interesting analytic cues derive from the first account of the calendar as being stored in Bibliotheca Barberina in Rome, while a compar­ative investigation of the few rune-book calendars from Estonia that we know of shows that the Vatican item is original in some formal aspects and very atten­tive in responding to calendar issues and Swedish models. The feasts recorded with symbols in the calendar conform to the Åbo diocese; the holi­­day marks agree with the Swedish popular tradition, but are occasionally re-inter­preted; various onomastic initials, owner's or identification marks (bo­märke) and the so-called Saint Peter's game are cut on the cover pages of the rune-book. https://doi.org/10.33063/diva-40107

Considerations on Genre and Gender Conventions in Translating from Old English

The Old English poem The Wife's Lament is an extremely conventional and, at the same time, original text. It portrays a female character suffering for the absence of her loved one, through the framework of the so-called 'elegiac' style and a mainly heroic vocabulary. The traditional exile theme is, thus, interwoven with the uncommon motif of love sickness. While this appraisal of the poem is the most widely accepted one, disagreement still remains about the translation of some keywords, strictly related to the exile theme, such as sīþ or wræcsīþ. The aim of this paper is to examine diverging readings and glosses of the above mentioned 'exilic/elegiac' keywords, and to show that an accurate translation should not neglect a thorough appraisal of the text in its complexity and the association with related literary patterns and imagery in other poetic and prose texts

Runes in peripheral Swedish areas. The early ethnographic literature on calendar staves in the Baltic islands

1noopennoopenCucina, CarlaCucina, Carl

Il computo del tempo nella Scandinavia medievale. Riflessioni sulla memoria lineare e ciclica dalle genealogie ai calendari runici

This paper focuses on medieval time-reckoning as it was conceived and experienced by the Scandinavians, both in historical perspective and in everyday life. The relevant sources have been selected from the rich Old Icelandic historical and literary corpus, but also from the vast range of runic epigraphic documents produced in Scandinavia \u2013 mostly in Sweden \u2013 from the Viking Age until late and post-medieval times. The Author\u2019s purpose is to show how time-keeping gradually changed in the North under the influence of the Western Christian tradition, taking into account both \u2018linear\u2019 systems and \u2018cyclic\u2019 regular patterns of time, from the oldest Icelandic computus to the portable runic calendars and almanacs dating to the end of the Middle Ages and after, from the popular practices deriving from pre- Christian tradition to the new time-reckoning techniques widespread in the Christian West

Au\uf0un e l\u2019orso. Un racconto medievale islandese

La storia di Au\uf0un e l\u2019orso narrata nell\u2019Au\uf0unar \ufe\ue1ttr vestfirzka o \u201cRacconto di Au\uf0un dei-fiordi-occidentali\u201d rimanda ad una delle pi\uf9 note e interessanti opere di narrativa breve del medioevo islandese. L\u2019accostamento diretto al testo antico consente di filtrare alcune delle questioni critiche attualmente pi\uf9 controverse dell\u2019analisi specialistica riferita alla prosa islandese antica e ai generi o influssi che in essa si riconoscono. Allo stesso tempo, l'analisi del racconto che qui si propone suggerisce alcuni nuovi elementi di riflessione, conducendo ad una interpretazione dell\u2019opera che rende infine conto delle sue organiche combinazioni polisemiche e dei vari possibili livelli \u2013 mimetico, storico, antropologico, simbolico \u2013 in cui pienamente si realizza la comunicazione narrativa. Alla lunga Introduzione \ue8 affidata la necessaria considerazione dei vari aspetti che caratterizzano la tradizione e il processo compositivo del Racconto di Au\uf0un, dalla fortuna di cui questo ha goduto pressoch\ue9 ininterrottamente dal medioevo ai nostri giorni (\ua7 1) ai dati interni ed esterni della sua trasmissione manoscritta pi\uf9 antica (\ua7 2); dalla sua organizzazione strutturale (\ua7 3), all\u2019articolazione di temi e motivi che in esso si intrecciano, giocati essenzialmente sul liminare fra modelli antropologico-culturali antichi e nuove prospettive cristiane (\ua7\ua7 4, 5 e 6); per presentare infine una possibile interpretazione complessiva del senso del messaggio che vi \ue8 contenuto (\ua7 7). A corredo dell\u2019analisi affidata a tale Introduzione si fornisce poi la Bibliografia primaria e secondaria, selezionata e organizzata anch\u2019essa in varie sezioni (\ua7\ua7 1-6). Il Testo del racconto viene presentato nella sua veste linguistica originale, secondo la versione pi\uf9 antica della Morkinskinna, e affiancato per la prima volta da una Traduzione italiana (a fronte) e da Note. L\u2019accostamento immediato al testo islandese antico del \ufe\ue1ttr \ue8 ulteriormente garantito da un Glossario, mentre completano il volume una serie di Indici che ne agevolano la consultazione e alcune Tavole fuori testo, contenenti la riproduzione fotografica delle pagine manoscritte che hanno trasmesso il testo islandese antico

Unique Creatures in Old English Poetry, with a Note on anstapa (The Panther 15a)

The first element in more or less original compounds like OE \u101n-haga/-hoga, \u101n-floga (only in The Seafarer), \u101n-stapa (only in The Panther) and \u101n-genga is commonly translated as \uablone(ly)\ubb or \uabsolitary\ubb. By a careful re-reading of the passages in which these words occur, the present investigation shows that sometimes this interpretation can be questioned, and that in some cases a meaning \uabunique, unparalleled, singular\ubb is to be preferred. In determining the meaning of the \u101n-element in such compounds, the immediate Latin source may prove decisive (cf. The Phoenix 87a \u101n-haga, and possibly The Panther 15a \u101n-stapa), but the context plays an important role, especially when an allegorical meaning lies in the background, which is a common feature of all the occurrences discussed here, from Beowulf to \uc6lfric (\u101n-genga), from The Phoenix to Guthlac B (\u101n-haga/-hoga), from The Seafarer (\u101n-floga) to The Panther (\u101n-stapa). Even if conclusive evidence cannot be offered for all cases, the point of this article is that at least good grounds exist for questioning the overall standard interpretative pattern of this class of words, and to maintain that the Anglo-Saxon poets may have answered to the metaphorical issues of their subject-matters by occasionally investing some of these terms with original or possibly with intentionally ambiguous meanings

OLOF VERELIUS E LA TESTIMONIANZA DELLE PIETRE RUNICHE NELLE NOT\uc6 ALLA HERVARAR SAGA

In the notes to his edition of Hervarar saga (Hervarar saga p\ue5 Gammal G\uf6tska, Upsal\ue6 1672), Olof Verelius, the first (and only) professor of national antiquities at Uppsala University, often refers to Swedish (occasionally Danish) runestones among the various other literary, historical and juridical sources from classical antiquity and medieval times that he knows of. This paper investigates how he approaches the study both of the Icelandic sagas (\ua7\ua7 1-2) and of the runes (\ua7 3), within the cultural background and academic milieu of seventeenth-century Sweden. In particular, present analysis focuses on the one hand on Verelius\u2019 strategies in dealing with the inscriptions as reliable evidence of Old Scandinavian traditions, on the other on the external and runological data he can rely on, in order to assess to what extent his expositio is the result of sound \u2013 if dated \u2013 runographic issues or mere Gothicist propaganda (\ua7\ua7 4-5). Investigation of some of the runestones dealt with in the Notae shows that, even within the cultural trend of his time, Verelius has pioneered the current analytical process of reading Viking Age inscriptions in context, and has occasionally determined the future critical discussion of single inscriptions

Mid \ufeearfan w\ue6dum. Rappresentare la povert\ue0 nella poesia anglosassone

Poverty was certainly part of the Anglo-Saxon experience. In the literary corpus, there are several hints which prove that it was considered one of those very hard physical and psychological tests \u2013 such as extreme cold, pain, illness, old age, solitude, exile \u2013 men happen to face in their lifetime. Christian perspective intervenes in turning the moral perception of wealth vs. poverty upside down, with material values superseded by the spiritual acceptance of the model of Christ, who chose to stand on the beggar\u2019s side. Through the doctrine of charity, the idea that the rich man has to give to the poor a portion of his possessions \u2013 since ultimately these are on loan from God \u2013 makes its way into society, so that a new and basically penitential carrying out of the traditional gifstol power system emerges. The purpose of this essay is to select from the corpus of Old English poetry significant examples both of paupertas cum Petro (i.e. poverty voluntarily chosen as a devotional form of life) and of paupertas cum Lazaro (i.e. indigence suffered as a permanent or occasional condition), as well as to find poetic evidence for the Christian idea that, since earthly wealth is granted by God, it has to be generously distributed by the wealthy men in the form of alms, which become the safest way for them to save their own soul. By reading the poetic corpus and also by taking into account some significant interactions of thought with and verbal echoes of both the homiletic tradition and the relevant Latin sources, the present analysis demonstrates that a wide range of types or aspects of poverty are represented in Old English poetry. Moreover, it shows that the material and psychological effects of poverty \u2013 even if the Anglo-Saxons certainly had no social conscience in the modern sense \u2013 were especially moving for authors, particularly when they could draw on the so-called \u201celegiac\u201d set of topoi, such as precariousness, exile, loss, separation, solitude