I had a great birthday again this year. Kathy organized a long weekend in Halle, Merseburg, and Querfurt. We had an excellent dinner in Halle at the Alchimistenklause on Friday, visited the cathedral in Merseburg and the castle in Querfurt on Saturday, saw the Sky Disk of Nebra in Halle on Sunday, and toured the chocolate factory there on Monday.
The
Merseburger Zaubersprüche
(magical incantations of Merseburg) were written down by a monk in old high German more than a thousand years ago (in the tenth century). In 1842 a theologian found them in the cathedral library in Merseburg and made them known to the Brothers Grimm, who then made the incantations famous. There are two incantations. One serves to free a captive, and the second heals a horse's leg. The first one follows.
Once sat women,
They sat here, then there.
Some fastened bonds,
Some impeded an army,
Some unraveled fetters::
Escape the bonds,
flee the enemy!
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Book with Zaubersprüche
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The second incantation follows.
Phol and Wodan were riding to the woods,
and the foot of Balder's foal was sprained
So Sinthgunt, Sunna's sister, conjured it;
and Frija, Volla's sister, conjured it;
and Wodan conjured it, as well he could:
Like bone-sprain, so blood-sprain,
so joint-sprain:
Bone to bone, blood to blood,
joints to joints, so may they be glued
The document is the only text in old high German where the pagan Germanic gods appear (Wodan, Balder, Friia, Volla, Sunna, Phol, Sinhtgunt). The names have there equivalents in the North Germanic paganism that we are familiar with from Norse mythology. But the Eddas of Snorri Sturluson are several centuries newer. The advantage of the Norse version is that Snorri documented it so well, so we are much more familiar with Odin, Baldr, Frigg, Fulla, Sunna, and so on.
If I understood the tour guide correctly, the reason for the rarity of such text is that the alphabet wasn't established until Charles the Great (Charlemagne) had a writing system made for his native language, either old Frankish or old high German or old low Frankonian. (Charles started a Grammar, but it has unfortunately been lost.) Around the same time he was also leading a campaign to convert the pagans to Christianity. So fewer of the nobility in Germany were pagans shortly after the book was written.
The book was written by a cleric from the abbey in Fulda, so it is primarily a religious text written in Latin. The bottom third of the page with the incantations (the top two-thirds have the incantations) has a short prayer in Latin. Elsewhere in the book is the baptismal oath (in Latin), which includes the pledge to reject the devil and also "Thunaer ende Woden" (Thor and Wodan). So why include the Zaubersprüche at all? Maybe by writing them in the language of the pagans and not Latin, the Zaubersprüche are being denigrated. Maybe their inclusion is a recognition that healers should use whatever works.
After the tour of the Library we went into the cathedral itself. There
was a festival for the 1000-year anniversary of the consecration of the
church. Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich II
and his empress Kunigunde were present for the consecration. This has
some interest for us because the same Heinrich established the diocese
in Bamberg, just 45 minutes north of us. They were responsible for
putting Bamberg on the map, and both were canonized, in 1147 and 1200,
respectively. Their tomb in the cathedral in Bamberg was created in
1513 by Tilman Riemenschneider, is a gothic masterpiece.
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Kunigunde and Heinrich II
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There was a special exhibit in Halle on the Sky Disk of Nebra, and it was another highlight of the trip. We wrote about the Sky Disk a couple of years ago when we traveled to see the wood henge and ark of the sky disk at Goseck and Nebra, respectively. The museum near Nebra dedicated only to the the Sky Disk is called the "ark". It has a planetarium, and there is a fantastic presentation on how the Sky Disk was used for predicting leap year and the seasons. Nebra is about 10 miles south of Querfurt.
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Sky Disk and other objects in the hoard
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The home of the Sky Disk is the
State Museum of Prehistory in Halle. It has resources far beyond what the small but excellent museum in Nebra has. They were successful in getting the
Nebra Sky Disk added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2013. The museum in Halle was also able to put together a special exhibit together with the British Museum on the
Aunjetitz culture that produced the Sky Disk 3700 year ago. We learned about the expansive trade routes that brought tin and gold from England and copper from Austria. We also learned about the advanced farming techniques that enabled the people to produce enough flour to feed thousands of people every day, including a large army. The grinding stones were huge, and required two people to work the upper stone.
There was also information on the burial rites of the leaders. Just a few kilometers southeast of Halle in Bornhöck was the largest funerary monument of the central European Early Bronze Age (1800 b.c.), a large mound white-washed with limestone. Grave robbers plundered it and the soil was removed between 1844 and 1890 a.d., but a lot of information can be obtained from the remains. It was similar to burial mounds in Leubingen and Helmsdorf, where huge treasures have been discovered. Rather than bury corpses on their sides as for average people, the corpses of rulers were buried face-up (to look into the sky?) The social rank of the person was indicated by the amount of gold jewelry and the number of bronze weapons (such as those found with the Sky Disk) buried in the mound.
Not far from Merseburg is Querfurt, a small city with a beautiful castle. The castle was under siege by renovators while we were there, but the museum was open. The age of the castle is unknown, but it was mentioned in the tithe records of the Hersfeld monastery in 866. The chapel was added in 1004, and the Romanesque version we see today was built in 1162. The tomb of ruler of Querfurt during the 1300s, Gebhard XIV von Querfurt, is inside the church. Gebhard was a knight in the second Italian campaign of Holy Roman Emperor Karl IV (Charles the Fourth of Prague fame), and so Gebhard's son was made Archbishop of Magdeburg.
We ate well in Halle too. We stopped at a place called the Alchimistenklause, which means the Alchemists' hermitage. It has been in business since 1873 in an old building with lots of charm. We started with drinks. Kathy had Lavendelsekt with Limettenkaviar (Riesling champagne with lavender oil and candied lime) You can see the small pieces of lime in the photo of the champagne glass (most are on the bottom, but some keep floating to the top). I had apple beer. Both were great. For the main course Kathy had baked cheese and wine biscuits and sliced beef carpaccio with herbs and flowers, and I had pork loin with air-dried ham.
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Riesling champagne
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| Alchemistenklause |
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Main courses
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Halle also has a castle ruin, where a light show was performed for Reunification Day (October 3). The castle Giebichenstein was a residence for Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Great (936-973), who later gave it to the Archbishop of Magdeburg. The archbishops made Giebichenstein Castle their principal residence from 1382 until the archbishops moved into the newly built Moritzburg castle in Halle in 1503 (Moritzburg is today a modern art museum, which we will have to visit on our next visit to Halle.) The castle ruin overlooks the Saale river, and we walked along the banks of the river back to the Moritzburg. There are moored boats and little huts along the banks that sell food and drink. Because it was my birthday, we stopped for ice cream.
There are more treats in Halle. The oldest chocolate factory in Germany was just a block from our hotel. The name is Halloren, and it is comparatively small. It was founded in 1804 in Halle, and after its initial glory days, it fell on hard times during the communist period (Halle was in the GDR). The factory was practically worthless by the time of the fall of the wall, but the name Halloren still had marketing appeal. So some German investors from Hanover invested in the factory and gradually brought it back to western standards.
There is a museum that presents the history of chocolate in Central America through the Spanish acquisition to the popularization in England. The history of the Halloren company is given last, and there is a life-size sculpture of the founder in his office, all made out of chocolate! The furniture, food, fireplace, rug, even the walls! And the smell was amazing! We had to buy way too much chocolate at the factory store before leaving.
