Religion:For a Swarm of Bees

From HandWiki

"For a Swarm of Bees" is an Anglo-Saxon metrical charm that was intended for use in keeping honey bees from swarming. The text was discovered by John Mitchell Kemble in the 19th century.[1] The charm is named for its opening words, "wiþ ymbe", meaning "against (or towards) a swarm of bees".[2] In the most often studied portion, towards the end of the text where the charm itself is located, the bees are referred to as sigewif, "victory-women". The word has been associated by Kemble,[1] Jacob Grimm, and other scholars with the notion of valkyries (Old English wælcyrian), and "shield maidens", hosts of female beings attested in Old Norse and, to a lesser extent, Old English sources, similar to or identical with the Idise of the Merseburg Incantations.[3] Some scholars have theorized the compound to be a simple metaphor for the "victorious sword" (the stinging) of the bees.[4]

Lorscher Bienensegen manuscript

In 1909, the scholar Felix Grendon recorded what he saw as similarities between the charm and the Lorsch Bee Blessing, a manuscript portion of the Lorsch Codex, from the monastery in Lorsch, Germany. Grendon suggested that the two could possibly have a common origin in pre-Christian Germanic culture.[5]

Charm text

Sitte ge, sīgewīf,   sīgað tō eorðan, [lower-alpha 1]
næfre ge wilde   tō wuda fleogan, [lower-alpha 2]
beō ge swā gemindige,   mīnes gōdes, [lower-alpha 3]
swā bið manna gehwilc,   metes and ēðeles.[lower-alpha 4]


Settle down, victory-women, sink to earth,
never be wild and fly to the woods.
Be as mindful of my welfare,
as is each man of border and of home.[4]

Notes

  1. Sige is a homonym for both victory in war and sunset[2] and it is related to the Sigel (Sowilo) rune.
  2. Jacob Grimm proposed wille instead of wilde for grammatical or poetic reasons but it does not fundamentally alter his translation.[6] Wilde means wildly, whereas wille means willfully, as well as a literal or figurative stream.[2]
  3. Beo may mean both "bee" and "be thou".[2]
  4. Eðel may be both the name of the Odal rune as well as having all of its variant implications ranging from home, property, inheritance, country, fatherland, to nobility.[2]

References

Editions

  • Foys, Martin et al. Old English Poetry in Facsimile Project (Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2019-); digital facsimile edition and Modern English translation

Sources