A Missing Trojan Text



Hunterian MS V.2.8, folio 1a
Glasgow University Library


The Trojan War, or at least the texts that record its occurrence, has had an immeasurable effect on the English language.  From the many literary references to "the face who launched a thousand ships" to the characterization of a ruse as a "Trojan horse," the lexicon of Troy pervades newspapers and everyday speech.  The following material treats a "Trojan text" that unfortunately did not have much of an influence, at least in comparison to Homer and Virgil.  It is based in research I hope to present at a conference at Harvard on October 1st in honor of a mentor of mine, David Benson.  I would love to know your thoughts . . .

the bone-house of language... and its reflection?

Thank you for allowing me to join the HEL group virtually through this blog. I hope to meet you in person this semester as I return to campus after time on leave. I’ve been preparing to teach an MA-level survey of medieval to renaissance literature -- only one week before we start now! So I’ve been thinking about the course’s starting point of Old English and in particular the ‘Franks’ casket, since it’s featured on the front cover of one of the books we’re using.

To see images and read more about this 8th-century box, see the British Museum site:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_mla/t/the_franks_casket.aspx

As the site explains, on the front panel of this box, a riddle is spelled out in a runic inscription which surrounds the images (mythic Wayland juxtaposed with Christian nativity, interesting). The site gives a translation of the riddle; in more typical Old English characters, it reads something like this: “fisc . flodu . ahof on fergenberig warþ ga:sric grorn þær he on greut giswom.” The answer (“hronæs ban”) is also spelled out in the runes that run up the left-hand side, but the material fashioning of the box means you literally see the answer before you have a chance to ‘see’ the answer (figuratively) or even finish reading the question. I am fascinated by Old English riddles because most people do not think of riddles as literature and because riddles are in fact as difficult to define as literature itself. (My favorite way to define a riddle is a riddle: ‘when you do not know what it is, then it is. when you know what it is, it is not’.) I also deeply enjoy thinking about how the materials we use to fashion texts impact what the text means to us; I can hardly wait to teach an honors course on the subject of material texts next semester!
But I digress... Why do I think the inscription on the Franks casket is especially interesting in terms of HEL? Well, one piece of information not given on the British Museum website, but clear to anyone with even the most basic knowledge of the runic alphabet, the futhorc, is that the bottom line of the inscription is written right to left with reversed runes. It is therefore only easily legible when viewed in a mirror. (Wikipedia’s entry featuring the futhorc currently has a link to the Franks casket: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_runes ). No one has yet offered an entirely convincing explanation of why the riddle was crafted this way, though it certainly adds to the puzzle. And it’s made me start to ponder mirror writing in relation to the history of the English alphabet... Should mirror-reversed letters be considered part of the alphabet since English users can (with some effort/aids) read and write using these? What does this group think? Would a study of mirror writing from the Franks casket to today turn up any interesting continuity? Would it be part of the HEL? What about a history of English writing on bone? I know the whalebone stays that shaped Elizabethan corsets were an especially popular place for inscriptions of erotic poetry... does anyone know of other interesting instances?