Albruna

Albruna, ''Aurinia'' or ''Albrinia'' are some of the forms of the name of a probable Germanic seeress who would have lived in the late 1st century BC or in the early 1st century AD. She was mentioned by Tacitus in ''Germania'', after the seeress Veleda, and he implied that the two were venerated because of true divine inspiration by the Germanic peoples, in contrast to Roman women who were fabricated into goddesses. It has also been suggested that she was the frightening giant woman who addressed the Roman general Drusus in his own language and made him turn back at the Elbe, only to die shortly after, but this may also be an invention to explain why a consul of Rome would have turned back. In addition, there is so little evidence for her that not every scholar agrees that she was a seeress, or that she should be included in a discussion on them. She may also have been a minor goddess, a matron.

Her name has been discussed since the 19th century based on various different forms in the manuscripts where her name appears, and several theories have been put forward, of which ''Albruna'' used to be the most accepted one. The emendation ''Albruna'' has been explained with definitions such as 'having secret knowledge of elvish spirits', 'confidante of elves' and the 'one gifted with the divine, magical powers of the elves'. However, in 2002, the interpretation ''Albruna'' was seriously questioned by a Swedish scholar, who called it a " phantom name" (), and since then more scholars have begun to doubt that the form was correct, and may be more in favour of the forms ''Aurinia'' and ''Albrinia''. Other suggestions are that it has been derived from a Germanic word *' meaning 'water', 'sand' and 'luster', or that it may be a hybrid word containing the Latin word for gold, but they have not become generally accepted. Moreover, it is pointed out that the emendation ''Albruna'' is noteworthy in its possible meanings, and that it is similar to the name of another early Germanic priestess.

Attestation

Her name appears in Tacitus' ''Germania''. In spite of the extensive treatment of the Germanic peoples in the work, only four are mentioned by name, and she is one of them beside the seeress Veleda and the kings Maroboduus and Tudrus. The context is a part of his work where he mentions the position of sanctity that women held among the Germanic tribes.

The reference to "making goddesses out of women" is considered to serve to contrast the Germanic reverence of their seeresses with the Roman custom of deifying female members of the imperial family, such as Drusilla, and Poppaea. It is a sarcastic comment on Roman customs, because according to Tacitus, the Germanics identified divine inspiration when they saw it, while the Romans made it up.

Simek comments that it is not clear from the text whether she was a seeress, like Veleda, but she may have been a matron. Orchard agrees that although she was likely a seeress, it is possible that she was one of the matrons, who are like Albruna "now little more than names" and attested in more than 500 inscriptions.

Drusus

Since there is no mention of the time when she would have lived, some scholars locate her in the time of Germanicus' campaign (AD 11–16), while others set her in the time of Drusus and Tiberius.

Much (1967) and Kienast identify her with the tall but unnamed Germanic seeress who addressed Drusus in his own language and frightened him so much with her prophecies that he did not dare cross the Elbe with his troops in 9 BC and returned after which he died. The account was mentioned by both Cassius Dio and Suetonius.

Drusus was a consul and the stepson of emperor Augustus, and he was conducting a military campaign in the territories of the Suebes. He was stopped by a barbarian woman () of superhuman size who warned him that he should not continue further with his army. However, he did not heed the warning but resumed the march until he reached the Elbe. He gave up crossing it, but erected a monument in his own honour. On his return from the Elbe he was injured and died in the summer camp before he could return to Rome.

Cassius Dio (book LV):

Suetonius:

She may indeed have lived in the Elbe region at the time of Drusus, and may very well have been the one Drusus encountered. However, as commented by Okamura, the encounter with Drusus may have been a creation by the Roman public opinion c. 9 B.C. to explain why their army could have turned back. Since they would have had some familiarity with the northern Germanic seeresses, they could have imagined that only the supernatural powers of these sorceresses could have thwarted the advance of the Roman legions. It is also possible that the encounter may have been fabricated by Drusus' friends to give an honorable explanation as to why he retreated and soon mysteriously died, and so the account may give an insight into the public Roman imagination, and not about the seeresses of the Germanic tribes.

Name debate

The emendation of her name is not certain, but is inferred from ''Aurinia'' or ''Albrinia'' in the ''mss'' (''manuscripts''), or rather the various attestations in them, i.e. ''auriniam'', ''aurimam'', ''aurinam'', ''auarimam'', ''auriniam'', ''albrinam'', ''albrimam'', ''fluriniam'', ''albriniam'' and ''albrimam''. Lukman (1949) claimed that Cassiodorus may have been influenced by the form ''aurinia'' and used it when writing his account on the ''Haliurunas'' in the ''Getica'', but the word is generally considered to be an authentic Gothic word.

Albruna

It was Wackernagel who first proposed the emendation ''Albrunam'', and ''Albruna'', and which was accepted by Müllenhoff, and de Vries. It has since then been the most commonly accepted form. The name is also attested independently for other women as ''Albrun'' in OHG, ''Ælfrun'' in OE and ''Alfrun'' in ON. Several scholars, such as Much and Kienast (1959) and Bruder (1974) consider it to have been a byname rather than a proper name, like Veleda.

The form ''Alb''- is from Proto-Germanic *' and it is of uncertain origin. It may be related to Sanskrit - 'clever, skillful' or be derived from Proto-Indo-European *''-'' 'white'. The elves were supernatural human sized beings with generally positive connotations. In Scandinavian sources, there is evidence for sacrifices to the elves in ''Austrfararvísur'', where Sighvatr Þórðarson was refused lodging in western Sweden because people were sacrificing, and also in ''Kormáks saga''. The legendary king Óláfr Geirstaðaálfr may have been called "elf" because he was "extremely beautiful and large man" and the sagas tell of the beauty and elvish blood of the people of Álfheim and their descendants. In West Germanic names, it became common to use '- and '- after Christianization. In Francia they appeared in the late 5th century (as in Albofledis, the daughter of king Childeric I), among the Lombards they appear in the 6th century with Alboin and his daughter Albsuinda, and in England they seem to have appeared after 600. These elf-names appeared the same time as names having the Greek element ' 'angel', and so ''elf'' appears to have been considered a Germanic equivalent for 'potentially benign supernatural beings'. The possible appearance of ''Albruna'' in Tacitus' work 98 AD, suggests, however, that these names may have reflected much older naming traditions.

The name element -''run'' is a rare element in Old Germanic names. Sixth century Goth scholar Jordanes reported in his ''Getica'' that the early Goths had called their seeresses ' and the word also identified in Old English, ' ('seeress' or 'witch') and in OHG as ' ('necromancy') and ' ('necromancer'), and from these forms an earlier Proto-Germanic form *' has been reconstructed, in which the first element is *', i.e. ''Hel'', the abode of the dead, and the second is *' ('mystery, secret'). In the Proto-Germanic period, before the introduction of runes, the word *' did not yet refer to letters (''rune'') but it appears to have referred to chanting, and with this meaning it was probably borrowed from Proto-Germanic into Finnish where ' means 'poem'. In the daughter languages, it had various meanings in addition to runic writing. In Gothic it had the meanings 'secret' and 'decision', in Old High German it meant 'secret' and 'whisper', in Old English it referred to 'secret' and 'secret advice', and in Old Norse it meant 'secret knowledge'.

Rudolf Much translated the name as 'having secret knowledge of elvish spirits' or 'confidante of elves'. Schweizer-Sidler and Schwyzer follow Wackernagel and explain her name as 'one gifted with the divine, magical powers (runa) of the lves, and Simek interprets ''Albruna'' as 'the trusted friend of the elves' or 'the one gifted with the secret knowledge of the elves'. Although, Orchard cautions that most manuscripts have the name ''Aurinia'', he considers ''Albruna'' to be "highly appropriate" and he agrees on the translation 'elf-confidante'. Morris translates her name as 'a sorceress with elf-like power' and compares it to Old English ''liodruna'' which meant 'sorceress with the help of songs' and ''helliruna'' 'a sorceress with the power of hell'.

Simek considers ''Albrinia'' and ''Aurinia'' to be the more likely forms but comments that the etymological interpretations of ''Albruna'' are very tempting. If the name is correct, she would indeed have been a seeress.

Aurinia

Schramm writes that in 2002, the ''Albruna'' interpretation fell apart like a "house of cards", when Lena Peterson did research on the Hersfeld manuscript, which during the Middle Ages was the only extant copy. She identified ''Aurinia'' as the only possible interpretation, and called ''Albruna'' a '' spöknamn'' 'phantom name'. Schramm argues that ''Aurinia'' was confused by an Italian copyist with the name of the town ''Albinia

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