
The Pforzen buckle is a silver belt buckle found in
Pforzen,
Ostallgäu
Ostallgäu is a ''Landkreis'' (district) in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany. It is bounded by (from the west and clockwise) the districts of Oberallgäu, Unterallgäu, Augsburg, Landsberg, Weilheim-Schongau and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and by the ...
(
Schwaben) in 1992. The
Alemannic grave in which it was found (no. 239) dates to the end of the 6th century and was presumably that of a warrior, as it also contained a spear,
spatha
The spatha was a type of straight and long sword, measuring between , with a handle length of between , in use in the territory of the Roman Empire during the 1st to 6th centuries AD. Later swords, from the 7th to 10th centuries, like the Viking ...
,
seax
A ''seax'' (; also sax, sæx, sex; invariant in plural, latinized ''sachsum'') is a small sword, fighting knife or dagger typical of the Germanic peoples of the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages, especially the Saxons. The name comes f ...
and shield. The buckle is of the Alemannic Weingarten type (Babucke 1999).
Inscription
The buckle bears a runic inscription on its front, incised after its manufacture:
:aigil andi aïlrun
rnament or bind-rune:ltahu (or elahu) gasokun
rnamental braid
Linguistic analysis of the inscription reveals that it was composed in an early
High German
The High German languages (, i.e. ''High German dialects''), or simply High German ( ) – not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called "High German" – comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Ben ...
dialect and is the oldest preserved line of
alliterative verse
In meter (poetry), prosody, alliterative verse is a form of poetry, verse that uses alliteration as the principal device to indicate the underlying Metre (poetry), metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly s ...
in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
. However, scholars have yet to reach a consensus as to its translation.
Interpretations
Wagner (1995) reads the final ornament in line 1 as a
bind rune consisting of



(angi) and connects this directly with the beginning of line 2, producing angiltahu. He translates the inscription as "Aigil and Ailrun scolded Angiltah". However, this interpretation has been criticized (Düwel 2001) on the grounds that (1) the scribe had no apparent reason to resort to a complex bind-rune for part of the inscription and (2) a ‘scolding’ does not seem to be worthy of an inscription on an object interred with the remains of a warrior.
Düwel (2001) reads the end of line 1 as a simple ornament and the beginning of line 2 as a bind-rune formed of


(el), producing the transliteration elahu, which would represent an acc. pl. of ''elah(h)o'' "elk, stag". The whole is then read as ''Áigil andi Áilrun'' ''élahu
gasókun''. The verb ''gasókun'' is understood as an early form of Old High German ''gasahhan'' "forsake, deny, repent", and translated as “Aigil and Ailrun damned the stags (i.e. the stag masquerades)”. This is seen as a reference to the
heathen tradition of dressing up in the skins of stags as part of New Year celebrations. Thus the inscription is to be understood as the record of the declaration of a couple (Aigil and Ailrun) to forsake participation in the celebration, possibly as a sign of their acceptance of
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
.
Nedoma (2004) also sees the end of line 1 as ornament, yet reads the beginning of line 2 as a bind-rune composed of


(íl), and the whole as ''Áigil andi Áilrun'' , ''Íltahu gasōkun''. This would translate as "Aigil and Ailrun fought at the Ilz river". This is seen as a reference to
Egil, the heroic archer of
Norse mythology
Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...
, who is depicted on the lid of the Auzon Runic or
Franks Casket
The Franks Casket (or the Auzon Casket) is a small Anglo-Saxon whale's bone (not "whalebone" in the sense of baleen) chest (furniture), chest from the early 8th century, now in the British Museum. The casket is densely decorated with knife-cut ...
together with his wife (presumably Ailrun) engaged in battle. The casket is thought to date to approximately the same time as the Pforzen buckle.
Looijenga (2003) argues that the inscription shows evidence of scribal error. Assuming that the verse alliterates, she interprets the

at the beginning of line 2 as indicative of an original
. Her amended reading runs ''Aigil andi Ailrūn'' , ''(a)l tahu gasokun'', which she translates as "Aigil and Ailrun vigorously fought/condemned all". She also suggests that the text could be a quotation from a lost version of the
Wieland story.
Simmons (2010) likewise takes the first element as representing al- "all, entire", but takes the second element as the dative (singular or plural) of an ablaut variant of the Old English word teoh "army, war-band", with the compound meaning "the entire war-band". Simmons notes that gasokun "fought" (preterite 3rd plural indicative) requires a dative object, which is furnished in al-tahu. He translates the buckle inscription, "Aigil and Alrun fought the entire war-band." Simmons confirms that the writing on the Pforzen buckle refers to the same Germanic character depicted on the Franks Casket (Aegil), and argues that this translation of the buckle line best accords with the figuration on the casket lid, each representing the same legend of "two against all comers".
Mees (2017) accepts that Aigil and Ailrun are a heroic pair and compares the buckle to contemporary
Burgundian plate-buckles that feature references to the Biblical story of
Daniel in the lions' den. Mees rejects Nedoma's reading of ltahu as a river name and compares the form instead to the Old Saxon name ''Aldako''. Mees sees the inscription as a
historiola
The historiola is a modern term for a kind of incantation incorporating a short mythic story that provides the paradigm for the desired magical action.Fritz Graf"Historiola" in '' Brill’s New Pauly''. Consulted online on 29 December 2020. It ...
, much like the texts found on the Burgundian Daniel buckles evidently are.
See also
*
Runic alphabet
Runes are the Letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows, runic alphabets or futharks (also, see ''#Futharks, futhark'' vs ''#Runic alphabets, runic alphabet''), native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were ...
*
Elder Futhark
The Elder Futhark (or Fuþark, ), also known as the Older Futhark, Old Futhark, or Germanic Futhark, is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a writing system used by Germanic peoples for Northwest Germanic dialects in the Migration Per ...
References
*Volker Babucke, ''Die Runenschnalle von Pforzen (Allgäu) — Aspekte der Deutung. l. Zur Herkunft und Datierung'' in: Pforzen und Bergakker: Neue Untersuchungen zu Runen inschriften, ed. Alfred Bammesberger (1999), 15–24.
*Klaus Düwel, ''Runenkunde'', Weimar (2001), 19–20. ()
*Tineke Looijenga
''Texts & Contexts of the Oldest Runic Inscriptions'' Brill (2003), 253–255. ({{ISBN, 90-04-12396-2)
*Bernard Mees, ''Egill and Ǫlrún in Early High German'' in: Futhark 8, 2017. 151–56. (http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1333698/FULLTEXT01.pdf)
*Robert Nedoma, ''Noch einmal zur Runeninschrift auf der Gürtelschnalle von Pforzen'' in: Alemannien und der Norden, ed. Naumann (2004), 340–370.
*Austin Simmons, ''The Cipherment of the Franks Casket''. (https://web.archive.org/web/20120303013402/http://homeros.godsong.org/FRANKS_CASKET.pdf)
*Norbert Wagner, ''Zu den Runeninschriften von Pforzen und Nordendorf'' in: Historische Sprachforschung 108, 1995. 104–112.
1992 archaeological discoveries
Archaeology of Alemannia
Archaeological discoveries in Germany
Belt buckles
Elder Futhark inscriptions