Talk:Donar's Oak

Catti

The Catti must really be spelled the Chatti. Also, the oak was not a focal point for the veneration of Thor, but of Donar. Thor is the North Germanic name for Donar, which is a West Germanic name. The Donar Oak was deep in West Germanic territory and it would have been dedicated to Donar not Thor.

Yes, the tree was and is called "Donareiche" in German, but Donar is identical with Thor and in the English-speaking world, at which the English edition of Wikipedia presumably is aimed, Thor is the commonly used name of this Germanic god.

No English-speaking person will know what to do with "Donar", but they will understand "Thor". The article should refer to Thor, with a reference to Donar in parentheses. I shall do this now.Cosal 19:52, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the original text refers to the tree as "robur Jovis", i.e. Jove's oak. It is only according to the Interpretatio romana that we understand it to have been Thor's or Donar's oak. —Aryaman (talk) 20:29, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

End paragraph on "bishopric of Büraburg"

Cosal, why did you restore that paragraph without comment? If I'm missing something, could you clarify it? As a layperson that last paragraph seemed out of place. It has nothing to do with "Thor's Oak" except by association with events that came after the tree was long gone.

Earliest source

What is the earliest source in which this event is attested? :bloodofox: (talk) 19:49, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Move to "Donar's Oak"

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Unopposed for over a week. Jenks24 (talk) 04:50, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

---

Donar Oak → Donar's Oak – Hello. I've just rewritten this article. The previous version had a variety of problems including misinformation and poor referencing. Now we have something to build on that is both transparently sourced and accurate. Anyway, in preparing this rewrite, it became apparent to me that "Donar's Oak"—Donar in the genitive—is by far the most commonly applied name for the tree. Please move the article from Donar Oak to Donar's Oak. Thanks! :bloodofox: (talk) 04:47, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

wth?

Who butchered this article? It used to actually contain an explanation of Thor's Oak, what it meant to the German people, and why Boniface cut it down. Now it's just one big quote with an intro. God, WP has become just a bunch of crap. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.223.216.169 (talk) 03:06, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

This article was rewritten from scratch using easily verifiable, academic sources. Content cut was unreferenced speculation and misinformation (see section above). The article can certainly be expanded, but complaining about how the article is no longer in its poor state is not helpful. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:47, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Fritzlar

While watching Clash of the Gods on History International, they said the location of Donar's Oak was Fritzlar. Looking up Fritzlar in the wiki, I see the article says it was indeed the location. I've added it here as a possibility, though this article averred the location was unclear. More research is needed, with an authoritative citation. LTC (Ret.) David J. Cormier (talk) 16:32, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Please do not change this page based on what you saw on a television program, particularly one as infamously unconcerned with history as History-History International. A solid academic reference is required. I have reverted the page back to its previous form, which is entirely built upon academic sources. :bloodofox: (talk) 08:45, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Read my text: The show sparked the original inquiry, and has not been cited as a source. Wikipedia's entry on Fritzlar continues to aver that it is the location. One cannot conclude thereby that Fritzlar cannot be a -possible- site, but that more research does need to be done. If you were to add to the knowledge base, that would be helpful. LTC (Ret.) David J. Cormier (talk) 19:46, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I've since removed the unreferenced material from the Fritzlar article. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:43, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I had initially thought there was more in the German article that would be useful here, but the only citations there are of Willibald and concern the Fritzlar hypothesis. So I've reintroduced Fritzlar to the article, but only so far as the sources support, and with proper context to indicate this is a matter of tradition and not of fact, and only one possibility. I've used a different citation for Willibald that is available online for verification, and also added a reliable English-language source (Catholic Encyclopedia) that supports the Geismar near Fritzlar. Even so there is no evidence to back up any claim that the tree was in Fritzlar. The church in Fritzlar may be the one built from the tree, or may be a later relocation of that chapel, although Willibald doesn't explicitly make this connection, and no reliable source makes any such assumption. Ibadibam (talk) 04:21, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

A few facts. Fritzlar did not exist until Boniface built the chapel there and called the place Frideslare = place of peace. Geismar is about a mile from the location of the cathedral in Fritzlar. Hence the tree was of course near Geismar. The location was only subsequently named Fritzlar. Germanic tree sanctuaries were typically on elevated sites, such as the cathedral hill in Fritzlar, while Geismar lies in a river plain below. (Oh, and none of the other settlements called Geismar or Hofgeismar existed at that time.) --Cosal (talk) 07:01, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Cosal, do you have a source that supports your assertions? I have tried to find something to back up the Fritzlar connection but can find nothing concrete—only tradition seems to back up the claim, no actual evidence. Ibadibam (talk) 15:54, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi. I am not sure what in my previous comment needs to be sourced? Geismar is a suburb of Fritzlar, and the map shows how close it is to the place of today's cathedral. The original Geismar, the remains of which were dug out some years ago, is a bit south of today's village and even closer to the cathedral than today's village. You can investigate the other places called Geismar and Hofgeismar in Hesse, and none of them existed at the time of Boniface. Fritzlar, of course, only came into being as people settled around the chapel resp. the subsequently built church. --Cosal (talk) 16:43, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

What you're saying sounds like the most plausible hypothesis we have, but without a published source to back it up, it's original research and not yet ready for inclusion in the encyclopedia. Here are the claims which I'm unable to verify in sources, either in Willibald or otherwise:

1. Donar's Oak stood in the area now occupied by Fritzlar, Schwalm-Eder.
2. The present-day Geismar near present-day Fritzlar is the same Gaesmere from Willibald's account.
3. The present-day Fritzlar is the same Frideslare from Willibald's account.
4. The 8th-century church established by Boniface in Fritzlar is the same one which used wood from Donar's Oak. (Note that the building of the wooden oratory and the building of the church occur in different passages of Willibald's narrative, and there is no connection made between them.)

Of course all these seem to me like they're probably true, but we have to stick to sources. I believe that more or less speaks to the concerns earlier raised by :bloodofox:. It's Wikipedia's biggest flaw and also its biggest feature. Anyway, it seems that you must have access to some sources, because you have some good knowledge of the topics involved. Perhaps you could furnish those sources for inclusion? Or even better, if you have a means of getting your research on this matter published, we could include that! Ibadibam (talk) 20:15, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Catholic Encyclopedia

The Catholic Encyclopedia, while not reliable for general history or information about other religions (as has been thoroughly discussed on the sources noticeboard), is a reliable source when it comes to documenting historical practices and common beliefs within the Catholic tradition. Its use here is to attest that there is a Catholic tradition that identifies Fritzlar and nearby Geismar as the sites associated with Donar's Oak, and I submit that the citation is properly contextualized as a tradition, not a fact. Ibadibam (talk) 19:17, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I've further contextualized the source and added it to a new section that could well be expanded. :bloodofox: (talk) 18:18, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

That was a great idea! Ibadibam (talk) 18:23, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

I am glad that we can work together. :) :bloodofox: (talk) 03:54, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

See also

I removed it because Donar's Oak was not in Saxony. It is obvious to me how an editor of this article would also be interested in those other articles. But "See also" sections should not just be whatever an editor wants to lead readers to. Srnec (talk) 02:27, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Per WP:SEEALSO, any tangential relationship can make a link suitable for inclusion in the "see also" section. That said, the two links there right now are not necessarily the best ones to include, given that the felling of the Oak is a pre-Carolingian event. What about Indiculus superstitionum et paganiarum? At least that has a purported link to Boniface. Ibadibam (talk) 18:04, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Location Revisited

What this article is currently lacking is a section on how Catholic (folk?) tradition has continued to disperse notions about this event. For example, there are (or were) apparently some objects housed in at least one church in the area that were claimed to be made from this oak tree. A section on this would be very useful. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:53, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

I should minimize my work on this article for COI/NPOV reasons, and can hardly help with Catholic traditions. But I note that Drmies had added a specific point about the Fritzlar location: "This Geismar was close to Büraburg, then a hill castle and a Frankish stronghold." cited to Schieffer 1972. Two questions occur to me here: what does Schieffer say about the fort/stronghold and its relation to the localization controversy, and is there any later German-language scholarship (or scholarship in any language after 2000) that we could usefully cite? I think we should cite recent scholars even if they double previously made points or disagree with each other, and that it's useful to include some non-English scholarship, but 1972 is already a long while ago. Drmies, do you know the state of the literature? I don't, obviously. Yngvadottir (talk) 12:44, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

• There is no controversy, Yngvadottir. There's some discussion, but not enough for Schieffer to pay much attention to in his 300+ page biography. "Um den Ort des Geschehnisses hat es mancherlei Diskussionen gegeben, weil der Name Geismar mehrfach vertreten ist, aber schon in Hinblick auf die geographischen Dimensionen des Hessengaues in bonifatianischer Zeit kommt nur das Dorf dieses Namens in nächster Nähe des fränkischen Stützpunktes Büraburg-Fritzlar in Betracht, und bei der Holzkapelle wird es sich um nichts anderes als die Peterskirche von Fritzlar handeln."

  Ah, Bloodofox, you are at it again, I see. You revert my edits claiming "OR", yet here you revert an edit back to commentary speculation based on a primary source (Robinson merely translates Willibald), reinstating unsourced speculation ("This is the case both inside and outside of academia"). I see you continued to improve upon your unwise edit by modifying it, yet the original charge of NPOV remains in the edit summary. Speaking of OR, in this edit you are also mistaken: the OR is only in the "This site is near Fritzlar..." part--so your edit effectively removed valid content with a valid source, and you could have sufficed with an inline CN tag.

  Now, I have Robinson in my office, but he's also available online. What he says, in a footnote, is "The location is uncertain. There are in Hesse several places near Geismar". It obviously does not say, as you reinstated (maybe you wrote it in the first place?), "various theories regarding where the tree may have stood have been proposed". It does not say that at all. But even if it did, the fact remains that Schieffer's, the most authoritative biography still, is unequivocal on it. So, which should we cite--a translation (by the Secretary of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences) of a hagiography with some additional notes, or the biography by Theodor Schieffer (editor for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica and later member of the board, endowed chair in Cologne, professor in Mainz), published in 1954, reprinted with commentary in 1972, reprinted again in 1980? I know you like to mess with people's edits, but this is not based on anything reliable or reasonable, and it's just a timesink. I'm not going to revert; you have done the article a disservice, but hey, that's the nature of Wikipedia. Yngvadottir, please note that it's great to say 1972 (well, 1980) is a long time ago, but it's a lot more recent than 1916.

  Finally, Bloodofox, I don't know what folk traditions you are talking about. Please point at some reliable sources. And yes, notions were dispersed: you might be interested in Hans Wilhelm Hammerbacher, Die Donar-Eiche: Geschichte eines Heiligtums. Kiel, Orion-Heimreiter, 2002 reprinted edition). FWIW, that press is run by de:Dietmar Munier, who reprints Nazi literature and other right-wing material. Drmies (talk) 16:48, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, exactly, a 1972 authoritative work probably should not be cast aside, but I thought there might be other useful things between then and now, including possibly after the 2000 work we're citing. However, there are cases where academic traditions run in parallel with quite different preferred viewpoints, and as I say I probably shouldn't delve into this myself; I'm not confident of my neutrality on this topic, although the location on a modern map is not a big concern of mine. I'm thinking we should put that statement back, but without the accompanying Latin about the building of chapels. (I still wonder for myself about the implications of the mention of the Büraburg; is the argument that the Franks took over the existing stronghold and further fortified it? Yngvadottir (talk) 17:05, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

That's not so much as an argument but its history, yes. Apparently it had been in use since the Upper Paleolithic, and the Franks fortified it in 680. Vonderau's book is not available online, as far as I can tell, nor is Fornfeist's "Mörteluntersuchungen an den Befestigungsmauern der Büraburg bei Fritzlar (Schwalm-Eder-Kreis) und ausgewählten Objekten des 4. bis 11. Jahrhunderts"--but even the title is suggestive enough to indicate continued occupation. There's more bibliography in the German Buraburg article. As for the building of chapels, whether that is relevant here is another matter, but leaving out that Boniface (according to Willibald) used the wood to build that chapel is really silly: it's been part of German history since...well, since Willibald. And it's so all over the place in scholarship that leaving it out is really a falsification of history, whether the story is true or not. Also--thank you for this edit, restoring correct information removed by Bloodofox--Hahn (de:Hahnsche Buchhandlung) is of course the "house printer" for the MGH. Drmies (talk) 17:26, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Oh, here's 1993--"nearby Fritzlar". 2008--"B. erbaute aus dem Holz der Donar-Eiche die erste Petruskirche der späteren Stadt Fritzlar". This is from 1897--and there is no controversy, no alternatives. Which is how they teach it in Germany. This is from 1978, from the Germanische Altertumskunde Online: no alternative, directly to Fritzlar. The only mention I found of any kind of discussion is in Gregor Richter's 1905 article "Boniatiana", and I'm not going to copy the text--just look at it, and the accompanying footnote, and you will see that there is no reason whatsoever to doubt that there is broad scholarly consensus in 1906 already. (Richter, BTW, knew what he was talking about; he was co-editor of the 1905 book published on the occasion of the 1150th anniversary of the martyrdom.) Drmies (talk) 17:40, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. I got curious enough to noodle around on de.wikipedia and found at their version of Johanneskirchenkopf that someone has planted a new Donar's Oak next to the chapel ruins there. It seems there is wrangling about exactly which church goes back to Boniface's chapel and some disagreement about where in the Fritzlar region the oak stood, but that still leaves the 2000 statement cited in our article as an outlier in doubting that it was Fritzlar. Bloodofox, can you track it down and check it, and are there any other sources casting doubt on the localization? (As I say, scholarship sometimes proceeds on parallel tracks; this would not be the first time I've found one lot of scholars averring that X is the case while another lot are equally adamant that nobody could possibly hold any position but Y. The historicity of early Swedish and Norwegian kings comes to mind. But it's also possibly a misunderstanding, for example of the notion that the oak stood on the Domplatz in Fritzlar, mentioned in the German article on the village as now discredited. And I see we have a zero missing in a publication date. But that should be as far as I go, I can't be neutral on this topic; the chapel information does need adding but not by me, my apologies to both/all. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:33, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

I'll look at Noble in the next few days. Y, I don't see how you have a COI that prevents you from making those sensible edits. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 20:05, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

First of all, we stick to the sources. We don't simply up and decide one is right and one is wrong when they're both reliable, as Drmies's edits did. His edits simply went with the Catholic Encyclopedia and everything else there was removed, fully cited as it was. Second, the 2000 source is from an accompanying intro by a historian—that is made quite explicit—not the translator. As for Robinson, he quite explicitly states "The location is uncertain. There are in Hesse several places called Geismar". I've adjusted the article accordingly.

De.Wikipedia's Germanic philology articles are usually terrible and are certainly not models to work from. German scholarship on these topics have their own quirks that Scandinavian and Anglophonic scholarship don't suffer from, causing further disconnect. I'll see what else I can dig up about the location but I recall seeing doubt cast upon where this semi-legendary event (possibly entirely legendary event) supposedly occurred elsewhere, maybe in Simek. I'll see what I can find. In the mean time, it's not an improvement for this article to simple parrot Catholic folk belief, assume it's correct, and call it a day, but we can and certainly should add what other scholars have said to further fill the section out.

As for Catholic folk belief, the original narrative contains a few notable motifs and by and large follows a template for the Christianization process in Western Europe. Then there's an amount of folklore surrounding Boniface and the tree, with for example a narrative floating around explaining the event as the origin of the Christmas tree (possibly restricted to Catholic circles, I'd have to check). There's also no doubt extant local folk tradition in today's Geismar ("this was made of the wood!", etc.) which possibly stems from later interpretations of the text rather than a consistent tradition. There's no getting around complex strains of folklore regarding this sort of thing. Of course all of this should also be in the article. :bloodofox: (talk) 00:43, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Your claims are off-base. I didn't "parrot Catholic belief" and nothing I added was cited to the Catholic encyclopedia. You can "recall seeing doubt" however much you like, but above I cited a half dozen (at least) reliable and acceptable sources. The Christmas tree origin can well be included but only as a rather silly story which is so silly that its origins are hard to trace. I don't know why you bring up the German wiki--I guess it's just a red herring, though perhaps you saw mention of the German Buraburg article, which has an impressive list of sources; I assume you have access to an academic library and will be getting those articles soon. If you don't it will be difficult for us to discuss these matters.

I think you just don't understand sourcing at all--but tell you what, before we go on, please explain what you think is wrong with Schieffer's biography. After all, you removed it--and it was the best source in the lot. Now, if you don't mind, I am going to remove some original research from the article. Drmies (talk) 03:07, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

First, that "silly story" is folk belief, of which there's a significant amount surrounding this event, and is certainly worth of study in its own right. Next, regarding sourcing, I'll just refer you to the many articles I've written on Wikipedia. Maybe you'll learn a thing or two about subjects relating to this one. Otherwise, I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to but I suspect it had something to do with a reversion and if it had to do with correcting a reference, it was no doubt unintentional. If that's the case, I apologize for reverting more than your prose alterations.

Re:@Yngvadottir:: Digging around, there are a few interesting things to comment on so far. First, apparently the root of the issue, mapping out historic toponyms that would match with the attestation’s “Gaesmere” in today’s Hesse is pretty interesting and I see why there are questions (for example), a situation perhaps prompting some scholars to just refer to it as “Gaesmere” (cf. Hollis, 1992) and others to express confusion about its identification with modern Geismar (cf. Hooke, 2013). Next, apparently there’s a retelling of this incident in Saxo, which I recall reading about sometime in the past, actually. Pretty interesting and should be in the article as well. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:31, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Some scholars refer to it as "Gaesmere" because that's what Willibald has. That we find different spellings is to be expected. So Hollis spelling it that way does not mean there is a dispute; indeed, she says nothing of the kind. You may have written some articles on Wikipedia, but so have I, and I've written a bit on Boniface as well. I added a half dozen sources which don't even pose the question of an alternative, because no one seriously considers an alternative. The phrasing is somewhat tortuous, because of you: if it weren't for your ill-founded disruption, the article would simply say "scholarly consensus is Geismar by Fritzlar", because that is what all the sources say. That Hooke would "express confusion about its identification" is simply your unwarranted interpretation of a question mark about the spelling; Hooke's note is not to an extensive body of scholarship on geography and history but simply to Soldiers of Christ: Saints and Saints' Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages by Noble and Head, an anthology of translated vitae. Really, the question is why you want there to be confusion about the place. There is no confusion, at least not according to scholarship. Drmies (talk) 03:50, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

From what you've written there, I'm guessing your background isn't in Germanic linguistics (or historical linguistics in general). And also not folkloristics. But anyway, I can see that you're pretty keen on this particular identification, and you can go ahead and keep typing up hits you find because it does add to the article. However, there's clearly more to the story here and I'm keen to get the whole picture down. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:00, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, you guessed wrong. Also, I am not "keen" on the identification: I couldn't care less where it was, but historical accuracy is important. We are an encyclopedia, and as it happens the sources are there to make the identification. I'm not sure you understand what the proximity to Buraburg means, but that's for another day.

You added one nineteenth-century scholar who made trips to Germany until 1881. Gummere was an important man, no doubt, and his Beowulf is on my shelf. But a historian he was not. Folklore is great, of course, but you should consider it significant that no modern historians make that same identification.

On that note of folklore: the legend of the Christmas tree is exciting but very fringy. I have spent a few months trying to track that down, but all one finds is a website here and there. If indeed this was a folk tale, or a well-known folk tale, one should find it written up and published--one does not. Please see our article on Christmas tree, note 12--I do believe I wrote that note. None of those sources are reliable (I actually own the coloring book, but have yet to color it in), of course, and while it is likely that the authors didn't make it up but kept some sort of oral tradition alive, that tradition is, without further evidence, marginal at best. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 04:25, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Then you know how complex toponymy can be. That said, I'm not here to give my opinion about the location of the purported event (nor am I interested in pushing any of my original research here). And of course philologists and folklorists were historians by default during Gummere's time. But what I'm seeing in these secondary sources is some scholars who aren't committing to the location or who are identifying other potential locations, implying there's either a common concern or dialogue out there to find. Of course, a proper study of toponyms in Hesse, including their earliest attested forms would be handy, but I'm not seeing that so far. That said, Carole Cusack's recent The Sacred Tree has a fair amount to say about the narrative in general but it's mostly behind a paywall. I'll take a look at it one of these weekdays. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:41, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Bloodofox, I'm not seeing the evidence of disagreement that you're seeing. German Wikipedia makes reference to (past) controversy over which church, which involves some claiming (in the past) Fritzlar itself. (This is strangely echoing Uppsala in many ways. My folklorist's nose wonders whether one legend influenced the other.) Is it possible that that level of disagreement is what some writers are actually on about? I am really really reluctant to edit the article again. But the church should be mentioned in the prose, not just in the huge-assed Latin quote and translation, particularly since it's part of the theories on localization. Also, could one of you please get that Cusack book and write the still missing Trees in Germanic paganism? My interlibrary loan consortium doesn't give me access to it and it's getting harder to break into the top-tier academic libraries in this area. Yngvadottir (talk) 12:56, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, so far we've got a few references, one from 2000, stating that the Geismar in question is unclear. This is in itself enough to not simply say "it was definitely this Geismar". If it weren't for these uncertain voices, this article would be a lot easier to write but, of course, this isn't a unique situation and stuff like this happens, particularly when there's a legendary element. And, of course, how the community views the situation should be treated, including the church. Sure, I can write trees in Germanic paganism as time permits soon. I've written most of the articles that would fit the bill and Dowden seems like a fine resource to use in combination with Cusack. :bloodofox: (talk) 13:34, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Thomas Noble is a great scholar who has done great things for the study of hagiography. Here, he is alone in the wilderness. If the debate doesn't get in the way I'll add unequivocal identifications by Lutz von Padberg and James Palmer. I think John-Henry Clay says the same thing too. In other words, that one comment, without a footnote or a reference, should be taken with a grain of salt, esp. since he also says in the same introduction that Schieffer's 1954 study is still the best book on Boniface--and we know what Schieffer says. Drmies (talk) 00:32, 27 September 2016 (UTC)