Template:Did you know nominations/Gevninge: Difference between revisions

The Gevninge helmet fragment

• ... that the poetical hero Beowulf may have passed through Gevninge, a Viking outpost with an associated helmet fragment (pictured)?

• Reviewed: Picway Power Plant

Created by Usernameunique (talk). Self-nominated at 16:42, 28 April 2018 (UTC).

• The article was created on 28 April, so is new enough, it has 1640 characters, so is long enough to comply with the rule, and is neutrally written and well-cited. The problems are with the hook and the image.

1. The text in the article can be taken as based in good faith on the offline sources, but the first part of the hook offered here says something not claimed by the article. What the article does say is "Gevninge may have thus served as the "port of Lejre"... This role is evocative of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, for the titular character passes through such a place..." and that is quite different.
2. There's also the problem that Beowulf is legendary and we have no evidence that he ever lived or did anything at all. We can't really treat him as if he were a historical figure.
3. The second part of the hook, about the helmet fragment, can be accepted AGF, but the image of the fragment is of very low quality, and there is no link from the Wikimedia image to a Lejre Museum page, no photographer name, and nothing to say how or why or by whom a CC licence was created for this low-grade image. "An email containing details of the permission for this file has been sent in accordance with Commons:OTRS" does not really meet the case.

This hook needs rethinking: perhaps an actual quotation from one of the sources could be added to the article and the new hook could be based on that? Or it could be cut down to just the second part, as the two parts are trying to marry up quite unrelated facts. To be used on the Main Page, the image should really be of better quality and there should be some details of how it comes to be in the public domain. Please ping me here when you have the answers. Moonraker (talk) 05:23, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the review, Moonraker. How is ALT1 instead? (Grendel isn't mentioned in the article at the moment, but can be easily added.) I think "poetical" describes Beowulf's nature adequately, though "legendary" or "fabled" would also work. The image is OTRS pending, which I understand to be allowed for the main page; there's a 66-day backlog for such emails, so it would be hard to do otherwise. The email in question was sent on April 12 by the head of communication for ROMU, who kindly offered a commercial-use-allowed license for a low-resolution photo (would want it to be non-commercial for anything higher). I think it looks nice in the small size afforded for the main page, although I agree with you that when blown up it gets fuzzy.

• ALT1: ... that the poetical warrior Beowulf passes through a place like Gevninge, a Viking outpost with an associated helmet fragment (pictured), on his way to fight the monster Grendel? --Usernameunique (talk) 05:58, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

• • All right, we are now on ALT1. On the image, the Reviewing guide says "Make sure the image is free of any copyright restrictions... Consider the quality of the image, and its clarity at 100 by 100 pixels, the size at which DYK images appear on the Main Page". The volunteer moving this on might feel we have made sure of the copyright status here, not sure. The clarity is all right at 100 by 100 pixels, but it's still a low-grade image, and it might or might not be used. Without it, the hook doesn't work well. Another reviewer has drawn my attention to Rule C6, "If the subject is a work of fiction or a fictional character, the hook must involve the real world in some way." That might help, although here the subject is Gevninge and not Beowulf. Also, I can't find Grendel mentioned in the article, and I don't think Grendel can be parachuted into the hook like that, we are supposed to be able to verify everything in the hook. Could you please quote the exact passage from Christensen (2002), p. 45, that you are relying on? It's just that I think we need to see what Christensen actually says. Could you give it in Danish and English? Moonraker (talk) 01:07, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
    • Moonraker, taking some issues in order:

1. The image is clear at 100x100 pixels; it is up to the promoter whether to include it or not.
2. I've added Grendel to the article.
3. If Rule C6 applies here (I don't think it does), it is clearly satisfied by the hook, which involves the real world in some way: Gevninge is a part of the real world. Indeed, the hook is really about how the fictional world of Beowulf intersects with contemporary reality.
4. The offline Danish sources could be accepted as good faith, but since you asked:

For en besøgende, der kom sejlende til Lejre, matte vejen mest naturligt gå via Gevninge. Her skulle man stige i land og foretage resten af turen langs ådalen til fods eller til hest. Her må man også have mødt en af Lejrekongens betroede mænd, der bevogtede vejen til Lejre. En sådan strandvagt optræder i kvadet om Bjovulf. Her modtager han helten og hans mænd, da de stiger i land på kysten på vej til danerkongen Roars kongsgård (i Lejre?):
“Ridende på sin hest drog Roars stridsmand
så ned til stranden, i næverne svingede han
kraftfuldt sit spy dog spurgte med hofpli:
‘hvem er I, som er kommet kampklædte her
skærmet af brynjer, med skibet det høje
sejlende hen over havets vej,
over bølgerne til landet? længe har jeg været
vogter af grænsen, holdt vagt ved havet
for at ingen fjende skulle anrette skade
i danernes land med ledingsflåde”

For a visitor who came sailing to Lejre, the road that made the most natural walk was through Gevninge. Here you should go ashore and take the rest of the trip along the river valley on foot or by horse. Here one must also have met one of the trusted men of Lejre's king, guarding the way to Lejre. Such a shore-guard appears in the quarters of Beowulf. Here he receives the hero and his men as they go ashore on the way to Hrothgar's kingdom (in Lejre?):
"he rode to the shore,
this horseman of Hrothgar’s, and challenged them
in formal terms, flourishing his spear:
'What kind of men are you who arrive
rigged out for combat in coats of mail,
sailing here over the sea-lanes
in your steep-hulled boat? I have been stationed
as lookout on this coast for a long time.
My job is to watch the waves for raiders,
and danger to the Danish shore.'" --Usernameunique (talk) 02:29, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

• • Usernameunique, progress. I agree with your points (1) and (3), thank you for (2), and (4) overcomes my doubts. So ALT1 is cited for everything except Grendel. If you want Grendel, there should really be a reference to cover it, I don't believe the rules allow us to parachute things into hooks (or, indeed, articles) that rely on people's general knowledge. Please would you ping me here when it's sorted? Moonraker (talk) 17:26, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
    • Thanks Moonraker. I've added a source for Grendel to the article. It's paywalled, but the relevant part reads: " The news of the inroads of Grendel reaches the ears of Beowulf, and he sets out to the court of Hrothgar. But the departure, the journey, and the landing are shrouded in a fog of hazy speech that not only makes the geographical identity of their destination a matter of question but has given modern scholars cause to write reams about the nationality of the Geats. The journey is safely accomplished and the warriors disembark. They are met by a mounted sentry, who challenges them and then points out the hall? [Same Beowulf passage as above.] This seems to indicate that the distance from the ship to the hall was not very great. The warden of the coast rides with them a little way until the hall may be seen in the distance and then lets them follow the path. If the march were long, it seems reasonable to suppose that there would be a definite reference to a somewhat more involved journey." --Usernameunique (talk) 22:27, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• Article created on 28 April, so is new enough, is long enough, and is neutrally written and well-cited, with no copyvio found. Offline sources for the ALT1 hook can be accepted AGF. On the image, we read that this small version of it has been licenced by the museum organization it belongs to, per Commons:OTRS, and it looks all right at the size of 100 x 100. The ALT1 hook is rather a complicated one, and the words "with an associated helmet fragment" might be better left out if the image is not used. Moonraker (talk) 04:28, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• As you know Usernameunique, I pulled this hook last night, mainly because I was unable to confirm the hook in a timely manner. But my issue with it at the time is that the hook says the warrior "may have passed through a place like Gevninge", but Gevninge isn't mentioned in the supplied source (Herbert), indeed Herbert doesn't mention any kind of settlement where Beowulf lands, and neither, apparently (judging by what I presume is an extract above) does the poem. So how can he have passed through "a place like Gevninge"? Also, Herbert (page 937) says that the notion that the Heorot of Beowulf was the same place as modern day Lejre is "utterly untenable", and says that Heorot was "miles away". Gatoclass (talk) 04:50, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• Gatoclass, as mentioned above, Herben is used only for verification of plot summary, i.e., for the fact that Beowulf's journey to Heorot is to fight Grendel. His own theory of where Heorot is is an outlier, and has been debunked (see p. 290 n.8: "Since the time of Chambers and Klaeber, most scholars have been willing, if pressed, to locate Heorot at Lejre even if with caution. n.8: Again, voices dissenting from this orthodoxy have occasionally been heard. In an article published in 1935 titled simply "Heorot," Stephen Herben proposed to locate the action of Beowulf at a village to the northeast of the city of Roskilde, ... but the connection that he proposes remains practically groundless."). As also noted and quoted above, Christensen 2002 is the source for linking Gevninge with Beowulf. --Usernameunique (talk) 16:19, 14 May 2018 (UTC)