Template:Did you know nominations/Hülfensberg

Hülfensberg, Stuffo

 * ... that Saint Boniface chased away a Germanic god named Stuffo from the Hülfensberg in Thuringia, Germany?
 * Reviewed: I commented on Template:Did you know nominations/Encoding specificity principle and Template:Did you know nominations/Not Afraid

Created/expanded by Drmies (talk). Self nom at 14:59, 8 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Symbol question.svg onStuffo:


 * Length and date of creation: Article meets the minimum length (I count 2,373 characters) and was created out of a redirect on Nov 4 and nominated on Nov 8, within the 5 days. However, there was a previously existing article about a website at Stuffo before it became a redirect. I'm willing to call that a valid new article creation, but point it out here in case the prevailing interpretation of the rules makes this a problem.


 * Coherence, content coverage, neutrality, citations: Article is reasonably clear, contains adequate citations, has relevant quotes that clarify matters, and has translations of them. However, neither Wolf nor Löffler is available to me online, and I see a possible content problem. The German for "to drink heavily" is not sufen but saufen, and I do not get hits on "Stuffo" and "sufen". It is possible that Google is refusing to show me old scholarship relating "Stuffo" to an Old High German or Middle High German sûfen. However, the German article makes a different claim: that old scholars related "Stuffo" to a word Stuvo or Stauf that referred to a kind of drinking vessel. That is more plausible, because those forms have the t, and searching on that I do get hits, for example this one that talks about a cup appearing in a coat of arms. I'd like to have this checked in Löffler and/or Wolf and if it is a verb, please add a quote, because even reprints of Löffler are not Google-viewable. Otherwise, a neutral representation of older scholarship vs. later scholarship, giving valid props to Wolf, who is cited all over the place as having decisively dismissed Stuffo - for example here, along with points about Boniface and the area in support of the dismissal (although I note with some sadness that Gardenstone is still listing Stuffo/Stuvo as a Germanic deity).


 * Hook: I haven't looked at Hülfensberg but given the content of Stuffo, that hook falls into the category of fiction presented as truth. I propose for discussion:


 * ALT1 ... that the Hülfensberg in Thuringia is said to be where Saint Boniface vanquished a Germanic god named Stuffo, who probably did not exist? Yngvadottir (talk) 17:51, 20 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Yngvadottir, thank you for your extensive review and comments. One at a time.
 * Sufen is old high/middle German (not modern German)--I don't know if you can see this, or maybe this. If you have access to JEGP, vol. 37, p. 568, you should see it there as well. The connection is drawn in Loffler and, I presume, in a few other of the sources found here, but I would not be surprised if a lot of scholarship would have "saufen" instead of "sufen". Anyway, I added two dictionary entries (just my luck that one of them has to be Lulu (though it's correct), but the older one is legitimate.
 * As for the hook--I thought I had a "supposed" in there: ...that supposedly Saint Boniface... That takes care of the fiction part in an economical manner.
 * The size of the article--it was a longer article back in 2006, when it contained nothing but some OR on a non-notable website. No one should have a problem with this.
 * Thanks, I hope this answers your questions. Drmies (talk) 19:41, 20 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, Middle High German sûfen, that's what I'd guessed. I still think the drinking vessel variant usefully can be added, and I still can't see Löffler at all, so assuming good faith about his exact statement. I agree with you that the prior article can be ignored, but raised the issue to dot the i's and cross the t's. That leaves the hook, which is ultimately a matter for after the other article gets reviewed . . . but I think it should be

"ALT2... that Saint Boniface chased away a supposed Germanic god named Stuffo from the Hülfensberg in Thuringia, Germany?"
 * rather than "supposedly chased away," because what the sources agree is spurious is Stuffo's divinity/existence.
 * Well, they also don't really agree that he was there in the first place...it's the German equivalent of George Washington Slept Here, and if Stuffo wasn't there B couldn't have chased away etc. But ALT2 is fine with me. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 23:06, 20 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Pictogram voting keep.svg for Stuffo with strong preference for a hook of ALT1 or ALT2 type, to fit that article. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:29, 20 November 2011 (UTC)