Art Historians, German Translators, Frankish Kings, and Scrooge McDuck

A text message conversation with Brandi this morning about Disney characters led me down my second rabbit hole of the week. This one is about Frankish kings in the 7th century. The question that prompted this:

"Who is your favorite Disney character?"

The immediate answer of "Dagobert" came from my father.

?

He said that Dagobert was the rich uncle of Donald Duck – the one who would dive into a pile of gold coins while being a very stingy guy on the side. I am admittedly a bit ignorant about the side stories of Disney characters, but I knew who he was talking about.


[source]

Dagobert is what Scrooge McDuck was called in Germany.

I started Googling. The first result on my phone was for Dagobert I - the king of Austrasia (623–634), king of all the Franks (629–634), and king of Neustria and Burgundy (629–639).

??

Okay, too weird. Was there a connection? Unsure. Digging into this one took a really long time. Two hours. I read about Dagoberts I, II, and III, and none of them really gave any hints as to why this name was given to Scrooge in Germany. Well, Dagobert I took me down a side-rabbit-hole that ended up being a clue, but more on this later.

I also read about Dagobert of Pisa and Erich Dagobert von Drygalski.* I read about a famous German extortionist named Arno Funke.** I read the near-eleven-page Scrooge McDuck Wikipedia article.***

Still nothing. I searched on Metafilter, more Wikipedia, and then just started Googling all over the place. My father told me that his brother might know the answer. It was dinnertime in Germany at that moment, so I waited on that one. He also said that perhaps he was just called Dagobert Duck because it sounded good, and because it allowed for him to have an alliterative DD emblem all over the place. I supposed that was possible.

THEN, my final resort – which I was just turning to so I wouldn't feel like I had abandoned an unsolved mystery – got me close enough to feeling I had the answer. I went to the German Wikipedia page for Dagobert Duck and winced as I hit the Translate button (I'm still used to the horrors of Babelfish days). It introduced me to the person who gave Scrooge his German name – German Walt Disney translator Erika Fuchs.


[source]

Fuchs was a prolific Disney translator in Germany, and stuck all kinds of wordplay and hidden meaning into the stories. She seemed to have a ton of fun with it, and once said, "You can't be educated enough to translate comic books." Apparently some phrases have stayed in pop culture throughout time and there is even a term - Erikativ - for popular phrases she coined (no Scrooge pun intended). In 2001, she got a prestigious literature prize "for her work on Duckburg." I am SO DELIGHTED that someone became successful and famous for translating Duckburg stories for most of her career. She was an honorary member of – ready? - D.O.N.A.L.D. This stands for "Deutsche Organisation nichtkommerzieller Anhänger des lauteren Donaldismus" or the "German Organization of Non-commercial Devotees of the true Donaldism". HA! This is the best thing I've heard in weeks.

Anyway. It was Erika Fuchs who gave Scrooge the name Dagobert in her Duckburg translations, named after those Frankish Kings Dagobert I, II, and III. So my initial impulse WAS the right one, but I needed that Translator button (ha, das ironie).

And you know why this makes sense? I will tell you. First, let's go back to the Dagobert I clue I mentioned earlier.


[source]

That is a cathedral close to Paris called Saint Denis. Dagobert I founded this cathedral in Saint Denis's name, and is now buried there. Who is Saint Denis? A patron Saint of France. How was he martyred? By beheading.


[source]

That is a statue of Saint Denis. Apparently after he was beheaded, he walked six miles, preaching the word of God while holding his own head (yes). And apparently saints were beheaded happened enough that there is a term for statues depicting saints holding their own heads – cephalophores. Good grief. Anyway, at Saint Denis's burial place was erected a shrine, and this is where Dagobert I founded the Abbey of Saint Denis (a Benedictine monastery). This is now the cathedral of Saint Denis. The shrine was made by a goldsmith named Eligius.

Above all, Eligius fabricated a mausoleum for the holy martyr Denis in the city of Paris with a wonderful marble ciborium over it marvelously decorated with gold and gems. He composed a crest [at the top of a tomb] and a magnificent frontal and surrounded the throne of the altar with golden axes in a circle. He placed golden apples there, round and jeweled. He made a pulpit and a gate of silver and a roof for the throne of the altar on silver axes. He made a covering in the place before the tomb and fabricated an outside altar at the feet of the holy martyr. So much industry did he lavish there, at the king's request, and poured out so much that scarcely a single ornament was left in Gaul and it is the greatest wonder of all to this very day. [source]

So. A very lavish shrine, with gold and jewels everywhere. And these, unrelated to Saint Denis but very related to Dagobert I: gold Dagobert coins.


[source]


[source] and [source]

Know why this is interesting to me? Because I am an Art History nut.

Know who else was an Art History nut? Erika Fuchs. In the 1930s (about 10-15 years before Scrooge was invented and entered into German pop culture), Erika Fuchs studied Art History in university. And I'm fairly certain that this stuff is why she named this character after Dagobert I.



So cool. And now I'm exhausted. Hooray! I guess it's still a theory, but hopefully pretty close. And as I tweeted earlier:



* Erich Dagobert von Drygalski was a really cool geographer and took the first Antarctic aerial photo from a balloon, ever.
** Arno Funke used to place bombs all over Germany to get ransom money. He always strategically placed the bombs to minimize people getting hurt – he was mostly seen as a prankster who kept trying to get rich. He gave himself the pseudonym Dagobert after Scrooge McDuck, because he had visions of himself one day swimming in gold coins.
*** You have to read this thing. It is more thorough an historical account than some articles I have read about real people. It contains a personal history; educational history; professional history; psychological analysis; code of values and moral conduct; log of traveled countries and languages spoken; analyses on his relationship with Donald and Huey, Dewey and Louie; and short list of wealthy duck rivals in Duckburg. I can't believe how extensive this article is. It blew my mind.

Thanks to Brandi and my father for making this afternoon amusingly strange ^^

France France France. Para One.

I don't know what's going on with France. I really don't. Everything awesome is coming out of there lately. Ever since before I wrote about remix culture and how this particular brand of it has exploded seemingly out of nowhere, more and more and more has come up and it's all been from France (okay, with the exception of Simian Mobile Disco, among a few others). Justice, Uffie (well okay, all of Ed Banger Records), The Teenagers (who don't completely fall under this, but their remixes definitely do), and Para One, whom I just discovered today (yeah yeah yeah, sometimes things fly completely over my head). I know there's more. Help me out, guys.

Para One's stuff is really, really catchy. I just read about him in Earplug and found out that he's recently made the switch (this seems to be a trend in Paris right now) from hip hop to club music. The thing is, this isn't your typical club music that you would find in trendy places here in New York, all the girls wearing backless tops. This is different. Like I said in my reflections on the Dafterparty, these guys have a good time. They don't seem to care about who's looking. There is no pretension. Unlike the "I don't smile" attitudes of these other clubbers (or NY hipster socialites), this is what Para One does:


(which reminds me a lot of Teddybears, who played last night at Hiro):


The animal head thing - whether it's a trend or coincidence - is proof of this. It has to be. I mean, look at what Para One does to a dance floor. Nobody standing around and posing for the camera. They don't even think of it, they're too busy dancing their faces off and even sometimes injuring themselves doing so.




Sometimes when I'm really excited about something, I have problems articulating myself. But I guess what it is here is simple: they just want to make people smile and move. That's it. The energy clearly comes through in it all. When my roommate asked me what kind of music I was about to dance to last night, I shrugged and said "neon."

EDIT | I just realized the sheer idiocy it takes to rave about dance music that makes you unable to sit still, but only offer text and non moving visuals. Sorry guys. Here is Para One's video for dundun-dun. It looks like something Vice might shoot - a bunch of hot girls having a pillow fight, feathers blowing everywhere. Somehow milk got brought into the picture too.

Now, dance.