The Voynich Ninja

It is a fever Charm

I would read it as follows:

[Initial: Item?] schreib uf drey oblaten auf die ain 
O febrem cum laude canendam + an die ander 
O languorem sanitati et gaudio + a schreib an 
die dritten + max + pax + fax + das sol 
der sieche nütze drey morgen nüchter 
mag er d(er) oblaten nicht gehaben so nim ein rindelein
pret als vor geschriben stet

[Item?] Write upon three wafers. On the first 
O febrem cum laude canendam + On the second
O languorem sanitati et gaudio + Write on 
the third: + max + pax + fax +. 
The sick person shall take this on three mornings, On an empty stomach
If he cannot obtain the wafers, then take a small rind of bread, as is written above."

febrem Fever
cum with
laude Praise
canendam singing (Participle)
languorem Illness
sanitati health
et and
gaudio of joy

Excellent!
I would agree with your reading. I gave up before I could identify 'nüchter' and 'pret'.

p.473 contains another charm instruction than combines a charm to be spoken into the patient's right ear, so nim and gaissin milch
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p.447 contains large line-end 'O's
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So these charm instructions appear to follow the formula:
Take object X
Apply charm Y
Administer to patient by method Z
Often with an alternative should it (unsurprisingly) fail.

Obviously 116v does not contain enough words for a full instruction and mostly consists of the charm itself. If it really is a connected instruction, it only contains key words. Which makes it weird the scribe would include 'so nim'

Note also how often separate entries are crammed together on one page. My impression of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is that it took fragments that may well have been on the same page, and copied them there, without the three of them necessarily all belonging together.

Some thoughts:

• The more crosses in between individual words, the more likely you are dealing with pseudo-Latin formulae. Complete phrases without in-between crosses are more likely to be meaningful, often instructional.
  
• It is almost certain that the scribe had access to a medicinal compendium that contained German.
  
• Either the scribe was not fluent in German, or he was writing without care.
  
• Whatever process gave rise to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. involved two Voynichese words.
  

The latter point is probably the most interesting. Did the scribe see things in his source manuscript (for f116v) that looked like Voynichese? Was he actively converting parts of the source MS to Voynichese? Or is the Voynichese an idle insertion?

I believe that the scribe of 116v wanted to give the impression that he could read the text in the VMS by inserting “Voynich words.” He would have, so to speak, put his knowledge of Voynichese into practice. However, I don’t believe he was actually able to read the text; at best, the inserted words represent an attempt. Presumably, though, he simply couldn’t bring himself to accept that he couldn’t read anything.

If the rest of the text on 116v could be read without any problems (which the scribe may have assumed), then the Voynich words might possibly be reconstructed from the context. That doesn’t necessarily mean the words are translated correctly; they could still simply be a product of the imagination.

(26-08-2026, 01:25 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Note also how often separate entries are crammed together on one page. My impression of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is that it took fragments that may well have been on the same page, and copied them there, without the three of them necessarily all belonging together.

Some thoughts:

• The more crosses in between individual words, the more likely you are dealing with pseudo-Latin formulae. Complete phrases without in-between crosses are more likely to be meaningful, often instructional.
  
• It is almost certain that the scribe had access to a medicinal compendium that contained German.
  
• Either the scribe was not fluent in German, or he was writing without care.
  
• Whatever process gave rise to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. involved two Voynichese words.
  

The latter point is probably the most interesting. Did the scribe see things in his source manuscript (for f116v) that looked like Voynichese? Was he actively converting parts of the source MS to Voynichese? Or is the Voynichese an idle insertion?

My brain wants to toy with it this way:

(1) If the sentence means something, and
(2) If so nim means to take, and 
(3) If ga[ſ/f]mich is some substance (goat's milk, whatever), 
(4) Then, 
(a) What would the Voychinese words preceding it likely be doing, in terms of structure? (a heading, a preparation, maybe a condition, etc.), and
(b) Why did the scribe writing this fragment of instructions start it off with, structurally at least, what seems to be a Voychinese pair of symbols, and
© How to explore this and what might it show...

(26-08-2026, 11:42 AM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.p.473 contains another charm instruction than combines a charm to be spoken into the patient's right ear, so nim and gaissin milch

Thank u Bernd, here ist an example of "ez" = "es" too, that looks like an "g". The word ist ezig = essig = vinegar

[attachment=17392]

So your source has a reference for both:

gaissin milch
and

gaf = ez af mich (it of me)

[attachment=17395]

Although, to be honest, the ‘g’ in that word "ezig" has exactly the same stroke to the right as the ‘g’ in ‘gaf’... hmmmm 

to my mind, the ‘s’ in ‘gaf’ is actually an ‘f’; you can tell this because the stroke has been drawn again from bottom to top.

I'd still rather say 116v features a 'g' instead of 'ez'. As you noted, the 'g' in 'eszig' resembles the VM text much better than the 'ez', the horizontal stroke continuing to the right of the 'g' is not found in 'ez'. At least I've never seen one with such a stroke. However, with the weird VM marginalia letters, who can tell?

(26-08-2026, 01:25 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Note also how often separate entries are crammed together on one page. My impression of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is that it took fragments that may well have been on the same page, and copied them there, without the three of them necessarily all belonging together.

Yes, that may very well be the case, and it does sound familiar (see below).

(26-08-2026, 01:25 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is almost certain that the scribe had access to a medicinal compendium that contained German.

I agree. The author must have used or known of such books containing German charm instructions. I'd list that as another source of the VM.
However, if it really is a meaningful charm instruction is another matter. A theme across the VM is that a lot of things resemble certain topics found in other works. But it is unclear whether the author used them in the same context, or even understood what he copied.

I have no explanation of the Voynichese words in marginalia but again I'd like to point out that all 3 marginalia contain the same elements:
.) Barely decipherable German or Latin words
.) Voynichese 'words' at the beginning or end
.) Imagery that matches the bifolio or quire style (except 116v which only has stars)

So for whatever reason Voynichese words ended up in 116v, it wasn't an isolated incident but apparently part of the way marginalia were designed.

Can someone tell me what the line-end 'O's on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are?

[attachment=17398]

[attachment=17397]

@ Bernd: 

Yeah, I proved myself wrong; I admit it ... Too bad. 

but gais milch = two letter missing... That's not plausible.

(26-08-2026, 04:30 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.but gais milch = two letter missing... That's not plausible.

Indeed.
'Gas' for goat is not the problem, I'm sure you know. Very common pronunciation even nowadays. But 'mich' for milk is unattested. So yeah, no idea what this is supposed to mean. It's not like that's the only weird words. The real question is - why are nearly all words that weird?