[gothic-l] Re: The Letter H

[Troels Brandt]

Hi Keth

I have searched for the spelling of Herul in the sources earlier than
Jordanes and Procopius. As I am not in possession of all the texts, I
have used the article "Who were the Eruli" by Alvar Ellegaard
(Scandia 1987) and earlier mails from Andreas Schwarcz (a.e. MSG
3400), who has also referred us to Ellegaard. I do not admire
Ellegaards conclusions (or provocations) but his way to find and
quote the sources is very reliable.

I have never seen Dexippos spelling the Heruls, and as far as I can
see this is not a part of the existing fragments. His text about the
Agaean attacks in the 3rd century is referred by Scriptores Historia
Augustae (400AD) calling them Goths, Zosimos (500AD) calling them
Scytians and the later Synkellos and Zonoras versions calling them
Heluri/Heruli. This does not tell us much, and Andreas uses both
versions with E and He in his mail.

If the Helos etymology by Jordanes goes back to Dexippos he probably
called the people Helouroi, but we do not know, as Jordanes did not
refer to him in this connection - he referred to the Roman Ablasius.

The conclusion is probably, that we do not know, if the ancient Greek
version was with H or not, but we know that Procopius did not use H.

Looking at the old Roman sources, the Heruls were first mentioned in
Mamertinus' panegyric on Maximinian in the form "Erulique". This
source referred to the Western Heruls in 289. Later in the 4th
century Ammianus Marcellinus wrote first Aerulos, then Erulorum and
at last Heruli - probably also referring to Western Heruls together
with Bataves. Later Roman writers used about both groups H, but at
that time H was silent.

If my sources are correct my conclusion must be, that we do not know
the original form at the Black Sea (maybe the reason is a faint H
confusing the writers), but the contemporary West Germanic form was
without H. Later Procopius, who knew the Heruls, wrote without H in
Greek while the Roman writers used the silent H, which does not tell
us anything (confirmed by Mathaius).

As my purpose joining this discussion was to find a possible
connection to Earl/Jarl/Erilar which according to other listmembers
derive from the Protogermanic form *erlas, and as the word Erilar is
dated earlier than the arrival of royal family of the Eastern Heruls
in Scandinavia, I will suggest that the form of Herul which is
relevant to compare with is the original form used about the Western
Heruls in Northwestern Europe - "Erul" - without H.

Using this single argument I do not claim that Erilar means Herul,
but the H does not appear to be a problem.

Troels


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