[gothic-l] Re: Reidgotaland

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

--- In gothic-l at y..., keth at o... wrote:
> Hello Anders and Troels !
> You wrote:
> >Gotland/Reidgotaland is ----
> >> It seem like it is where Varva is or on the way there  and i 
think
> >it
> >> is Varva in Ukraine since it is east of Poland
> >
> >> However, I see in the icelandic text that it is called Vorva ( 
with
> >a
> >> nasal o?), but maybe it makes little difference.
> 
> If it is a hooked "o", then "Varva" is just fine, because
> the second "v" may have been like an "u" which would
> produce the "u-umlauted a" or "hooked-o".
> 
> Did you say that "Varva" was a real place in Ukraine?
> Reading the Ynglingasaga makes me a bit sceptical, though, because
> in the story about "Dag" there, the etext starts out buy saying
> "Reidgotaland", but a few lines further down it calls the land
> simply "Gotland".
> 
> 
> 
> >>
> >> Regards
> >> Anders
> >
> >Fine - then I only have to agree with you, that this is a name they
> >used sometimes in the second part of the first millenium and up to
> >1200. We can't be sure that the meaning of the name originally
> >was "hreid"="nest", as this might be a misunderstanding connected 
to
> >something they believed at a later stage - just like both of you
> >proposed last night.
> >
> >But how do you then interprete the remark at the Roekstone about 
some
> >men, who 9 generations ago died among the Hreidgoths? Did these men
> >go to Vistula to fight against the Hreidgoths or took this battle
> >place in Scandinavia? Or did I misunderstand the translation in
> >Keth's letter some days ago, when Keth also mentioned Heruls?
> 
> The "heruls" was just something I mentioned to approximate the time
> at which the battle took place. If the reading of the Rök text
> is correct here, then I do not think the persons who comissioned
> the stone would have mentioned a battle 9 generations ago, if they
> themselves did not believe there was such a battle.
> 
> Around 500 A.D. when the Goths were defeated and the Langobards
> took over Italy, there must have been a lot of commotion in
> continental Europe. There must also have been many battles. Some
> that we know about, and others that we perhaps do not know about.
> In the back of my mind is the Bråvalla battle. But I don't know
> enough about it, and it might therefore easily be nothing but a
> somewhat poor guess. Nevertheless, until I hear the good arguments,
> I'd like to keep it in mind. Without much hope of resolution
> really, because I believe these questions have been much researched
> earlier. But it is always nice to be able to form ones own opinions
> too.
> 
> I'd also like to keep up my proposal that "Hreið" is a distorted
> form of "Greut". (Earlier I proposed "Reudingi" from Tacitus' book.
> But that has no initial "h" and I therefore think that one is out.)
> But regarding "Greut" I should still like to hear the good counter
> arguments. My proposal is that the distortion partly occurred when
> the name was transferred between different ethnic groups, for
> example in oral communication of histories and legends.



Hi Keths,

I don't have any counter-arguments to your suggestion that Hreid is 
derived from Greut-, but as I said in an earlier message, I find it 
strange though that Hreid- and Reid- seems to be a common and frequent 
component of Germanic place names, like in Hreidensis, Reidensis 
viccus, Hreidland, Reideland (all Lower Saxony), yet a rather awkward 
derivation from Greut- and others is sought. Is it inconceivable, that 
this Hreid-, Reid-, is simply derived from either Germanic 'rede, reid 
, riet etc. ' for river or from 'reet, etc.' from a certain type of 
marshland grass used for roofing?

cheers,

Dirk




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