[gothic-l] Re: Gaut, Gapt & the Gepids

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

Hello Ingemar,

If I remember correctly, you have done a lot of research on Germanic 
mythology etc. Can you expand a little about what the nature of this 
god Gaut is please. How does he relate to Odin/Wodan? Does he have the 
 same sort of attributes? Gaut seems to be some sort of ancestral god 
for many Germanic people. Gaut was apparently the ancestral God of the 
Goths, while the Saxons called their ancestral god/founding father 
Hatha-Gaut and Hathu-Gaut. The Thuringians worshiped a devine family 
called the Gausen as their ancestral gods. 

cheers
Dirk








--- In gothic-l at y..., Ingemar Nordgren <ingemar.nordgren at e...> wrote:
> 
> Hi Steve,
> 
> You wrote
> 
> > Hi Bertil:
> > 
> > >  On Gapt we disagree as I see the origin
> > >  of Gaut from  the meaning gjuta, goet, gjutit (pour in
> > >  English) of course related to the goet/
> > >  got/gut/geat name.
>   It was my understanding that the derivation of
> > Gapt from Gaut relies on a common accepted "scribal error" 
interpretation,> since Gapt occurs only in Jordanes while Gaut is 
widely attested.  
> 
> The difference  between Gothic p and u and Greek p is almost none. 
Hence
> a scribal error is most convincing.I am also quite agreed with 
Bertil in
> the meaning of Gaut.
> 
>  
> > >  Maybe also one has to reflect on the background of the
> > >  Goetar and Nordic mythology. The Goetar might well have
> > >  emerged already during the Bronze Age... 
> 
> They most certainly did  in form of a new emerging cult  during the
> transition from bronze to Iron Age. This cult probably spread  
around
> the Baltic and included Gauter, Gutar, Jutar and Vistula Goths. The
> Goths accordingly are a number of peoples regarding themselves to 
come
> from a common divine origin - not a single people. This I have 
treated
> in my dissertation and my last book Goterkällan (The Well-Spring of 
the
> Goths. About the Goths in the Nordic Countries and on the 
Continent).
> Still it only exists in Swedish, sorry to say, and I search 
interested
> publishers in English and/or German.
> 
> > > The question is if the gepids also if the Gepids
> > >  existed as a seperate people already in Scandza. 
> 
> No, they did not. They formed in the Vistula region around the 
Sambian
> peninsula as an multiochtonic unity originating from all of 
Scandinavia.
> This is convincingly shown by prof. Jerzy Okulicz-Kozaryn in 
Warszawa.
> 
> > A particularly good question since the notion of what constituted 
a 'separate
> > people'  no doubt depended on whether one were a third century 
Goth, a
> > classical historian, or a 21st century Gothophile.  I have always 
assumed
> > (intuitively!) that dialectical variation among eastern Germanic 
speakers was
> > slight, that Gothic (all flavors), Lombard, Burgundian, and 
Vandalic were
> > mutually intelligible in the first half of the first milennium and 
that, to
> > the East Germans themselves, ethnic differences were largely a 
question of
> > clan/tribal affinity.
> 
> I agree the laungage differences probably were small and e.g. the
> Burgundians and the Vandals most probably had a close common cultic
> background as the Goths,  having broken out from the same original
> pre-Gothic fertility league which earlier covered all Scandinavia, 
and
> Gaut may have been even their original transition god even if they 
did
> not attach his name to the tribe. This shows in their royal 
genealogies
> and in the ring-symbolism.I have treated this question latest in an
> article in English in Migracijske Teme  1-2, Zagreb 2000. 
> 
> Kind regards
> Ingemar


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