Gautelfr[gothic-l]The old Border between Norway and Sweden.

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Esteemed Members !

As you have probably
seen on the map, the
old Gautelfr runs
into "Viken" some
200 km South of Oslo.

It is also inter-
esting to observe
that the word "Vik-
ing" is connected
to the name "Viken"
which was the old
name of the Oslo-
fjord. Thus, one
may say that the
first Vikings may
have come from
"Viken".

The old "Gaut"
river, or Gaut-
elfr, as it was
called in Old
Norse sources,
used to define
the border be-
tween the old
Ranrike and
Götaland.

The people from
Ranriki, that is
the region North
of the Gautelfr
mouth, were call-
ed "Renir" in 
Old Norse sour-
ces; while the
people who liv-
ed South of the
Gautelfr mouth
wree called "Gaut-
ar". Thus the
Gautelfr formed
the border be-
tween Renir and
Gautar. The 
latter was
the name of the
inhabitants of
Gautland in the
viking age.

In modern Swe-
dish the name
Gautar has been
changed into
"Götar" due to
the normal 
sound changes
that the lan-
guage has been
subjected to
in the course
of the centur-
ies. Likewise,
the old name
of the land,
Gautland, has
become changed
into Götaland,
which you can
still find on
every map of
South Sweden.

Some time in
the Middle
Ages the
name Ranriki
was changed
to Båhuslen
which belong-
ed to the 
Danish/Nor-
wegian crown 
until 1658,
at which
time it beca-
me Swedish,
probably due
to the fail-
ure of the 
Danish crown
to direct
enough re-
sources in-
to the task
of defend-
ing its ter-
ritory.

Interesting
it also is
to compare
with ancient
Italian writ-
ten sources,
which are 
among the
oldest sour-
ces that
give a sum-
mary descrip-
tion of these
then remote
areas from
the center
of events,
which was
Rome.

In partic-
ular the
author Jor-
danes, who
wrote in the
6th century,
mentions in
his book
"Getica"- or
"about the
origin and
deeds of the
Goths", as 
the book's
full title
was - that
on a large
island call-
ed Scandza,
i. e. today
"Scandinavia",
there lived
peoples call-
ed "Ostro-
gothae", "Raum-
arici" and
"Aeragnaricii".

Here it is easy
to recognize
the Norse end-
ing -riki in
two of the
names, which
means "king-
dom" in the
Nordic lan-
guages. We
are then also
able to iden-
tify Jordanes'
Raumarici as
todays "Romerike"
which is today
still the name 
of the area North
of Oslo.

We then also re-
cognize Jordanes' 
Aeragnarici as
"Ranriki" or
Båhuslen, as it
was later called.

What about the
Jordanes' Ostro-
gothae then?
Since Jordanes
mentions these
in the same sent-
ence as the Raum-
arici and the
A(c)-Ragnaricii,
it lies near at
hand to assume
that several
centuries before
the Viking Age,
in Jordanes'
time, around
500 AD, the in-
habitants of
Gautland/Götaland
were called "Ostro-
Gothae".

Ragnaricanically,

Keth.






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