[gothic-l] Weder-Geats

[Anthony Appleyard]

  Tore Gannholm <tore.gannholm at swipnet.se> wrote (Subject: Re: Beowolf--the Goth?):-
> Weder is a ram. the one year old sheep male. ... The ram is the national
> symbol of Gotland. Already in the 13th century it was the official seal of
> the Gotlandic republic. You can see it on http://gotland.luma.com

  but someone else wrote:-
> ... Many translations (Crossley-Holland, Raffel,) gloss this as an epithet -
> the>"Weather Geats," the "Storm-Loving Geats."

>  Chickering, however, leaves it as it is, and Chambers I think (a century ago!)
> suggested that this was the lake in South Sweden, the Wetter.

Is there an unusually large amount of sheep-breeding in south Sweden?
The sheep on the symbol may be merely a heraldic pun on a name that had a
different origin, like the bears in the coats of arms or Berlin and Berne.

We also seem to be back at that old query: were the Geats / Gautar the same
people as the Goths?


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