[gothic-l] Re: Godheimar

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Hi Dirk ,
You wrote:
>I thought that my first post was clear enough. However, as I said,
>none of the (many) placenames with Got- Goten- Gut- Gute etc in
>Germany have anything to do with the Goths. Meaning that there must be
>a Germanic placename component Got- etc. which can also account for
>such  placenames in non-Gothic areas.

Which I thought was a very clear and rational argument, in answer to :

>> Besides Harvard Professor Omeljan
>> Pritsak's _Origin of the Rus_ is unrelated
>> to German placenames, which would
>> anyway, due to territoriality, have
>> nothing to do with the Goths.

I'd like to make use of the opportunity to ask if Pritsak's can
be considered as a kind of universal lookup-book on things Gothic.
I do not have the book, but have been hearing about it for many years.
If it is that good, I should like to get myself a copy.
(though I heard Rolf Hachmann is better)
The title indicates a more restricted topicality, than might
be required to for detailed information about The Goths in Western
regions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
But let us go back to the place names:
Of course, in Scandinavia too, there are many place-names
beginning with "God-", and I think it is safe to say that
they rarely have anything to do with Goths. The reason is of
course that if Goths were involved, it would begin with
Göt- in Sweden and with Gaut- in Norway  :  everything ought
to be nicely in agreement with the vowel table I set up
some days ago.

As an example, let me mention the place name Godøy outside
Sunnmøre in West Norway. It derives from "god" + "island" (=øy).
In all probability, the island is named after the pre-christian
gods, and not after the Goths.

The difference between "Gods" and "Goths" linguistically lies
in differing realisations of the dental sound, which can be
"d", "ð", "t" or "þ", depending on the place as well as on
the stage of development opf the dialect in which the name is
expressed. These differences are important, since they represent
marks of very clear distinction to the users of the language.


But I'd like to bring the discussion back to the point where it
started, because I think arguments that were presented were
not formulated sufficiently clearly.

What Bertil originally wrote was:

>The name "Home of the Goths" appears in Heimskringla.
>"This [kind] of Svithjod they called Mannheimar (Sw.
>Manhem); but Sweden the Great (Svithjod in mikla) they called
>Godheimar. About this Godheimar many stories are told.

That is, he claims that the name "Godheimar", as it occurs in
Snorri Sturlason's "Heimskringla", refers to the Goths.
In replying to Bertil, I then quoted the Old Norse text
of the Heimskringla passage that he quoted, which was as
follows:


 "Þessa Svíþjóð kolluðu þeir Manheima, en ina miklu Svíþjóð
  kolluðu þeir Goðheima; ór Goðheimum sogðu þeir morg tíðendi."

from which quote it will be clear that the ON spelling in question
is "Goðheimar" (=nom. pl.), that is "Goð" with a "stunginn d"
as we call it. This then tells us that the name derives from
"goð" = "god" (= same as "guð"), and not from "got". It is the
latter form that corresponds to the modern English term "Goth"
as in "Ostrogoths" and "Visigoths". In German, for example, they
still say it like this: "die Goten".

However, in addition to looking at the spelling of the name, one
should also look at the context in which it is mentioned, and
the above sentence is taken from the very beginning of Heimskringla,
from the Ynglingasaga at the very end of Chapter 8 (short chapters!).
The story then continues in Chapter 9, where  it is told how
Odinn dies in Svitiod, and says to those he is leaving behind
that he is now going to "Goðheimar", which due to the context
must now be read as "the home(s) of the gods".


The name Goðheimar occurs a couple of times in Heimskringla,
but all mentionings are in the (short) Chapters 8, 9, 11 and
12 of Ynglingasage. And I believe that if one reads the text,
one will see that all occurrences of the name must be given the
same meaning.

Best regards
Keth



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