[gothic-l] Gaut, an additional view

[Bertil Häggman]

Keth,

Gapt/Gaut is a common progenitor of a number
of Royal families and there is no reason
to doubt that also the Langobards were
connected to this. Parallels can even be drawn to
the Germanic good Mannus, which could be
traced back to an Indo-European god with
the same name. IE *manu- (man, ancestor of humankind). 
Their correspondance confined however to Germanic and 
Indo-European, appears both phonologically and 
structurally sound.

There is generally not much in the ancient literary
sources on religion of the Germanic peoples. 
Mannus is for instance only mentioned by Tacitus in 
_Germania_. In an Old Indic account Vivasvat couples 
with Savarna, a double of his wife Saranya, and 
begets Manu=man. Manu initiates human sacrifice 
and human laws, the Law of Manu.

It is not only the royal Langobard family and the Gothic,
which look upon Gaut as progenitor . Anglo-Saxon,
Jutish, Danish, Vandalic - all claim origin in Gaut.
So I don't think the theory of different migration paths
exclude the possibility of reverence of the same
progenitor.

In the case of the Gautic Gaut the usual explanation
of the origin of the word is "the shedder", "he who
sheds semen" = man (incidentally the same meaning
as Mannus). Much, Hoops and Wessén agree on
this interpretation. Vries is sceptical but Professor
Svennung connects with "shed" as he believes the
Gautar had their name from Gaut-Elfr (Goeta Aelv in
western Sweden which Adam of Bremen calls
Goth-elba=goetarnas aelv. Svennung also connects
with similar interpretations of Norwegian rivers which
include gaut. An interesting thought is also that
Jordanes with Gauti-Gothi may have indicated the
Vaestgoeatar of Vaestergoetland. There seems
to be no need to bring in Grimm in the discussion
on Gaut, making him some sort of originator for
the other interpretation. That is just too easy an
explanation.

Even if Grimm was a genius his interpretation of the
Germanic languages ends up in a relational mess
which in modern research has been sorted out.

Gothically

Bertil

> Thus there is no reason to believe that the Langobards
> had a mythology or genealogy that agreed with that of
> the Goths. Add to this that their place of origin differed
> as well.
> 
> What evidence do we have about the religion of the Goths?
> About the Langobards we have something in Paolo Diacono,
> but it is very little. I believe the Getica contains even
> less about the religion of the Goths. 
 
> In my opinion Hoefler is here merely repeating an opinion
> that dates back to Jacob Grimm, and that quite a few
> authors seem to have copied more or less blindly since.
> There is no sign of any reasoning or explanation of why
> he thinks so? Or some reference to relevant discussion?
> 
> To me it is clear that Grimm thought so because he was
> a stong believer in ideas of Germanic unity. Hence it
> *had* to be Gapt=Gaut, because that was exactly what his
> axiom told him. Then *after* he has decided what the
> truth is, *then* he starts looking for arguments to
> support it: And the best thing he comes up with is
> "manuscrip corruption". But in that fashion one can
> prove anything one wished to prove. That is not science
> but dogmatism.



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