[gothic-l] Gaut/Gapt (Tyr)

[Bertil Häggman]

Albareiks,

With intention I did not get into the other
aspects of "The Battle of the Goths and Huns".
The lay  is commented on by Professor Pritsak on around
40 pages.

My view is that Gaut is the likely god of the Goths
although we know very little of him. The *enguz
runic inscription might point to Ingr (Wolfram),
a predecessor of Frey and Balder. Also the name of Ermanaric
may have a connection to Irmin. Ingemar has an interesting
chapter on this, "Kulten av Gaut och goternas 
religion - kultfoerbund? En hypotes" (The Cult of Gaut and
the Religion of the Goths - a Cultic Union? A Hypothesis),
pp. 115-121.

Your final comments make sense.

Gothically

Bertil

> Exept that the Hervararsaga also states that "Heithrekr placed his faith in
> Freyr."  If anything, "The Battle of the Goths and Huns" portion of the saga
> preserves a memory of the struggle between AEsir and Vanir, both in the
> contest between Heidrekr and Gestumblindi, or in the actual struggle between
> Angatyr (Goths) and Hlothr (Huns).  There do seem to be mythological
> connections.  Mirkwood was said to separate the land of Goths from the land
> of Huns, while elsewhere, it separates the worlds of Gods and ettins.
> Hlothr may be connected with Lothr, who along with Hoener travels with
> Othinn in Norse myth.  Lothr can thus also be identified with Ve, or Othin,
> Ville and Ve, who are probably Isc, Irmin and Ing in Tacitus.  Thus it would
> not be surprising of the Norse god Lytir, who was pulled in a wagon, Vanic
> style, was the same god as Lothr and Ing.
> 
> Humli, the king of the Huns, Hlothr's fosterfather, seems to be the same as
> Danish Humble, Gothic Hulmul, and may be connected to Heimdal and Hama.
> Thus the Huns, in this saga, seem as though they may represent than Vanir.
> 
> Angatyr appears in the OE poem Widsith, as do Heithrekr, Hlothr, Ormarr,
> etc.  There, he is called Incgentheow.  It is only in the Norse that we have
> "-tyr" instead of "-theow," and the Gothic name probably would have been
> something like *Onganthius?  Then Gizurr (who is mentioned both as the king
> of the Gauts, and as fighting under Angatyr in the Gothic army, and is
> probably Othinn) incites and leads Angatyr's troops to battle the Hunnish
> army.
> 
> Also, there is only a case to be made that Tyr was the patron of the
> Tervingi, whereas the Greutungi are clearly associated with Gizurr (Gaut).
> This makes sense when applied to the historical situation, because the
> Greutungi formed the greater body of Ostrogoths, who were led by the Amali,
> and thus descended from Gaut.  On the other hand, the Tervingi were the bulk
> of what became the Visigoths, and were led by the Balthi (Bold).  What
> better patron god for the Balthi than Teiws, the god of battle?
> Turville-Petre says in his translation notes to the saga that Tyrfingr (the
> sword, which is obviously a poetic representation of the people) is probably
> associated with "turf," and thus designates those who worship the god
> represented by the sword which is thrust in the ground, as the Goths did
> after the old Scythian ritual related in Herodotus as being the ritual of
> "Aries," (probably Mithras to the Scythians).  As Anþanareiks recently
> pointed out, Wolfram says something about this as well.
> 
> As for a connection between the Tervingi and the Vanir, it was among the
> Tervingi that Aþanareiks had the image in the wagon drawn around, that all
> Goths may sacrifice to it to prove they were faithful to the old religion,
> and had not become Christians, as related in _The Passion of St Saba_.
> 
> The Tervingi-Visigoths seem to have been a breakaway group from the old
> united Goths, under Amal leadership.  Before that time, I think it is safe
> to say that the patron of the Goths was Gaut.  After that time, I think we
> can no longer speak of one patron for all the Goths: each Kuni seems to have
> had its own patron, with the Greutungi retaining the old nobility and patron
> of the Goths.



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