[gothic-l] People Names/GJOTA/CADMUS

[Beril Haggman]

Well, Keth,

It seems the expression related to fish producing
eggs with gjuta/gyta is typical Norwegian (and Danish).
As you point out it is in Swedish "lägga rom".
Of course, if you prefer consulting dictionaries,
please do, my selected references to articles
and books is a matter of presenting the
basic writings of experts on progenitors, peoples,
regions, rivers and verbs related to Goths
with the view of relating them to the Gauts,
Gautland, Gaut etc.

What I have provided are not articles but selected
bibliographies referring to article and books
on the five subjects mentioned above. If you have
written articles providing the material you
are presenting here, please let me know, and
I will include them in my selected bibliographies.
There must be some sort of basic ground
rules for the construction of these select
bibliographies.

Well, let's put it down as the Keth Theory.

Acceptance and rejection can of course vary
according to the logical relation.

I will let your designation of "compiler" stand for
you of Professor Anderson. Compilers usually do 
not get appointed professors but maybe we have an exception 
in the case of Professor Andersson. After all
he dared write about a subject with so many
experts having different opinions and with so
many believing that there is no relation
between the names of the peoples of
the Goths, the Goetar and the Gutar.

Is also the names Norwegians and Danes
related to this s.c. "symbolic" name evolution?

That is interesting. Hesiod as wandering saga?
Anywhere I can read more about that, I mean on
the Teogony  specifically?

Concerning the complete quote from Andersson it
depends on what you mean by complete here. Basically
the only complete quote would be the whole article.
Suggest, when you have the time, that you consult Hoops
yourself, to be sure about the correct nature of my quote.

Concerning your words underneath I have been
wondering if the Theogony is really the origin
of it.

Lines 560-565 (Theogony)

"So spake Zeus in anger, whose wisdom is ever-
lasting: and from that time he was always mindful
of the trick, and would not give the power of
unwearying fire to the Melian race of mortal men who
live on the earth."

What is third generation? Which are two first generations?
The men living on earth may have sprung from the
Melian nymphs; or because when they were born(?)
they cast themeselves under the ash-trees (meliae),
but to some commentaors trees in general. So what is it? 
Is the Melian race "sprung from ash-trees" or is it something 
else? Nymphs maybe as suggested in my text above?

"Zeus the Father made a third generation of
 mortal men, a brazen race, sprung from 
 Ash-trees ; and it was in no way equal
 to the silver age ; but it was terrible 
 and strong. They loved the lamentable
 works of Ares and deeds of violence"

Ask och Embla are as far as I understand
not necessarily ash tree=ask in Swedish.
Asks Yggdrasils could have been a yew-tree
or a hardwood tree (Fraxinus). Ask had several
meanings. I find the relation between men
in Theogony and Ask in Old Norse myth somewhat
questionable. Even if we accept that Ask had the
meaning ash tree. The Nordic myth is that
Odin comes to the shore of the sea and
finds two tree trunks , on ash tree and one elm tree.
Professor Aake Hultkrantz in his mythological
dictionary wrote: "Odin (who is also called Gautr,
gjutaren=founder) poured (Sw. goet) life and breath
into them. Hoener provided intelligence and
Lodur, the third god present, provided emotional
life and senses. This is, as I see it, pretty far from the
Theogony. But maybe you can provide some quote
on the origin of the Melian race, if that is what you are
referring to.

Gothically

Bertil





Have you looked at Danish?
As you know, Norway used to be the number one fishing
nation of Northern Europe. You could say that for a 
long time fish is what Norway was all about. And so 
"fisken gyter", "gyteplass", etc is the most frequent
way this word is used in Norway. I often find 
that some of the things you quote journals for,
can more simply be found out by consulting a good dictionary. 
Thus the ON dictionary testifies to the same usage
in Old Icelandic as in modern Norwegian; viz. the
phrase "gjóta hrognum" (Dat.) is found in the Old
Icelandic Eulicidarius, for which see K.Gíslason's
book of 1858.

It is also Danish, but then it is written "gyde".
In Old Norse it was apparently not only used about fish,
but also about dogs, that is in the meaning "to give 
birth". I should have liked to see a reference for the
latter usage (about dogs and possibly other animals),
but it will have to wait. I see that the famous Icelandic
"geysir" is also related to this word. Lehmann writes
that this variety of forms exemplified in Gmc. for a
case like this, provide excellent examples of the pre-
valent usage of extended root forms, rather than simple
roots in Gmc. And that such extended forms are the stems
for strong verbs classes I -III. So there is another
reference for you, to include in your article! 

I see there is also an Old Norse verb "gauta", that 
directly reflects "der germanische Urvater" or whatever
the hypothesis was. Although personally I'd like to
treat such hypothesises with some caution.

It is because you so often say that as long as there
is only one hypothesis, then it must be a true hypothesis.
And then you defend your hypothesis by challenging the
doubters to provide alternative hypothesises. Well,
that is what I have done.

Yes, but now you too refer to Greek usage, which
you reject further below, in order to object to
an hypothesis that doesn't agree with yours.

It seems to me that Anderson is most of all a compiler,
and that these things you refer to Anderson for have been
standard in the litterature for at least a 100 years.

That is of course a very rational explanation.
And it could be possible - of course.
But if you look at other peoples from the same period,
about whom the "myth of origin" or rather "the myth of
how they got their name" is known, you will see that
the connections are what you might call "symbolic"
rather than "rational".

Thus, for example the name of the Langobards is related
to a story about women dressing up as men, and thereby
saving the nation. The woman called "Gambara" was
instrumental in this. Thus we can say there is also
an "Urmutter" involved. And not just an "Urvater"
as you imply with your hypothesis.

Perhaps the Goths too had an "Urmutter".
Maybe this other meaning of "gjóta" as "giving birth"
is actually closer to the truth than your more simple
semen theory, which gives priority to the male element
in the birth of the nation.


Yes, it is related to the verb. But the verb signifies a much
more general idea than that of "semen". It signifies one thing
_emerging_ from another. And there are quite a few examples
of things emerging that have no direct relationship with
"semen". For example a bird laying an egg. Then the egg "emerges"
from the bird. But that doesn't men you can say the egg *is*
semen. It is rather the beginning of a new being where both
elements, male and female, are already combined.

If you reread what Anderson wrote, assuming it is the 
complete quote you supplied, then you will see that he connects
"Goths" to the verb "gjóta", to which your semen theory forms
a non-unique secondary hypothesis.


Well, we already have 300 BC for the Goths.
So the difference is only 400 years.
That time difference is a lot smaller than some of the time
differences that you have been operating with.
I'd rather say that the example from Hesiod shows that a 
connection with the casting of Bronze, wouldn't be a
Scandinavian innovation. And the 4 centuries that lie 
between them is actually a positive evidence, since a
"Wandersage" needs time to propagate. And the more centuries
that are available, the more likely it is that the legend
will have made it from Greece to Sweden.
 
I think if one made a list of all creation myths
or myths of origin that are known, and then looked
at the names given to the first people, one would
see that the myth of origin is always important
when explaining a name. Deucalion and Pyrrha for
example. But the Hesiod myth was actually interesting
because he said the "Bronze men" came from the "Ash
tree". And in Nordic myth we also have Ask and Embla
being created from trees.

Your theory about "Gaut" as sole father, also works
by collating relatively late sources, and then using
them as "pointers" that "point" towards a distant
prehistoric name, which the hypothesising process
manages to materialize due to the common "force"
of the pointers.





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