[gothic-l] Re: Danparstadir - Reidgotaland

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

--- In gothic-l at y..., trbrandt at p... wrote:
> Bertil, Keth, Anders and other contributors
>
> Thank you for a lot of good information and ideas.
>
> Bertil must be right that the Scandinavians at a certain time
> combined Hreidgoths with locations in Eastgermanic legends -
possibly
> being transferred to Scandinavia by people who were a part of these
> events. I am not quite sure from Bertil's examples if these were all
> located in Ukraine or in Central Europe - or they were moved from
> Ukraine to Central Europe by a people like the Ostrogoths, the
> Alanes, the Gepides, the Heruls (who even continued to Scandinavia)
> and other people.
>
> We can't say if the Hreidgoths and the legends were originally a
part
> of real events, or they were later combined in Scandinavia. The man
> who made the Roek-stone probably knew who they were, but I am not
> sure that Snorri and the other later writers knew that.
>
> I believe they lived somewhere at the Continent. However we still
> have to find a satisfying connection to Hreidmare and Eygoths. It is
> difficult to explain both these names if the Hreidgoths lived in
> Ukraine - and it is too easy to claim that there was no connection.



Hi Troels,

do you believe that it is possible to gain real historical knowledge
from sagas or lays? I am not familiar with icelandic literature of the
13th century or the Roek-stone inscription of the 9th (?) century, but
judging from the Hildebrandlied (8th century) or the Nibelungenlied
(c1200) it is clear that these things tend to completely muddle the
events, making people contemporaries who in reality lived many years
apart, turning historical events on their heads and getting
geographical information totally wrong. The Hildebrandlied is
especially instructive, as it was written down only about 250 years
after the events, but still got virtually all the historical details
wrong.

I suppose tales about Theoderic and Attila were en vogue all over
Europe in the early middle ages. They were probably spread by
traveling merchants, professional story tellers, etc.. There are
countless Theoderich (Dietrich von Bern) legends in Germany
underlining just how much he had become part of folklore, but to
attempt and derive real history from these tales is in my view
impossible. Thus, studying the Icelandic and other sagas tells you
something about Norse medieval literature traditions, but nothing
about real events of the 5th/6th centuries. Certainly these sagas and
tales contain kernels of truth, but separating those from the literary
composition is virtually impossible without corroboration with real
historical sources. Using sagas to reconstruct migration period
history is, in my view, similar to using Sir Walter Scott's writing to
reconstruct English medieval history. Hence, terms like Reidgota etc.
are of no historical value as long as they cannot be confirmed by
historical sources, because for all we know they may only have existed
in the imagination of 8th/9th century story-tellers.


cheers,
Dirk


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