[gothic-l] Re: Danparstadir - Reidgotaland

[Tore Gannholm]

>--- In gothic-l at y..., trbrandt at p... wrote:
>> Hi Dirk
>>
>> I agree in most of your letter, except that I am sure the sagas and
>> poems contain some real events.
>
>Hi Troels,
>
>even here we are in agreement, as I also think that the poems and
>sagas contain real events.
>
>
>
>
>Unfortunately phantasy and reality
>is
>> mixed up from different times and places, and normally you will not
>> know which of the elements are real.
>
>
>Exactly my point and poems like the Hildebrandlied are a good example.
> If we were to attempt to learn history from the Hildebrandlied which
>was written down only some 250 years after (some of) the events we
>would have got a completely distorted view.
>
>
>
>
>
>Therefore you can probably
>never
>> use the sagas and poems as historical sources, but they might
>explain
>> something when you compare them with history and archaeology - and
>> this is not necessarily about the time of the writer.
>
>
>
>I agree, once you have documentary and/or archaeological etc. sources
>sagas, poems etc. could be used to fill in a picture or give an idea
>of how these events were perceived by contemporaries or
>near-contemporaries.
>

I have earlier quoted from Gad Rausings article in Fornvännen 1985 about
Beowulf.
Here follows his postscript to the article:
"By definition proof, a means of conviction, must lend itself to being
expressed in figures and in formulas. This is impossible in archaeology and
in history, nothing but circumstantial evidence and eyewitnesses' testimony
being available. The latter is notoriously unreliable, as any judge can
testify, but it remains our best material.
Each reader will have to make up his own mind wheter the Beowulf epic is to
be considered an eye-witness' account. If it is accepted as such the other
sagas dealing with the same persons will also have to be brought into
account and will thus also have to be treated as valid 'historical
documents'. If so, in Sweden the centuries from about 250 A.D. to about 800
A.D. should be classified as 'Dark Ages', to borrow a British term, rather
than as 'prehistoric'."
Tore

>>
>> Snorri mentioned the Reidgoths, and 400 years earlier the Roek-stone
>> mentioned Hreidmare and the Hreidgoths living at least 9 generations
>> before. This seems to be more than pure imagination, but I do not
>> know what it is - that is why I have been "fishing" for information
>> the last week. This has surely been interesting.
>
>
>
>Absolutely and I would not argue that one cannot retrive any clues
>from these sources. But still, if a legend about Reidgotas was popular
>in the 9th century it may still have been common knowledge in the
>12/13th century so that the two sources are not necessarily
>independent, but may have both refered to a commonly known, but still
>only imagined concept.
>
>
>
>>
>> Snorri tried to explain and tell about the past using old sources,
>> and he wrote about the problems with these sources. It is unfair to
>> compare him with Walther Scott, who had quite another purpose.
>
>
>
>I didn't mean to be 'unfair' to Snorri, after all Walter Scott was a
>great writer. Also was I not refering to Snorri in particular in that
>comparison, but spoke about medieval literature as a historical source
>in general.
>
>
>
>>
>> I noticed of course an earlier post from Andreas Schwarcz placing
>> sagas as literature. This is OK with me if literature is every thing
>> else than history, but there are different kinds of literature not
>> all being pure fiction.
>
>
>That is certainly right, but examples of literature that are based on
>historical facts like the Nibelungenlied instill little confidence
>that they can be used as historical sources. Many elements that we can
>corroborate with documentary sources proved to be completely
>distorted. So why should we believe that we can gain something from
>the parts that cannot be corroborated with other sources?
>
>
>
>
>> Actually I have listened to Andreas earlier, and in the new version
>> of my own web-site about the Heruls I have tried to separate history
>> and archaeology from a pattern of stories in the sagas - but they
>> might tell the same story.
>>
>> It is very easy to say, that we can not use the sagas and Saxo, as
>> they do not fit the criterias of historical sources, but this is
>> nearly the only written material about the early Scandinavian (and
>> maybe northern Gothic) history.
>
>
>Yes, but you cannot use it as historical source just because real
>historical sources are absent. If real historical/archaeological
>sources are absent that there is simply no history. In other words,
>one cannot simply assume that the Reidgota were a real people on the
>basis of a saga and a lay on a stone. They must remain part of
>literature and tell first and foremost something about literary
>traditions and continuity, which should not prevent researchers to
>find evidence for their existence in real sources.
>
>cheers,
>
>Dirk



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