[gothic-l] Guðrúnarhvöt and Hamðismal in the Poetic Edda

[kaoru666 at HOTMAIL.COM]

Hails.
As you know the Guðrúnarhvöt and the Hamðismal, the final chants in 
the Elder Edda belongs to an epic cicle of gothic origin. The Lament 
of Gudrun or Guðrúnarhvöt does not seem to apport anything new, as it 
is simply a reelaboration of the fragment of the Getica concerning 
king Hermanaricus' vengeance on Sunilda, dismembered by  four wild 
horses. But the sayings of Hámdir still can relate that King 
Jormunrekk ordered dead to Svánhild, smashing her under the legs of 
gothic horses. Now the dead of Svánhild, this time daughter of Sigurd 
and Gudrun, has passed to explain itself by a personal motivation -
Jormunrekk's Jealousy- and not, of course by a politic reason, as we 
can still see Jordanes' chronic. And there are many other 
discrepancies.   
There are hypothesis that there were gothic written versions (as most 
of the content on the Eddas were preserved by oral tradition) and 
also Frankish and Burgundian (Sígurd history) of those chants, but I 
don't know how probable is that possibility, of course not 
impossible. 
 Please tell me your opinion on Hamðismal and the hypothesis of the 
written documents. 

Thanks for taking the time, 
Alberto



You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>. 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/