[gothic-l] Re: The Lament of Gudrun and the sayings of Hamdir in the Poetic Edda

[Francisc Czobor]

Hails Alberto,

as far as I know, there was no Gothic written version regarding 
Hermanaricus' vengeance on Sunilda. The fragment in Jordanes' Getica 
is based on the Gothic oral tradition. The Gothic alphabet and 
literary language were created by Wulfila for religious purpose, and 
the writing in the Gothic language was used mainly for this religious 
scope (Silver Bible, Skeireins, Gothic Calendar), with very few 
exceptions (the deeds of Naples and Arezzo). The same Gothic oral 
tradition that was recorded by Jordanes was passed orally to the High 
German epic, where it was re-elaborated, and from here passed further 
(through Francoon/Saxon intermediate?), also orally, to the 
Scandinavic tradition, together with other elements of the Gothic oral 
tradition (Theodoric/Dietrich, Attila/Etzel/Atli etc.). In the 
Scandinavic milieu the legend was re-elaborated once again, whence the 
discrepancies between Jordames' version and that of the Edda. The epic 
themes of Gothic origin circulated orally many centuries in the 
Germanic world, before they were written down (Edda in Scandinavia, or 
the Niebelungenlied, Hildebrandslied and others in the Middle High 
German epic).

Francisc

--- In gothic-l at y..., kaoru666 at h... wrote:
> 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' chronicle. 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


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