[gothic-l] Re: Early Germanic place-names in today Poland

[george knysh]

--- Ryszard Derdzinski <galadhorn at inetia.pl> wrote:
> Dirk wrote:
>
> To explain the name
> continuity, some sort of
> contact must have taken place and small groups of
> ancient Germans
> seemed to have stayed in their homelands until the
> arrival of the
> Slavs.
>
> My answer:
>
> You are right, and your suggestion is supported by
> Old Norse and Old English
> sources which tell about the Goths who lived near
> Vistula river in the time
> of the Hunnic invasion (in 4th c.). /......./
> Another source indicates that the _Hræiþgotar_ (OE
> _Hræd_ Goth.
> _*Hreiþgutans_?) lived in today Poland. It's Old
> English "Widsith", where we
> can read about Wulfhere (Goth. _*Wulfhari_) and
> Wyrmhere (Goth.
> _*Waurmhari_?) who were probably the chieftains of
> the _Hræda here_ 'army of
> the Hræd'. According to "Widsith" the _Hræda here_
> had to defend their old
> land (OE _edelstol_ 'hereditary seat, habitation;
> royal city, chief city')
> against Attila's people (OE _Ætlan leodum_) near
> _Wistla wudu_ or 'forest of
> the Wistla'.

******GK: Here is what O. Pritsak (ORIGIN OF RUS', p.
197) writes on this:
"The best possible explanation for the Wulfhere (ON
*U'lfarr /GK: the ' on the U/)episode is that it does
not belong to this part of the HERVARARSAGA $$$[note
30: Labuda, who also connects the Wulfhere episode
with the BATTLE (of the Goths and Huns) explains the
strange geography of Ormarr's activity as being the
result of the WIDSITH's author's recollected study of
an Anglo-Sacon textbook on geography (probably
Alfred's HISTORIA of Orosius) where the Wis;e-land, to
the east of the land of the Goths, was represented as
the frontier of the known world]$$$ but instead should
be regarded as a fragment from another lay dealing
with the battles of the Vistula goths with the Avars
(=Huns), as do the Helgi cycles of the POETIC EDDA."

If Pritsak is right, this would confirm the existence
of a Germanic population in Poland subsequent to c.
562, when the Avars began their Western campaigns.*****

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