Professional Documents
Culture Documents
King of The Goths
King of The Goths
Hlod or Hlöd was the illegitimate son of Heidrek, the king of the Goths.
He appears in the Hervarar saga and probably also as Hlith in Widsith, line 115,
together with his father Heiðrekr (Heathoric), half-brother Angantyr (Incgentheow), and
his mother Sifka (Sifeca).
Couldn't this name (Hlod/ Glod) be connected to the kunigaz/ duke Glad in Anonymus
Gesta Hungarorum whose army was "supported by Cumans, Bulgarians and
Blacci? In connection with Glad, Anonymus also emphasized that "from his line
was born"[a chieftain, named Ahtum another Germanic name.
Contents
• 1Claiming his inheritance
• 2Mustering the Horde
• 3The Death of Hervor, Hlöd's sister
• 4The Goths prepare
• 5The great battle
One English translation is Nora Kershaw’s 1921 translation under the title of “The Saga
of Hervor and Heithrek” (Hervarar Saga og Heiðreks) (so-called manuscript R).
Another is Christopher Tolkien’s 1960 translation of “The Saga of King Heidrek the
Wise” (Saga Heiðreks konúngs end vitra) (so-called manuscript H).
Finally, there is the more recent Peter Tunstall’s 2005 translation titled “The Saga of
Hervor & King Heidrek the Wise” which itself is a composite of (1) “The Saga of Hervor
and Heithrek” (Hervarar Saga og Heiðreks) and of (2) “The Saga of King Heidrek the
Wise” (Saga Heiðreks konúngs end vitra).
There are several interesting things about these texts.
First, to get this out of the way, they contains a bagful of names that have made it to
J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings. Tolkien was into the Old English language and Anglo-Saxon
myths in general (e.g., Beowulf translation). If you ever asked yourself where Balin or
Gimli come from or, for that matter Boromir and Faramir, these kinds of sagas are it. (To
a Slav, the -mirs and -ins may sound vaguely Slavic and we will have more to say about
that later when we discuss -mir’s, -mer’s, -gast’s and -gost’s, As well as they may sound
Celtic to a Celt). In any event, his son Christopher enjoyed similar topics and, as noted
above, also came up with his own translation of the saga in question here.
(Interestingly, although the Tolkien family is usually described as coming to Britain from
Germany, his last name is neither English nor German. For our best guess, together
with the requisite German connection, see the village of Tołkiny (German Tolkynen –
both from Old Prussian) deep in former East Prussia and today’s Poland).
Second, the sagas although written down much later (earliest manuscripts from the
13th century) deal with what is, in effect, pre-history. They speak of the Gothic struggle
against the Huns, for example. It is highly unlikely that their writers were using and
“improving” on Ammianus Marcellinus, Jordanes, Procopius and the like. Consquently,
they are a window into a time and place which remained largely untouched and
unobserved by the Roman writers who, naturally, were only concerned with the various
barbarian tribes once those got too close to the Roman frontiers.
Third, there are several interesting Daco Romanian “connections” or at least
“hooks”even through Slavic. The chronicles talk about Gardarike, a term that may be
Russia but also may be Dacia (which was called that by the Scandinavians by reason of
all the grads or gards on its shores – e.g., the various Stargards – this what one might
have thought were a purely Slavic term (grad, grod, gorod) is in fact a Dacian word gard
– e.g., Cf. alb. g a r d h , rou. Gard, Grádişte, sl. g r a d ŭ . ). Also, in a number of places,
there are references to Harvað amountains, which have been identified with the Harvati,
i.e., the Croats and which – may – be the Carpathians (there were also the residences
of the Carpi though (as well as the Avari…)). Thus, we have:
Norse:
“Hinn mælti: ‘Taktu sverðit undan höfðafjölinni ok fá mér,” en sá tók ok brá ok sneið
höfuð af fiskinum, ok þá kvað hann vísu: “Þess galt hún gedda fyr Grafár ósi, er
Heiðrekr var veginn und Harvaða fjöllum.”
English (Kershaw):
“And he took it and unsheathed it, and cut off the fish’s head, and then spoke a verse:
This pike at the mouth of the river
Has paid the penalty
For the slaughter inflicted on Heithrek,
‘Neath the Mountains of Harvath”
English (Tunstall):
“And he took it and drew it and cut the head off the fish, and then he chanted a verse:
The price was paid
by the pike at Grave River,
when Heidrek was slain
under Harveth Fells.
Other Interesting Things
But there is another interesting aspect of all of this and it is in the following language:
Old Norse:
“Angantýr kvað:
“Kenndu at Dylgju ok á Dúnheiði, ok á þeim öllum Jassarfjöllum; þar opt Gotar gunni
háðu ok fagran sigr frægir vágu.”
Nú reið Gizurr í brott ok þar til, er hann kom í her Húna. Hann reið eigi nær en svá, at
hann mátti tala við þá. Þá kallar hann hári röddu ok kvað:
“Felmtr er yðru fylki, feigr er yðarr vísir, gnæfar yðr gunnfáni, gramr er yðr Óðinn.” Ok
enn: “Býð ek yðr at Dylgju ok á Dúnheiði orrostu undir Jassarfjöllum; hræ sé yðr at hái
hverjum, ok láti svá Óðinn flein fljúga, sem ek fyrir mæli.””
English (Kershaw):
“King Angantyr replied:
“Challenge them to battle at Dylgia and on Dunheith, (plains of the Danube) and upon
all the heights of Jösur, where the Goths have often won renown by glorious victories!”
Then Gizur rode away until he came to the host of the Huns. He rode just within
earshot, and then called loudly, crying:
Your host is panic stricken, And your prince is doomed to fall; Though your banners are
waving high in the air, Yet Othin is wroth with you all. Come forth to the Jösur
Mountains, On Dylgia and Dunheith come fight; For I make a sure boast, In the heart of
your host The javelin of Othin will light!
English (Tunstall):
“Angantyr said:
“Point them to Dylgja and to Dun Heath direct them and mark out all the Mounts of
Jass;
there Goths often have given battle and fine victory they, famous, gained.”
Now Gizur rode off till he came to the army of the Huns. He rode no nearer than he
needed to talk to them. Then he calls out in a loud voice and said:
“There’s fear on your forces, fey are your generals; the battle-banner above you
looms; wrath with you is Odin.” And also: “I offer you at Dylgja and on Dun Heath I
offer a fight under the Jassar Fells. A corpse be to you on every horse. May Odin let
the javelin fly just as I decree.”
Commentary on Jassarfjöll [um]:
Tolkien:
“These mountains have not been identified. It has been suggested that their name is
identical with that of the Gesenke, the mountains in norther Moravia, and that both the
Norse and German forms of this name are corruptions of Slavonic Jesenik meaning
“ash-mountain.”
What are “ash” mountains? Well, they are not volcanoes (unless we are way off
geographically (or chronologically! ). They are not even “ashen” mountains. They are
simply mountains covered with ash trees (old English “æsc“). And therein lies the
problem for anyone making a reference to these mountains as such – ash in Germanic
does not have a “j”.
A very simple answer. However if we take into account the setting of the actions
describe in the texts above we see it is about the river Danube and the hills of Jassi,
which is a city and a county in Roumania, a place where the Sarmatic tribes of Jassygi/
Jassi( Alans) had lived. Thus , to my opinion “ The Saga of Hervor & King Heidrek the
Wise” could be the first mention of the lands inhabited by the Alans in nowadays
Roumania in the time of the Goths. Nevertheless Dylgia, which has not been
successfully translated might well be transposed to Dacia. We already know that during
the time exploited in the saga the land of nowadays Roumania was occupied by the
Chernyakhov, Sântana de Mureș Culture. This was a culture that comprised Gothic,
Sarmatic, Daco, Daco-Roumanian elements, according to “ The Goths in the Fourth
Century ”- Peter Heather; John Matthews
(That the Slavs sometimes kept or added their “J”s is evident from,
e.g., jeden vs. eins. But see Icelandic giant Thjasse (did someone say “giant”? Like
a Riese? Like Riesengebirge?). They also kept the “D”s. About jeden (Czech,
Pol) odin (Ukr, Rus) and Chris Hemsworth’s father Odin, we will, of course, have a lot
more to say later… as too about other numerals, e.g., which Slavic numeral is related
to et cetera? Too easy, no points for this one!)
That there may have been a battle between Goths and Huns we also learn
from Widsith’s “Bard’s Tale” poem:
“Wulfhere sohte ic ond Wyrmhere; ful oft þær wig ne alæg, þonne Hræda here ymb
Wistlawudu heardum sweordum wergan sceoldon ealdne eþelstol ætlam leodum.”
(I visited Wulfhere and Wyrmhere; there battle often raged in the Vistula woods, when
the Gothic army with their sharp swords had to defend their ancestral seat against
Attila’s host.)
Are the Jeseniks close to the sources of the Vistula:
The trouble is that, according to official chronology, there should have been no Slavs in
Moravia at the time the Goth-Hun battle took place (or if there were any at all, they
would have, perhaps, come with the Hun army which means that no one would have
cared what they named the mountains in their tongue).
That is the reason why…There were Vlachs, as recorded in several medieval chants
about Attila, such as The Nibelungenlied or French chants.
Zeitschrift für Erdkunde, etc (from 1847):
This suggests the “hilly” terrain next to the village Jeser in Pomerania… With all due
respect “hilly” terrain seems a bit underwhelming for the site of such a mountain battle
(we can believe the Huns, in their short reign, made it to Moravia but Pomerania seems
a bit of a stretch).
Afterthought
Note also that some Slavic “nationalist” historians disputed the location of
these Jassar mountains in the Sudeten. The reason seems to be that that would have
meant admitting that Goths had been in Poland/Moravia or close enough.
Consequently, they looked for name Jassar further east, as in the Bieszczady or even
further around Ossetia where the Gothic kingdom would have ended and where various
Sarmatian tribes included the Iazyges and other similar sounding tribes (that some of
these tribes may have, in fact, reached Poland did not seem to have bothered them).
For the same reason, the same historians placed Gardarike as far East as possible,
leaving all of Poland, Belarus and Ukraine free of their domination (e.g., insisting
that Palteskia means Polotskand not, for example, Pultusk).
The famous Hauksbok with Palteskia, Pulina land and Polena (to the east of which
is Reidgota land and, thereafter, Hunland)
(BTW, the Hauksbok does not contain the references to Jassarfjöllum since it ends in
the middle of Gestumblindi’s riddles leaving what happened later to other manuscripts)
But we actually know that Dacia became Gothia and the Goths were called Getae, even
more it seems that the Goths assumed Dacian history as being their own according to
Jordanes' Getica.