Hlöðskviða
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Hlöðskviða (also Hlǫðskviða and Hlǫðsqviða), known in English as The Battle of the Goths and Huns and occasionally known by its German name Hunnenschlachtlied, is an
Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...
heroic poem found in '' Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks''. Many attempts have been made to try to fit it with known history, but it is an epic poem, telescoping and fictionalising history to a large extent; some verifiable historical information from the time are place names, surviving in Old Norse forms from the period 750–850, but it was probably collected later in
Västergötland Västergötland (), also known as West Gothland or the Latinized version Westrogothia in older literature, is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish), situated in the southwest of Sweden. Vä ...
. Most scholars place the tale sometime in the 4th and 5th centuries AD, with the battle taking place somewhere either in
Central Europe Central Europe is a geographical region of Europe between Eastern Europe, Eastern, Southern Europe, Southern, Western Europe, Western and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Central Europe is known for its cultural diversity; however, countries in ...
near the
Carpathian Mountains The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Ural Mountains, Urals at and the Scandinav ...
, or further east in
European Russia European Russia is the western and most populated part of the Russia, Russian Federation. It is geographically situated in Europe, as opposed to the country's sparsely populated and vastly larger eastern part, Siberia, which is situated in Asia ...
.


Texts, historicity, and analysis

There are two main sources for the saga, "H", from the ''
Hauksbók Hauksbók (; 'Book of Haukr') is a 14th-century Icelandic manuscript created by Haukr Erlendsson. Significant portions of it are lost, but it contains the earliest copies of many of the texts it contains, including the '' Saga of Eric the Red''. ...
'' (A.M. 544) early 14th century; and "R", a 15th-century parchment (MS 2845). The final parts of the saga including ''Hlöðskviða'' are absent in H and truncated in R – the remainder of the text is found in better preserved 17th-century paper copies of these works. The poem itself is thought to have originally been a stand-alone work, separate from the saga. It has several analogues, containing similar or related content, including the English ''
Widsith "Widsith" (, "far-traveller", lit. "wide-journey"), also known as "The Traveller's Song", is an Old English poem of 143 lines. It survives only in the '' Exeter Book'' (''pages 84v–87r''), a manuscript of Old English poetry compiled in the la ...
'', as well as '' Orvar-Odd's Saga'' and the ''
Gesta Danorum ("Deeds of the Danes") is a patriotic work of Danish history, by the 12th-century author Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Literate", literally "the Grammarian"). It is the most ambitious literary undertaking of medieval Denmark and is an essentia ...
''. The historicity of the "Battle of the Goths and Huns", including the identification of people, places, and events, has been a matter of scholarly investigation since the 19th century, with no clear answer. Locations proposed for the setting include a number of places around the
Carpathian Mountains The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Ural Mountains, Urals at and the Scandinav ...
; the actual battle has been identified as either the
Battle of the Catalaunian Plains The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (or Fields), also called the Battle of the Campus Mauriacus, Battle of Châlons, Battle of Troyes or the Battle of Maurica, took place on June 20, 451 AD, between a victorious coalition, led by the Roman ...
(451 AD), between
Flavius Aetius Flavius Aetius (also spelled Aëtius; ; 390 – 21 September 454) was a Roman Empire, Roman general and statesman of the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, closing period of the Western Roman Empire. He was a military commander and the most inf ...
and the Visigoths under Theodoric I and the
Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...
under
Attila Attila ( or ; ), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in early 453. He was also the leader of an empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Gepids, among others, in Central Europe, C ...
; or a battle between the Gothic king Ostrogotha and the
Gepid The Gepids (; ) were an East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary, and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava, and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the religion and language of the Goths and Vandals. Th ...
king Fastida; or a battle between the Langobards and the Vulgares (
Bulgars The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari, Proto-Bulgarians) were Turkic peoples, Turkic Nomad, semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between the 5th and 7th centu ...
) in which the Lombard king Agelmundus (Agelmund) was killed; or a post-Attila (d. 453) conflict between the Gepids and Huns, possibly during the reign of the Gepid
Ardaric Ardaric (; c. 450 AD) was the Germanic kingship, king of the Gepids, a Germanic peoples, Germanic tribe closely related to the Goths. He was "famed for his loyalty and wisdom," one of the most trusted adherents of Attila the Hun, who "prized him a ...
; another interpretation makes the Goths the
Crimean Goths The Crimean Goths were either a Greuthungi- Gothic tribe or a Western Germanic tribe that bore the name '' Gothi'', a title applied to various Germanic tribes that remained in the lands around the Black Sea, especially in Crimea. They were the ...
. The battle has alternatively been placed as early as 386 AD, a destruction of peoples under Odotheus in a battle on the River Danube. Similarities between the story in the saga and the Battle of Nedao have also been noted. The identification of persons in the poem with historical figures is equally confused. Additionally any historical date of the "Battle of Goths and Huns" (whatever the exact attribution to historical events) is several centuries earlier than the supposedly preceding events recorded in the saga.


Text

The poem is preserved as 29 separate strophes or parts of strophes interspersed among the text in '' Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks'', of which most are narrative not speech. Much of the saga is now in prose form, though it is thought that the original had been verse, with some textual evidence in the prose for a verse original.
Christopher Tolkien Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 – 16 January 2020) was an English and naturalised French academic editor and writer. The son of the author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher edited 24 volumes based on his father's P ...
supposes that it originally formed a complete narrative in itself, outside of the context it is now found in the saga. Some damaged verses were recorded differently by different editors, and the text shows signs of different dates of composition or recording in different parts of the text – including rich verses similar to those found in early eddaic poems such as '' Atlakviða'' or ''
Hamðismál The Hamðismál is a poem which ends the Germanic heroic legend, heroic poetry of the ''Poetic Edda'', and thereby the whole collection. Gudrun had been the wife of the hero Sigurd, whom her brothers had killed. With Sigurd she had had the daughte ...
'', whilst other lines are less rich. Most editions number the stanzas, but the numbering may start from the first poetic stanza in the saga, not the poem.For example see


Extracts

Heiðrekr, king of the Goths, had two sons, Angantýr and Hlöðr. Only Angantýr was legitimate, so he inherited his father's kingdom. Hlöðr, whose mother was the daughter of Humli, king of the Huns, and who was born and raised among the Huns, claimed half the inheritance, Angantýr refused to split evenly and war ensued, claiming first Hervör, their sister, then Hlöðr himself as casualties. The first verses frame peoples and their rulers. It is noteworthy that the
Geats The Geats ( ; ; ; ), sometimes called ''Geats#Goths, Goths'', were a large North Germanic peoples, North Germanic tribe who inhabited ("land of the Geats") in modern southern Sweden from antiquity until the Late Middle Ages. They are one of ...
(''Gautar'') and their king Gizurr have been inserted directly after the Huns, where one logically would expect the Goths and their king Angantyr to appear. Valdar is also named as a king of the Danes in '' Guðrúnarkviða II''. After Heiðrekr's death, Hlöðr travels to Árheimar to claim half of the Gothic realm as his inheritance. His demand refers to the forest on the boundary separating the Goths and the Huns and to a "holy grave", apparently an important sanctuary of the Goths, but its background is unknown. Angantýr offers Hlöðr a third of his realm, and Gizur, Heiðrekr's old foster-father, says that this is more than enough for the son of a slave. On Hlöðr's return to the Hunnic realm, his grandfather Humli is enraged at the insult and gathers the army of the Huns. The poem ends with Angantýr finding his brother dead:


See also

*
Oium Oium was a name for Scythia, or a fertile part of it, roughly in modern Ukraine, where the Goths, under a legendary King Filimer, settled after leaving Gothiscandza, according to the ''Getica'' by Jordanes, written around 551. It is general ...
, the Gothic realm in Scythia, overrun by the Huns in the 370s *''
Poetic Edda The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems in alliterative verse. It is distinct from the closely related ''Prose Edda'', although both works are seminal to the study of Old Norse ...
''; the poem generally does not appear in Eddic poetry collections (exceptions include and ), but contains some poetry in a similar style


References


Sources

* , e-text * * * ;Translations * *
e-text
**Also Kershaw's translation alongside the Old Nors

**Also in * *


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hlodskvida Works set in the 4th century Works set in the 5th century Eddic poetry Epic poems Tyrfing cycle Huns