- Joined
- Jun 1, 2010
- Messages
- 747
The Heruli (spelled variously in Latin and Greek) were a nomadic Germanic people, who were subjugated by the Ostrogoths, Romans, Christians, and Huns in the 3rd to 5th centuries. The original home of the Heruli is given by the 6th century chronicler Jordanes (quoting Ablabius) as the Maeotian marshes at the confluence of the Tanais (Don) River and the "Maeotian Lake" (the Sea of Azov), in ancient Scythia (see Jordanes, Getica, XXIII, lines 117 and 121).
History
The 6th century chronicler Jordanes reports a tradition that they had been driven out of their homeland long before by the Dani, which would have located their origins in the Danish isles or southernmost Sweden. According to Procopius, they maintained close links with their kinsmen in Thule (Scandinavia). He relates that the Heruls killed their own king during their stay in the Balkans (cf. Domalde), and that they sent an emissary to Thule requesting a new king. Their request was granted, and a new king arrived with 200 young men.
"Harii"
Pliny and Tacitus (circa 95 CE) both mention Suebian tribes called Harii or Hirri (see references at bottom of page). That the Harii and the Heruli are basically synonymous is strongly evidenced by the fact that when Silinga, daughter of the last Heruli king Rhodoulph ("Honor-Wolf"?), married Wacho, king of the Lombards (died 539), as his third polygynous wife, she named her son by him Walter ("Walt-Hari", "ruler of the Hari/marauders"). Three classical sources, Procopius, the anonymous 7th century Origo gentis Langobardorum, and Paulus Diaconus, mention this episode. [Also note that the common name Harold is identical as well, from Hari-Walt.] From this, we can infer that the last known Heruli princess clearly believed that her royal son was "ruler of the Hari", speculatively equating the Heruli with the Hari. In addition, the Histories of Agathias mention that a Heruli leader was named Phoulkaris (Greek) or Folk-Harjiz, again with the hari element in a Herulian name. Hari is also a frequent element in the erilaz inscriptions below.
Heruli
The Heruls are first mentioned by Roman writers in the reign of Gallienus (260 - 268), when they accompanied the Goths ravaging the coasts of the Black Sea and the Aegean. The mixed warbands managed to sack Byzantium in 267, but their eastern contingent was virtually annihilated in the Balkans at the Battle of Naissus (Serbia) two years later, the battle that earned Marcus Aurelius Claudius his surname "Gothicus." A western contingent of Heruli are mentioned at the mouth of the Rhine in 289.
By the end of the 4th century the Heruls were subjugated by the Ostrogoths. When the Ostrogothic kingdom of Ermanaric was destroyed by the Huns in about 375, the Heruls became subject to the Hunnic empire. Only after the fall of the Hunnic realm in 454, were the Heruls able to create their own kingdom in southern Slovakia at the March and Theiss rivers.
After this kingdom was destroyed, however, Herulian fortunes waned. Remaining Heruls joined the Langobards and moved to Italy, and some of them sought refuge with the Gepids. Marcellinus comes recorded that the Romans who allowed them to resettled depopulated "lands and cities" in Moravia, near Singidunum (Belgrade); this was done "by order of Anastasius Caesar" sometime between June 29 and August 31, 512 CE. After one generation, this minor federate kingdom disappeared from the historical records. The Greek writer Procopius reported that a part of the defeated Heruli fled north to "Thule", which is usually identified as Scandinavia. No other source report about the Thule Heruli, and like their southern relatives they seemed to have disappeared from history without leaving much of a trace.
Records indicate, however, that the Heruli served in the armies of the Byzantine emperors for a number of years, in particular in the campaigns of Belisarius, when much of the old Roman territory, including Italy, Syria, and North Africa was recaptured. Several thousand Heruli served in the personal guard of Belisarius throughout the campaigns. They disappear from historical record by the mid-6th century.
According to Procopius, many Heruli returned to Scandinavia and settled besides the Geats (Gautoi). The place where they are assumed to have resettled is the provinces of Blechingia and Värend, two districts where the women had equal rights of inheritance with their brothers. Some noble Swedish families in the area also claim to be descendants of the returning Heruli.
No "Heruli" are mentioned in Anglo-Saxon, Frankish or Norse chronicles, so it is assumed they were known in the north and west by another name. Encyclopædia Britannica 1911 suggested that, since the name Heruli itself is identified by many with the Anglo-Saxon eorlas ("nobles"), 0ld Saxon erlos ("men"), the singular of which (erilaz) frequently occurs in the earliest Northern inscriptions, that "Heruli" may have been a title of honor.
From the end of the 3rd century, Heruls are also mentioned as raiders in Gaul and Spain, where they are mentioned together with Saxons and Alamanni. These Heruls are usually regarded as Western Heruls; their settlements are assumed to have been somewhere at the lower Rhine.
Characteristics of the Heruli tribe
Heruli (or Aeruli, Iruli, Eruli) is thought to be the Latin (and Herouloi, Erouloi, Airouloi, or Ailouroi in the Greek) for the Germanic tribal name Harjilaz, Herilaz, or Erilaz (theoretical plural, Heruloz) meaning "belonging to the marauders/harriers" [harji, from the Proto-Indo-European /koros/ means marauder/raider/harrier and ilaz, which is a suffix meaning "belonging to", synonymous to -ling in Modern English, i.e. earthling); the earliest runic attestation is a runic inscription found on a sword mounting in the Nydam Mose ship burial of 420 CE reading HARJILAZ AHTE or "Marauder Owned [this]"). The Heruli thought of themselves as "wolf-warriors", consecrated to the early Germanic wolf-god Wodan. Accordingly, the name seems transparent in Scandinavian as härjulvar, "harrying wolves". Historically known from the Greek Fragmenta of Eunapius, (Dindorf, Historici Graeci Minores, vol. 1, p. 253), a continuation of the history of Dexippus covering the years 270 to 404 CE, is a Gothic warrior-leader traitorous to Theodosius I called Erioulphos, described as “a man half-mad" who is in "a rage more furious than the rest" (hemimanes, luttodesteros), living circa 380 CE, stabbed to death by Theodosius' man. The obvious interpretation of this warrior's Hellenized name is (H)eri-Wulf, marauder-wolf. Also note the prevalence of compound names containing wolf as an element in the ErilaZ inscriptions below.
According to Paul the Deacon, the Heruli fought nearly naked: "Either to fight more expediently or to show their contempt for wounds of the enemy, they fought nude, covering only a part of the body modestly [i.e. the genitals]." Around 90 CE Tacitus claimed in the Germania that the strength of the Suebian tribe he called the Harii (the immediate cultural predecessors of the Harjilaz/Erilaz/Heruli) excelled that of the other four most powerful Suebian tribes, and the Heruli were later described in much the same terms by Mamertinus in 289 CE. Tacitus then adds that the Harii "accentuate their innate fierceness with art and timing" by which he means the use of cunning psychological warfare. The "art" referred to is painting their shields and naked bodies black. The proper "timing" is "pitch black nights for battles", probably referring to the darkest nights around the new moon. The naked, lightly armed Harii then would present themselves to their foe as a "shadowy, funereal host", which, coupled with their already great fierceness, ensured their victory, for "no enemy can sustain a sight that is so new to them and just as infernal." Tacitus then finishes his commentary on the Harii with a famous sententia: "For in all battles, first the eyes are defeated." (43.2, 4)
Precursors to the berserkers of the Vikings, the Heruli would attain states of ecstasy called wodnysse in Old English, or literally "Wodan-ness", madness inspired by Wodan, the raging wolf-god. Wodynisse was entered into either for battle, or for composing and reciting complex poetry, riddles, and genealogies. (See the Old English Life of St. Guthlac by Felix of Crowland for the 8th century account of a young East Anglian noble man named Hwaetred who is overcome by wodnysse for some four years, becoming uncontrollably violent, until cured by the hermit Guthlac in the fens of Crowland. Hereward the Wake - or "Marauder-guard the Watcher" - is another Anglo-Saxon youth who at the time of the Norman invasion of England, enters into states of raging wodnysse and with a troop of fellow outlaws, harries the Normans from the fens and marshes of Northumbria.) Tales of the new moon, night-time raids of the Heruli became the basis for the legend of the Wild Hunt, headed by King "Herla". (NB: the verbs harry and harangue are etymologically related to "Harji".)
Kris Kershaw's brilliant academic monograph, The One-Eyed God: Odin and the Indo-Germanic Männerbünde, published by the prestigious Journal of Indo-European Studies in 2001, has documented that the Harii/Heruli were organized as "wolf-packs" taken from all the Suebian tribes, each pack of no more than a dozen or so was led by two older males, much like an alpha- and beta-wolf. Younger men (aged approximately 15-21) comprised the retinue of the two wolf-leaders. These wolf-packs of young male initiants lived in the liminal wild, inhabiting marsh and fen to learn survival skills before being allowed to enter manhood and full civic life. After their summer-long (from April 31 to October 31, May Day to Halloween) training in military, genealogy, poetry, cult practice, sexuality, and other items necessary to social order, the older youths were initiated into full manhood after they had killed another man in battle, or had killed a wild boar or large bear in the hunt. The younger youths returned home for wintering and would only rejoin the Harii again at the end of the following April.
As Russian scholar, Askold Ivancik of the Institute for Oriental Studies in Moscow, has documented, the Indo-European männerbünde's "patron, the warrior-god, was explicitly venerated under the aspect of the wolf, but more important than this is that all members of these societies were also considered as either dogs or as wolves. Then in the initiation rite, the young warriors, with the aid of intoxicating or narcotic substances, transformed themselves magically into wolves. They had to live for a certain time far away from any habitations 'after the fashion of wolves', which meant to hunt, harry, and make war." (Translation from the French by Connell O'Donovan; see A. Ivancik, "Les Guerriers-Chiens: Loups-garous et invasions scythes en Asie Mineure", (The Warrior-Dogs: Werewolves and Scythian Invasions in Asia Minor), Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, Presses Universitaires de France, CCX 3, 1993, pp. 305-329. For more on the Indo-European "wolf-warriors", see also Jaan Puhvel, "Hittite hurkis and hurkel", Die Sprache 17 (1971) pp. 42-45 and Mary R. Gerstein's highly regarded work based on Puhvel, "Germanic Warg: The Outlaw as Werwolf", in Larson and Puhvel's Myth in Indo-European Antiquity, 1974, University of California Press, pp. 131-156.)
Exclusively foot-soldiers, the Heruli were a nomadic tribe who used horses only for moving their camps. A particularly frightening tactic of the Heruli which amazed the Romans, was that they were so fast on foot that they would team up with a horse-riding warrior, hang on to the mane of the horse with their left hand, wield their swords with their right hand, and charge into battle, running as fast as the horse directly into the fray.
The Heruli mythos also connected them intrinsically to marshes, bogs, and fens. Their own etiological legend places their origins in the Maeotian Marsh at the mouth of the Tanais (Don) River, as reported by Jordanes in the Getica (23.117, 121); the Byzantine chronicler, George Synkellos, also places 500 ships of "Ailouroi" (sic) pirates near the Maeotian Marsh circa 268 CE, before they sacked Byzantium, Athens, and other important cities. Since the Harii-Heruli were mostly youths aged 15-21, liminally between childhood and manhood, their relationship to the liminality of marshes (not quite water, not quite terra firma) is given more depth.
Interestingly, two other infamous tribes have the Maeotian Marsh as their ur-home: the hyper-masculine warrior women known by the Greeks as the Amazons, and the Huns, who share many attributes with the nomadic, marauding Heruli. According to Priscius, Jordanes, and Procopius, the Huns were descendants of "unclean spirits" inhabiting the Maeotian Marsh, and expelled Gothic magas mulieres, women-magi called Haliurunnas (evidently related to the Germanic alarauna, the mandrake root, associated with seminal fertility rituals). The Huns, like the Heruli, lived only by harrying their neighbors and hunting. Jordanes, quoting Priscius in Getica 24, specifies that circa 400 CE the Huns discovered Scythia "by divine power" one day while "seeking game along their shore of Maeotis, [and] noticed a hind [doe] which suddenly appeared to them, entered the marsh and, now moving ahead and now waiting for them, led them along a path. This the hunters followed and crossed on foot the Maeotian marsh which they thought to be as impassable as the sea. Soon the land of Scythia, which was unknown to them, came into view, and the hind disappeared."
This tale of a supernatural doe leading "Gothic" marauders to safety is strikingly similar to a tale recounted in the 12th century about the Anglo-Saxon harrier, Hereward (see above). The Gestis Herewardi, Chaps. XXVIII and XXIX, tells of the young Hereward's plundering of the abbey of Peterborough, bordering the fenland of Northumbria (where Hereward and his gang hide while harrying the locals and Norman invades). That night while in hiding, Hereward dreams of a menacing old man, something of a cross between St. Peter and Wodan, who warns Hereward to return the stolen church treasures. The following day, Hereward and gang return what they have sacked from the abbey. However, afterwards the men unexpectedly go astray and get lost. The Gestis reports that a miraculous wolf (both Peter's and Wodan's animal) appears to the men to guide their way: "A marvelous thing happened to them while they were astray thus - a miracle, if such things can reasonably be said to happen to flesh and blood. For while in the stormy night and gloom they were wandering hither and thither through the forests, not knowing where they were going, a huge wolf came in front of them, fawning on them like a tame dog and walking along in front of them down the path. In the obscuring gloom they mistook it for a white dog because of its grey coat, and urged one another to follow the dog closely, declaring that it must have come from some village. This they did. And in the midst of the night, they discovered that they had succeeded in getting out of the by-way and recognizing the road....And then with dawning day they all eventually found to their astonishment that their guide had been a wolf. And while they were at a loss to know what had happened to them, the wolf disappeared...and they had got to where they wanted, beyond Stamford."
Please leave a comment about the early viking tribes.
History
The 6th century chronicler Jordanes reports a tradition that they had been driven out of their homeland long before by the Dani, which would have located their origins in the Danish isles or southernmost Sweden. According to Procopius, they maintained close links with their kinsmen in Thule (Scandinavia). He relates that the Heruls killed their own king during their stay in the Balkans (cf. Domalde), and that they sent an emissary to Thule requesting a new king. Their request was granted, and a new king arrived with 200 young men.
"Harii"
Pliny and Tacitus (circa 95 CE) both mention Suebian tribes called Harii or Hirri (see references at bottom of page). That the Harii and the Heruli are basically synonymous is strongly evidenced by the fact that when Silinga, daughter of the last Heruli king Rhodoulph ("Honor-Wolf"?), married Wacho, king of the Lombards (died 539), as his third polygynous wife, she named her son by him Walter ("Walt-Hari", "ruler of the Hari/marauders"). Three classical sources, Procopius, the anonymous 7th century Origo gentis Langobardorum, and Paulus Diaconus, mention this episode. [Also note that the common name Harold is identical as well, from Hari-Walt.] From this, we can infer that the last known Heruli princess clearly believed that her royal son was "ruler of the Hari", speculatively equating the Heruli with the Hari. In addition, the Histories of Agathias mention that a Heruli leader was named Phoulkaris (Greek) or Folk-Harjiz, again with the hari element in a Herulian name. Hari is also a frequent element in the erilaz inscriptions below.
Heruli
The Heruls are first mentioned by Roman writers in the reign of Gallienus (260 - 268), when they accompanied the Goths ravaging the coasts of the Black Sea and the Aegean. The mixed warbands managed to sack Byzantium in 267, but their eastern contingent was virtually annihilated in the Balkans at the Battle of Naissus (Serbia) two years later, the battle that earned Marcus Aurelius Claudius his surname "Gothicus." A western contingent of Heruli are mentioned at the mouth of the Rhine in 289.
By the end of the 4th century the Heruls were subjugated by the Ostrogoths. When the Ostrogothic kingdom of Ermanaric was destroyed by the Huns in about 375, the Heruls became subject to the Hunnic empire. Only after the fall of the Hunnic realm in 454, were the Heruls able to create their own kingdom in southern Slovakia at the March and Theiss rivers.
After this kingdom was destroyed, however, Herulian fortunes waned. Remaining Heruls joined the Langobards and moved to Italy, and some of them sought refuge with the Gepids. Marcellinus comes recorded that the Romans who allowed them to resettled depopulated "lands and cities" in Moravia, near Singidunum (Belgrade); this was done "by order of Anastasius Caesar" sometime between June 29 and August 31, 512 CE. After one generation, this minor federate kingdom disappeared from the historical records. The Greek writer Procopius reported that a part of the defeated Heruli fled north to "Thule", which is usually identified as Scandinavia. No other source report about the Thule Heruli, and like their southern relatives they seemed to have disappeared from history without leaving much of a trace.
Records indicate, however, that the Heruli served in the armies of the Byzantine emperors for a number of years, in particular in the campaigns of Belisarius, when much of the old Roman territory, including Italy, Syria, and North Africa was recaptured. Several thousand Heruli served in the personal guard of Belisarius throughout the campaigns. They disappear from historical record by the mid-6th century.
According to Procopius, many Heruli returned to Scandinavia and settled besides the Geats (Gautoi). The place where they are assumed to have resettled is the provinces of Blechingia and Värend, two districts where the women had equal rights of inheritance with their brothers. Some noble Swedish families in the area also claim to be descendants of the returning Heruli.
No "Heruli" are mentioned in Anglo-Saxon, Frankish or Norse chronicles, so it is assumed they were known in the north and west by another name. Encyclopædia Britannica 1911 suggested that, since the name Heruli itself is identified by many with the Anglo-Saxon eorlas ("nobles"), 0ld Saxon erlos ("men"), the singular of which (erilaz) frequently occurs in the earliest Northern inscriptions, that "Heruli" may have been a title of honor.
From the end of the 3rd century, Heruls are also mentioned as raiders in Gaul and Spain, where they are mentioned together with Saxons and Alamanni. These Heruls are usually regarded as Western Heruls; their settlements are assumed to have been somewhere at the lower Rhine.
Characteristics of the Heruli tribe
Heruli (or Aeruli, Iruli, Eruli) is thought to be the Latin (and Herouloi, Erouloi, Airouloi, or Ailouroi in the Greek) for the Germanic tribal name Harjilaz, Herilaz, or Erilaz (theoretical plural, Heruloz) meaning "belonging to the marauders/harriers" [harji, from the Proto-Indo-European /koros/ means marauder/raider/harrier and ilaz, which is a suffix meaning "belonging to", synonymous to -ling in Modern English, i.e. earthling); the earliest runic attestation is a runic inscription found on a sword mounting in the Nydam Mose ship burial of 420 CE reading HARJILAZ AHTE or "Marauder Owned [this]"). The Heruli thought of themselves as "wolf-warriors", consecrated to the early Germanic wolf-god Wodan. Accordingly, the name seems transparent in Scandinavian as härjulvar, "harrying wolves". Historically known from the Greek Fragmenta of Eunapius, (Dindorf, Historici Graeci Minores, vol. 1, p. 253), a continuation of the history of Dexippus covering the years 270 to 404 CE, is a Gothic warrior-leader traitorous to Theodosius I called Erioulphos, described as “a man half-mad" who is in "a rage more furious than the rest" (hemimanes, luttodesteros), living circa 380 CE, stabbed to death by Theodosius' man. The obvious interpretation of this warrior's Hellenized name is (H)eri-Wulf, marauder-wolf. Also note the prevalence of compound names containing wolf as an element in the ErilaZ inscriptions below.
According to Paul the Deacon, the Heruli fought nearly naked: "Either to fight more expediently or to show their contempt for wounds of the enemy, they fought nude, covering only a part of the body modestly [i.e. the genitals]." Around 90 CE Tacitus claimed in the Germania that the strength of the Suebian tribe he called the Harii (the immediate cultural predecessors of the Harjilaz/Erilaz/Heruli) excelled that of the other four most powerful Suebian tribes, and the Heruli were later described in much the same terms by Mamertinus in 289 CE. Tacitus then adds that the Harii "accentuate their innate fierceness with art and timing" by which he means the use of cunning psychological warfare. The "art" referred to is painting their shields and naked bodies black. The proper "timing" is "pitch black nights for battles", probably referring to the darkest nights around the new moon. The naked, lightly armed Harii then would present themselves to their foe as a "shadowy, funereal host", which, coupled with their already great fierceness, ensured their victory, for "no enemy can sustain a sight that is so new to them and just as infernal." Tacitus then finishes his commentary on the Harii with a famous sententia: "For in all battles, first the eyes are defeated." (43.2, 4)
Precursors to the berserkers of the Vikings, the Heruli would attain states of ecstasy called wodnysse in Old English, or literally "Wodan-ness", madness inspired by Wodan, the raging wolf-god. Wodynisse was entered into either for battle, or for composing and reciting complex poetry, riddles, and genealogies. (See the Old English Life of St. Guthlac by Felix of Crowland for the 8th century account of a young East Anglian noble man named Hwaetred who is overcome by wodnysse for some four years, becoming uncontrollably violent, until cured by the hermit Guthlac in the fens of Crowland. Hereward the Wake - or "Marauder-guard the Watcher" - is another Anglo-Saxon youth who at the time of the Norman invasion of England, enters into states of raging wodnysse and with a troop of fellow outlaws, harries the Normans from the fens and marshes of Northumbria.) Tales of the new moon, night-time raids of the Heruli became the basis for the legend of the Wild Hunt, headed by King "Herla". (NB: the verbs harry and harangue are etymologically related to "Harji".)
Kris Kershaw's brilliant academic monograph, The One-Eyed God: Odin and the Indo-Germanic Männerbünde, published by the prestigious Journal of Indo-European Studies in 2001, has documented that the Harii/Heruli were organized as "wolf-packs" taken from all the Suebian tribes, each pack of no more than a dozen or so was led by two older males, much like an alpha- and beta-wolf. Younger men (aged approximately 15-21) comprised the retinue of the two wolf-leaders. These wolf-packs of young male initiants lived in the liminal wild, inhabiting marsh and fen to learn survival skills before being allowed to enter manhood and full civic life. After their summer-long (from April 31 to October 31, May Day to Halloween) training in military, genealogy, poetry, cult practice, sexuality, and other items necessary to social order, the older youths were initiated into full manhood after they had killed another man in battle, or had killed a wild boar or large bear in the hunt. The younger youths returned home for wintering and would only rejoin the Harii again at the end of the following April.
As Russian scholar, Askold Ivancik of the Institute for Oriental Studies in Moscow, has documented, the Indo-European männerbünde's "patron, the warrior-god, was explicitly venerated under the aspect of the wolf, but more important than this is that all members of these societies were also considered as either dogs or as wolves. Then in the initiation rite, the young warriors, with the aid of intoxicating or narcotic substances, transformed themselves magically into wolves. They had to live for a certain time far away from any habitations 'after the fashion of wolves', which meant to hunt, harry, and make war." (Translation from the French by Connell O'Donovan; see A. Ivancik, "Les Guerriers-Chiens: Loups-garous et invasions scythes en Asie Mineure", (The Warrior-Dogs: Werewolves and Scythian Invasions in Asia Minor), Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, Presses Universitaires de France, CCX 3, 1993, pp. 305-329. For more on the Indo-European "wolf-warriors", see also Jaan Puhvel, "Hittite hurkis and hurkel", Die Sprache 17 (1971) pp. 42-45 and Mary R. Gerstein's highly regarded work based on Puhvel, "Germanic Warg: The Outlaw as Werwolf", in Larson and Puhvel's Myth in Indo-European Antiquity, 1974, University of California Press, pp. 131-156.)
Exclusively foot-soldiers, the Heruli were a nomadic tribe who used horses only for moving their camps. A particularly frightening tactic of the Heruli which amazed the Romans, was that they were so fast on foot that they would team up with a horse-riding warrior, hang on to the mane of the horse with their left hand, wield their swords with their right hand, and charge into battle, running as fast as the horse directly into the fray.
The Heruli mythos also connected them intrinsically to marshes, bogs, and fens. Their own etiological legend places their origins in the Maeotian Marsh at the mouth of the Tanais (Don) River, as reported by Jordanes in the Getica (23.117, 121); the Byzantine chronicler, George Synkellos, also places 500 ships of "Ailouroi" (sic) pirates near the Maeotian Marsh circa 268 CE, before they sacked Byzantium, Athens, and other important cities. Since the Harii-Heruli were mostly youths aged 15-21, liminally between childhood and manhood, their relationship to the liminality of marshes (not quite water, not quite terra firma) is given more depth.
Interestingly, two other infamous tribes have the Maeotian Marsh as their ur-home: the hyper-masculine warrior women known by the Greeks as the Amazons, and the Huns, who share many attributes with the nomadic, marauding Heruli. According to Priscius, Jordanes, and Procopius, the Huns were descendants of "unclean spirits" inhabiting the Maeotian Marsh, and expelled Gothic magas mulieres, women-magi called Haliurunnas (evidently related to the Germanic alarauna, the mandrake root, associated with seminal fertility rituals). The Huns, like the Heruli, lived only by harrying their neighbors and hunting. Jordanes, quoting Priscius in Getica 24, specifies that circa 400 CE the Huns discovered Scythia "by divine power" one day while "seeking game along their shore of Maeotis, [and] noticed a hind [doe] which suddenly appeared to them, entered the marsh and, now moving ahead and now waiting for them, led them along a path. This the hunters followed and crossed on foot the Maeotian marsh which they thought to be as impassable as the sea. Soon the land of Scythia, which was unknown to them, came into view, and the hind disappeared."
This tale of a supernatural doe leading "Gothic" marauders to safety is strikingly similar to a tale recounted in the 12th century about the Anglo-Saxon harrier, Hereward (see above). The Gestis Herewardi, Chaps. XXVIII and XXIX, tells of the young Hereward's plundering of the abbey of Peterborough, bordering the fenland of Northumbria (where Hereward and his gang hide while harrying the locals and Norman invades). That night while in hiding, Hereward dreams of a menacing old man, something of a cross between St. Peter and Wodan, who warns Hereward to return the stolen church treasures. The following day, Hereward and gang return what they have sacked from the abbey. However, afterwards the men unexpectedly go astray and get lost. The Gestis reports that a miraculous wolf (both Peter's and Wodan's animal) appears to the men to guide their way: "A marvelous thing happened to them while they were astray thus - a miracle, if such things can reasonably be said to happen to flesh and blood. For while in the stormy night and gloom they were wandering hither and thither through the forests, not knowing where they were going, a huge wolf came in front of them, fawning on them like a tame dog and walking along in front of them down the path. In the obscuring gloom they mistook it for a white dog because of its grey coat, and urged one another to follow the dog closely, declaring that it must have come from some village. This they did. And in the midst of the night, they discovered that they had succeeded in getting out of the by-way and recognizing the road....And then with dawning day they all eventually found to their astonishment that their guide had been a wolf. And while they were at a loss to know what had happened to them, the wolf disappeared...and they had got to where they wanted, beyond Stamford."
Please leave a comment about the early viking tribes.
