Götar to the north of the river had long been politically subject to Norway[[685]]: and the Heimskringla tells us how this happened.
Harold Fairhair, King of Norway (a contemporary of King Alfred), attacked them: they had staked the river Götaelv against him, but he moored his ships to the stakes[[686]] and harried on either shore: he fought far and wide in the country, had many battles on either side of the river, and finally slew the leader of the Götar, Hrani Gauzki (the Götlander). Then he annexed to Norway all the land north of the river and west of Lake Wener. Thenceforward the Götaelv was the boundary between Norway and West Gothland, though the country ultimately became Swedish, as it now is. But it is abundantly clear from the Heimskringla that Harold regarded as hostile all the territory north of the Götaelv, and between Lake Wener and the sea[[687]] (the old Ránriki and the modern Bohuslän).
But, if so, then the objection that the Götar are not a sufficiently maritime people becomes untenable. For precisely to this region belong the earliest records of maritime warfare to be found in the north of Europe, possibly the earliest in Europe. The smooth rocks of Bohuslän are covered with incised pictures of the Bronze age: and the favourite subject of these is ships and naval encounters. About 120 different pictures of ships and sea fights are reproduced by one scholar alone[[688]]. And at the present day this province of Göteborg and Bohus is the most important centre in Sweden both of fishery and shipping. Indeed, more than one quarter of the total tonnage of the modern Swedish mercantile marine comes from this comparatively tiny strip of coast[[689]].
It is surely quite absurd to urge that the men of this coast could not have harried the Frisians in the manner in which Hygelac is represented as doing. And surely it is equally absurd to urge that the people of this coast would not have had to fear a return attack from the Frisians, after the downfall of their own kings. The Frisians seem to have been "the chief channel of communication between the North and West of Europe[[690]]" before the rise of the Scandinavian Vikings, and to have been supreme in the North Sea. The Franks were of course a land power, but the Franks, when in alliance with the Frisians, were by no means helpless at sea. Gregory of Tours tells us that they overthrew Hygelac on land, and then in a sea fight annihilated his fleet. Now the poet says that the Geatas may expect war when the Franks and Frisians hear of Beowulf's fall. The objection that, because they feared the Franks, the Geatas must have been reachable by land, depends upon leaving the "and Frisians" out of consideration.
"Now we may look for a time of war" says the messenger "when the fall of our king is known among the Franks and Frisians": then he gives a brief account of the raid upon the land of the Frisians and concludes: "Ever since then has the favour of the Merovingian king been denied us[[691]]." What is there in this to indicate whether the raiders came from Jutland, or from the coast of the Götar across the Cattegat, 50 miles further off? The messenger goes on to anticipate hostility from the Swedes[[692]]. To this, at any rate, the Götar were more exposed than the Jutes. Further, he concludes by anticipating the utter overthrow of the Geatas[[693]]: and the poet expressly tells us that these forebodings were justified[[694]]. There must therefore be a reference to some famous national catastrophe. Now the Götar did lose their independence, and were incorporated into the Swedish kingdom. When did the Jutes suffer any similar downfall at the hands of either Frisians, Franks, or Swedes?
The other geographical and historical arguments urged in favour of the Jutes, when carefully scrutinized, are found either
equally indecisive, or else actually to tell against the "Jute-theory." Schütte[[695]] thinks that the name "Wederas" (applied in Beowulf to the Geatas) is identical with the name Eudoses (that of a tribe mentioned by Tacitus, who may[[696]] have dwelt in Jutland). But this is impossible phonologically: Wederas is surely a shortened form of Weder-Gēatas, "the Storm-Geatas." Indeed, we have, in favour of the Götar-theory, the fact that the very name of the Wederas survives on the Bohuslän coast to this day, in the Wäder Öar and the Wäder Fiord.
Advocates of the "Jute-theory" lay great stress upon the fact that Gregory of Tours and the Liber Historiae Francorum call Hygelac a Dane[[697]]: Dani cum rege suo Chochilaico. Now, when Gregory wrote in the sixth century, either the Jutes were entirely distinct from, and independent of, the Danes, or they were not. If they were distinct, how do Gregory's words help the "Jute-theory"? He must be simply using "Dane," like the Anglo-Saxon historians, for "Scandinavian." But if the Jutes were not distinct from the Danes, then we have an argument against the "Jute-theory." For we know from Beowulf that the Geatas were quite distinct from the Danes[[698]], and quite independent of them[[699]].
It is repeatedly urged that the Geatas and Swedes fight ofer sǣ[[700]]. But sǣ can mean a great fresh-water lake, like Lake Wener, just as well as the ocean[[701]]: and as a matter of fact we know that the decisive battle did take place on Lake Wener, in stagno Waener, á Vænis ísi[[702]]. Lake Wener is an obvious battle place for Götar and Swedes. They were separated by the great and almost impassable forests of "Tived" and "Kolmård," and the lake was their simplest way of meeting[[703]]. But it does not equally fit Jutes and Swedes.