Section II. The Geatas—their Kings and their Wars.

Beowulf's people have been identified with many tribes: but there is strong evidence that the Geatas are the Götar (O.N. Gautar), the inhabitants of what is now a portion of Southern Sweden, immediately to the south of the great lakes Wener and Wetter. The names Geatas and Gautar correspond exactly[[3]], according to the rules of O.E. and O.N. phonetic development, and all we can ascertain of the Geatas and of the Gautar harmonizes well with the identification[[4]].

We know of one occasion only when the Geatas came into violent contact with the world outside Scandinavia. Putting together the accounts which we receive from Gregory of Tours and from two other (anonymous) writers, we learn that a piratical raid was made upon the country of the Atuarii (the O.E. Hetware) who dwelt between the lower Rhine and what is now the Zuyder Zee, by a king whose name is spelt in a variety of ways, all of which readily admit of identification with that of the Hygelac of our poem[[5]]. From the land of the Atuarii this king carried much spoil to his ships; but, remaining on shore, he was overwhelmed and slain by the army which the

Frankish king Theodoric had sent under his son to the rescue of these outlying provinces; the plunderers' fleet was routed and the booty restored to the country. The bones of this gigantic king of the "Getae" [presumably = Geatas] were long preserved, it was said, on an island near the mouth of the Rhine.

Such is the story of the raid, so far as we can reconstruct it from monkish Latin sources. The precise date is not given, but it must have been between A.D. 512 and 520.

Now this disastrous raid of Hygelac is referred to constantly in Beowulf: and the mention there of Hetware, Franks and the Merovingian king as the foes confirms an identification which would be satisfactory even without these additional data[[6]].

Our authorities are:

(1) Gregory of Tours (d. 594):

His ita gestis, Dani cum rege suo nomine Chlochilaico evectu navale per mare Gallias appetunt. Egressique ad terras, pagum unum de regno Theudorici devastant atque captivant, oneratisque navibus tam de captivis quam de reliquis spoliis, reverti ad patriam cupiunt; sed rex eorum in litus resedebat donec naves alto mare conpraehenderent, ipse deinceps secuturus. Quod cum Theudorico nuntiatum fuisset, quod scilicet regio ejus fuerit ab extraneis devastata, Theudobertum, filium suum, in illis partibus cum valido exercitu et magno armorum apparatu direxit. Qui, interfecto rege, hostibus navali proelio superatis opprimit, omnemque rapinam terrae restituit.

The name of the vanquished king is spelt in a variety of ways: Chlochilaichum, Chrochilaicho, Chlodilaichum, Hrodolaicum.

See Gregorii episcopi Turonensis Historia Francorum, p. 110, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Scriptores rerum merovingicarum, I).

(2) The Liber Historiae Francorum (commonly called the Gesta Francorum):

In illo tempore Dani cum rege suo nomine Chochilaico cum navale hoste per alto mare Gallias appetent, Theuderico paygo [i.e. pagum] Attoarios vel alios devastantes atque captivantes plenas naves de captivis alto mare intrantes rex eorum ad litus maris resedens. Quod cum Theuderico nuntiatum fuisset, Theudobertum filium suum cum magno exercitu in illis partibus dirigens. Qui consequens eos, pugnavit cum eis caede magna atque prostravit, regem eorum interficit, preda tullit, et in terra sua restituit.

The Liber Historiae Francorum was written in 727, but although so much later than Gregory, it preserves features which are wanting in the earlier historian, such as the mention of the Hetware (Attoarii). Note too that the name of the invading king is given in a form which approximates more closely to Hygelac than that of any of the MSS of Gregory: variants are Chrochilaico, Chohilaico, Chochilago, etc.

See Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Scriptores rerum merovingicarum, II, 274).

(3) An anonymous work On monsters and strange beasts, appended to two MSS of Phaedrus.

Et sunt [monstra] mirae magnitudinis: ut rex Huiglaucus qui imperavit Getis et a Francis occisus est. Quem equus a duodecimo anno portare non potuit. Cujus ossa in Reni fluminis insula, ubi in Oceanum prorumpit, reservata sunt et de longinquo venientibus pro miraculo ostenduntur.

This treatise was first printed (from a MS of the tenth century, in private possession) by J. Berger de Xivrey (Traditions tératologiques, Paris, 1836, p. 12). It was again published from a second MS at Wolfenbüttel by Haupt (see his Opuscula II, 223, 1876). This MS is in some respects less accurate, reading Huncglacus for Huiglaucus, and gentes for Getis. The treatise is assigned by Berger de Xivrey to the sixth century, on grounds which are hardly conclusive (p. xxxiv). Haupt would date it not later than the eighth century (II, 220).

The importance of this reference lies in its describing Hygelac as king of the Getae, and in its fixing the spot where his bones were preserved as near the mouth of the Rhine[[7]].

But if Beowulf is supported in this matter by what is almost contemporary evidence (for Gregory of Tours was born only some twenty years after the raid he narrates) we shall probably be right in arguing that the other stories from the history of the Geatas, their Danish friends, and their Swedish foes, told with what seems to be such historic sincerity in the different digressions of our poem, are equally based on fact. True, we have no evidence outside Beowulf for Hygelac's father, king Hrethel, nor for Hygelac's elder brothers, Herebeald and Hæthcyn; and very little for Hæthcyn's deadly foe, the Swedish king Ongentheow[[8]].

And in the last case, at any rate, such evidence might