The brother's name in the Norse tradition is Gudhormr, in the German Ermenrich (Ermanaricus). Ermenrich Jörmunrekr means, like thjódrekr, a ruler over many people, a great king. Jordanes already has confounded the mythic Jörmunrekr-Gudhormr with the historical Gothic King Hermanaricus, whose kingdom was destroyed by the Huns, and has applied to him the saga of Svanhild and her brothers Sarus (Sörli) and Ammius (Hamdir), a saga which originally was connected with that of the mythic Jörmunrek. The Sigurd epic, which expanded with plunder from all sources, has added to the confusion by annexing this saga.
In the Roman authors the form Herminones is found by the side of Hermiones as the name of one of the three Teutonic tribes which descended from Mannus. It is possible, as already indicated, that -horm in Gudhorm is connected with the form Hermio, and it is probable, as already pointed out by several linguists, that the Teutonic irmin (jörmun, Goth. airmana) is linguistically connected with the word Hermino. In that case, the very names Gudhormr and Jörmunrekr already point as such to the mythic progenitor of the Hermiones, Herminones, just as Yngve-Svipdag's name points to the progenitor of the Ingvæones (Ingævones), and possibly also Hadding's to that of the Istævones (see No. 25). To the name Hadding corresponds, as already shown, the Anglo-Saxon Hearding, the old German Hartung. The Hasdingi (Asdingi) mentioned by Jordanes were the chief warriors of the Vandals (Goth. Orig., 22), and there may be a mythic reason for rediscovering this family name among an East Teutonic tribe (the Vandals), since Hadding, according to the myth, had his support among the East Teutonic tribes. To the form Hasdingi (Goth. Hazdiggós) the words istævones, istvæones, might readily enough correspond, provided the vowel i in the Latin form can be harmonised with a in the Teutonic. That the vowel i was an uncertain element may be seen from the genealogy in Codex La Cava, which calls Istævo Ostius, Hostius.
As to geography, both the Roman and Teutonic records agree that the northern Teutonic tribes were Ingævones. In the myths they are Scandinavians and neighbours to the Ingævones. In the Beowulf poem the king of the Danes is called eodor Inguina, the protection of the Ingævones, and freâ Inguina, the lord of the Ingævones. Tacitus says that they live nearest to the ocean (Germ., 2); Pliny says that Cimbrians, Teutons, and Chaucians were Ingævones (Hist. Nat., iv. 28). Pomponius Mela says that the land of the Cimbrians and Teutons was washed by the Codan bay (iii. 3). As to the Hermiones and Istævones, the former dwelt along the middle Rhine, and of the latter, who are the East Teutons of mythology, several tribes had already before the time of Pliny pressed forward south of the Hermiones to this river.
The German saga-cycle has preserved the tradition that in the first great battle in which Hadding-thjódrekr measured his strength with the North and West Teutons he suffered a great defeat. This is openly avowed in the Dieterich poem "die Klage." Those poems, on the other hand, which out of sympathy for their hero give him victory in this battle ("the Raben battle") nevertheless in fact acknowledge that such was not the case, for they make him return to the East after the battle and remain there many years, robbed of his crown, before he makes his second and successful attempt to regain his kingdom. Thus the "Raben battle" corresponds to the mythic battle in which Hadding is defeated by Ingævones and Hermiones. Besides the "Raben battle" has from a Teutonic standpoint a trait of universality, and the German tradition has upon the whole faithfully, and in harmony with the myth, grouped the allies and heroes of the hostile brothers. Dieterich is supported by East Teutonic warriors, and by non-Teutonic people from the East—from Poland, Wallachia, Russia, Greece, &c.; Ermenrich, on the other hand, by chiefs from Thuringia, Swabia, Hessen, Saxony, the Netherlands, England, and the North, and, above all, by the Burgundians, who in the genealogy in the St. Gaelen Codex are counted among the Hermiones, and in the genealogy in the La Cava Codex are counted with the Ingævones. For the mythic descent of the Burgundian dynasty from an uncle of Svipdag I shall present evidence in my chapters on the Ivalde race.
The original identity of Hadding's and Dieterich's sagas, and their descent from the myth concerning the earliest antiquity and the patriarchs, I now regard as demonstrated and established. The war between Hadding-Dieterich and Gudhorm-Ermenrich is identical with the conflict begun by Yngve-Svipdag between the tribes of the Ingævones, Hermiones, and Istævones. It has also been demonstrated that Halfdan, Gudhorm's, and Hadding's father, and Yngve-Svipdag's stepfather, is identical with Mannus. One of the results of this investigation is, therefore, that the songs about Mannus and his sons, ancient already in the days of Tacitus, have, more or less influenced by the centuries, continued to live far down in the middle ages, and that, not the songs themselves, but the main features of their contents, have been preserved to our time, and should again be incorporated in our mythology together with the myth in regard to the primeval time, the main outline of which has been restored, and the final episode of which is the first great war in the world.
The Norse-Icelandic school, which accepted and developed the learned hypothesis of the middle age in regard to the immigration of Odin and his Asiamen, is to blame that the myth, in many respects important, in regard to the olden time and its events in the world of gods and men—among Aryan myths one of the most important, either from a scientific or poetic point of view, that could be handed down to our time—was thrust aside and forgotten. The learned hypothesis and the ancient myth could not be harmonised. For that reason the latter had to yield. Nor was there anything in this myth that particularly appealed to the Norse national feeling, and so could claim mercy. Norway is not at all named in it. Scania, Denmark, Svithiod (Sweden), and continental Teutondom are the scene of the mythic events. Among the many causes co-operating in Christian times, in giving what is now called "Norse mythology" its present character, there is not one which has contributed so much as the rejection of this myth toward giving "Norse mythology" the stamp which it hitherto has borne of a narrow, illiberal town mythology, which, built chiefly on the foundation of the Younger Edda, is, as shall be shown in the present work, in many respects a caricature of the real Norse, and at the same time in its main outlines Teutonic, mythology.
In regard to the ancient Aryan elements in the myth here presented, see Nos. 82 and 111.
IV.
THE MYTH IN REGARD TO THE LOWER WORLD.