Geats, Geatas, Gautar, Goths, Gotar, Gøtar, Götar were a North Teutonish folk which were the dwellers of Götaland ("Geatland") in new Sweden. The name of the Geats also lives on in the Swedish shires of Västergötland ("Westgeatland") and Östergötland ("Eastgeatland"), as well as in many steadnames. The town Göteborg, known in English as Gothenbury, was named after the Geats (Geatsbury or Stronghold of the Geats), when it was founded in 1621.
The earliest time the Geats were spoken of may kythe in Ptolemy (2nd hundredyear A.D.), where they are called Goutai. In the 6th hundredyear, they were called Gautigoths and Ostrogoths (the Ostrogoths of Scandza) by Jordanes and as Gautoi by Procopius. In the Norse Sagas they are spoken of as Gautar, and in Beowulf and Widsith as Geatas.
Beowulf and the Norse Sagas name sundry Geatish kings, but only Hygelac finds true knowledge in Liber Monstrorum where he is called Rex Getarum and in an eftwork of Historiae Francorum where he is called Rege Gotorum. These springheads tell of a Viking raid into Frishland, about 516, which is also spoken of in Beowulf. Some tenyears after the happening akin in this saga, Jordanes spake of the Geats as a thede which was bold and quick to betroth in war.
Before the banding of Sweden, the Geats were mootishly standalone of the Swedes, whose old name was Sweonas in Old English. When written stems unwhelm (somewhere at the end of the 10th hundredyear), the Geatish lands are told of as a deal of the still very shaky Swedish kingdom, but the way of their banding with the Swedes is a very moot thing to talk about.
Grounded on the lack of early middle-elthly stems, and the truth that the Geats were later a share of the kingdom of Sweden, folklorely writs believe a groundswellsome intaking by the Swedes, but the only outlasting folklore which deal with Swedish-Geatish wars are of half-folktalesome make and found in Beowulf. The Swedish inslaught of Geatish lands has been unravelled with Geatish entangling in the Gothish wars in southern Europe, which brought a great deal of Roman gold to Geatland, but also of course lessened their scoring(see Nordisk familjebok). The Hervarar saga is believed to inhold such folklore handed down from the 4th hundredyear. It tells that when the Hunnish Horde overran the land of the Goths and the Gothish king Angantyr hopelessly forsought to lead the gainstanding, it was the Geatish king Gizur who answered his call.
In these times, some lorechildren have taken belief against such an inslaught, because, the foretelling in the ending of Beowulf standing out, there is little written or oldenlorely true knowledge. It should also be logged that the Geatish lands, above all Westgeatland, show much Danish swaying in the 10th hundredyear.
In the Heimskringla, Snorri Sturluson writes about sundry clashes between Norwegians and Geats. He wrote that in the 9th hundredyear, there were clashes between the Geats and the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair, throughout Harald Fairhair's fighting in Geatland, a war the Geats had to fight without help from the Swedish king Erik Emundsson. He also wrote about Haakon I of Norway's ladenfare into Geatland and Harold I of Denmark's struggle against Jarl Ottar of Eastgeatland, and about Olaf the Holy's struggles with the Geats bewhile his war with Olof of Sweden.
The Geats were folklorely split into sundry lesser kingdoms, or ridings, which had their own things (moots of the folk) and laws. The greatest one of these ridings was Westgeatland, and it was in Westgeatland that the Thing of all Geats was held every year, near Skara.
Unlike the Swedes, who wielded the sundering hundare, the Geats wielded hærrad, like the Norwegians and the Danes. Oddly, it would be the Geatish name the became the shared name in the Swedish kingdom. This may be akin to the truth that sundry of the middle-elthly Swedish kings were of Geatish root and often lived foremost in Geatland.
In the 11th hundredyear, the Swedish House of Munsö was dead with Emund the Old. Stenkil, a Geat, was chosen king of Sweden, and the Geats would be weighty in the shaping of Sweden as a Christthrothen kingdom. However, this choosing also inled in a long while of burgherwar between Christlikers and heathens and between Geats and Swedes. The Geats slanted to be more Christtrothen, and the Swedes more heathen, which was why the Christtrothen Swedish king Inge the Elder fled to Westgeatland when outtaken for Blot-Sweyn, a king kinder towards Nordish heathendom, in the 1080s. Inge would take back the kingship and lord until his death.
The Geats were not handled as even with the Swedes. In his Gesta Danorum (book 13), the Danish 12th hundredyear yorewriter Saxo Grammaticus logged that the Geats had no say in the choosing of the king, only the Swedes. When in the 13th hundredyear the Westgeatish law was written, it put into mind for the Geats that they had to take on the choosing of the Swedes at the Stone of Mora: Sveær egho konong at taka ok sva vrækæ meaning It is the Swedes who have the right of choosing and outtaking the king.
One of these Swedish kings was Ragnvald Roundhead, who in 1125 was riding with his band of followers newly to be taken on as king by the Geats of Westgeatland. As he loathed the Geats, he chose not to ask for haftlings from their greates clans. He was slain near Falköping.
The unlikeness between Swedes and Geats lasted throughout the Middle Eldths, but the Geats became more and more weighty for Swedish thedish askings of greatness owing to the Geats' old link with the Goths. They wrangled that since the Goths and the Geats were the same thede, and the Geats were a deal of the kingdom of Sweden, this meant that the Swedes had beaten the Roman kyserdom. The earliest bearing witness of this asking comes from the Folkmoot of Basel, 1434, throughout which the Swedish forstanding bickered with the Spanish about who among them were the true Goths. The Spaniards wrangled that it was better to be stemmed from the bold Visigoths than from linger-at-homers. This kithshipsome stirring, which was not fettered to Sweden went by the name Gothicismus or in Swedish Göticism, that is Geatishness, as Geat and Goth were considered the same back then.
After the 15th hundredyear and the Kalmar Band, the Swedes and the Geats seem to have begun to see themselves as one thede, which is shown in the growing of svensk into a shared thedename. It was first an honeword calling those belonging to the Swedish folk, who are called svear in Swedish. As early as the 9th hundredyear, svear had been hazy meaning both the Swedish thede and being a rife name withholding the Geats, and this is the fettle in Adam of Bremen's work where the Geats (Goths) kythe both as a true thede and as deal of the Suiones. The forsoaking of the two thedes took a long time, however. In the early 20th hundreadyear, Nordisk familjebok logged that svensk had almost taken the spot of svear as a name for the Swedish folk.
Today, the forsoaking of the two thedes is most likely whole, as there is no longer any feelable teaming in Geatland with a Geatish feeling besides folk calling themselves västgötar (West Geats) and östgötar (East Geats) telling whether folk live in the great shires of Västergötland and Östergötland.
The unkything of the Geats as a thedish teaming is also witnessed by the truth that in 1974, the Swedish king stopped speaking of the Geats in his rightname. His rightname had until then rikesomely been svears och götars konung (king of Swedes and Geats/Goths, or Rex Sweorum et Gothorum) (see also King of the Goths).
On Geats and GothsEdit
Geatas was first Ur-Teutonish *Gautoz and Goths and Gutar were *Gutaniz. *Gautoz and *Gutaniz are two ablaut grades of an Ur-Teutonish word *geutan with the meaning "to birle" (new Swedish gjuta, new Teutonlandish giessen). The word comes from an Indo-Europeish root meaning to birle, bequeath holygift. There were thereby two from-comings from the same Ur-Teutonish thedename.
It is a long-standing row whether the Goths were Geats. Jordanes wrote that the Goths came from the iland of Scandza. Moreover, he told that on this iland there were three folks called the Gautigoths (liken Geat/Gaut), the Ostrogoths (liken the Swedish great-shire of Eastgeatland) and Vagoths (Gotlanders?).
Scandinavish begraving thews, such as the stone rings (domarringar), which are most widespread in Geatland and Gotland, and stelae (bautastenar) kythed in what is now northern Poland in the 1st hundredyear AD, hinting an inflow of Scandinavish folk throughout the making of the Gothish Wielbark kithship (English)(English). Moreover, in Eastgeatland, in Sweden, there is a sudden unkything of thorpes bewhile this tide.
On Gautar and GeatasEdit
The overall taken on teaming between the Götar and Gautar as the Geatas of Beowulf is foremost grounded on the watching that the Ö oneselfloud of new Swedish and the AU twiselfloud of Old Nordish are alike to the EA twiselfloud of Old English. Likwise, the Raumar are called Reamas in Beowulf.
|Swedish||Old Nordish||Old English|
and so on.
This alikeness seems to tip the swaying for most lorechildren. It is also grounded on the truth that in Beowulf, the Geatas live east of the Dene (over the sea) and near the Sweon, which alikens to the yorelorely spot of the Gautar between the Daner and the Svear.
Moreover, the tale of Beowulf, who leaves Geatland and arrives at the Danish hof after a sealy farfare, where he kills a beast, finds an alikeness in Hrólf Kraki's saga. In this saga, Bödvar Bjarki leaves Gautland and arrives at the Danish hof after a sealy farfare and kills a beast that has been bothering the Danes for two years (see also Origins for Beowulf and Hrólf Kraki).
Since the 19th hundredyear, sundry other thedes have been hinted to be alike the Geats, such as the Danes (Curt Weibull), the Jutes (Pontus Fahlbeck 1884), the Goths and the Gotlanders, (See s.a. the Oxford English Worbook which teams the Geats through Eotas, Iótas, Iútan and Geátas) with the Jutes called in the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People.
These thoughts have been hinted even though, in both Beowulf and Widsith, the Geats are clearly sundered from both Jutes Eótenas (or Ytum) and Danes. Thus any teaming between the Geatas and these two thedes is gainsaid by the two stem writings themselves.
Furthermore, the againbuilt root for both Geat and Gaut is *Gaut-, whereas the againbuilt root of Goth and Got(-land) is *Gut-. The root of Jute is rifely looked at as unknown.
Even if the teaming made in this writ is overall taken on, the setting is not dead and it will go on bringing up harsh feelings even in the aftertide—namely in Sweden, where the bickering about Sweden's eretide before the 11th hundredyear is swayed.
The last folk that were clearly Geats were of the Krimland (Common English: Crimea), and were a peaceful folk which lived in spread out villages that were not linked. Word of an East Dutchlandish tung (Krimska Geatish) in Krimland was known to be as early as the 8th hundredyear, and it was last spoken in the 18th hundredyear before it was a dead tung, last of the East Dutchlandish Tungs to be spoken and used. But, a Holy Book is written in another Geatish Tung, Christish (Holy Book) Geatish, thus, upholding East Dutchlandish as a whole for the books.
- ↑ E.g. Microsoft Encarta (on Swedish eretide), overbringings from Old Norse (English), Anglo-Saxon (English) or Latin (English) and the First Tale and new lorechildsome works on Teutonish folks.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 The writing Svear in Nationalencyklopedin.
- ↑ The earliest witness-bearing of this meaning is from the mid-15th hundredyear Swedish Tale.
- ↑ The writing Sverige, språkv. in Nordisk familjebok
- ↑ "god" in The Oxford English Wordbook Online. (2006).
- ↑ cf. Serbs and Sorbs, Polans and Poles, Slovenes and Slovaks in Slavish tungs.
- ↑ Oxenstierna, Graf E.C. : Die Urheimat der Goten. Leipzig, Mannus-Buecherei 73, 1945 (later outbrought in 1948).