Hlöðskviða

Gizur challenges the Huns.

Hlöðskviða or The Battle of the Goths and Huns is sometimes counted among the Eddic Poems. It has been preserved as separate stanzas interspersed among the text in Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks (chapters 13 and 14, the stanzas are numbered 1 to 32, after their arrangement within the prose). It is generally agreed that it was originally a poetic whole. The length of the preserved text amounts to 233 lines, constituting a fragment of a longer poem.

Heiðrekr, king of the Goths, had two sons, Angantýr and Hlöðr. Only Angantýr was legitimate, so he inherited his father's kingdom. Hlöðr, whose mother was the daughter of Humli, king of the Huns, and who was born and raised among the Huns, claimed half the inheritance, Angantýr refused to split evenly and war ensued, claiming first Hervör, their sister, then Hlöðr himself as casualties.

Stanza 1 lists peoples and their rulers:

Ár kváðu Humla Húnum ráða, Gizur Gautum, Gotum Angantý, Valdarr Dönum, en Völum Kíarr, Alrekr inn frækni enskri þjóðu.

"Of old, goes the tale, did Humli rule the Huns Gizur the Geats Angantyr the Goths Valdar the Danes Caesar the Walha (Romans) and brave Alrek (possibly Alfred the Great) the English nation"

Valdar is named as a king of the Danes in Guðrúnarkviða II; Saxo Grammaticus has Humblus son of Danus, first king of the Danes, but Humli here is mostly identified with Attila.

After Heidrek's death, Hlod travels to Arheimar to claim half of the Gothic realm as his inheritance. In Hlod's demand (stanza 10) the forest on the boundary separating the Goths and the Huns, and a "holy grave" is referred to, apparently an important sanctuary of the Goths, but its background is unknown.

Hrís þat it mæra, er Myrkvið heita, gröf þá ina helgu, er stendr á Goðþjóðu, stein þann inn fagra, er stendr á stöðum Danpar, halfar herborgir, þær er Heiðrekr átti, lönd ok lýða ok ljósa bauga.

the famous forest called Mirkwood there the holy grave on the Gothic highway that famous rock on the banks of the Dniepr half of the war-gear that was Heidrek's land and people and bright rings.

Angatyr offers Hlod a third of his realm, and Gizur, the old foster-father of Heidrek's says that this is more than enough for the son of a slave. On Hlod's return to the Hunnic realm, his grandfather Humli is enraged at the insult and gathers the army of the Huns.

The poem ends with Angantýr finding his brother dead (stanza 32):

Bölvat es okkr, bróðir, bani em ek þinn orðinn; þat mun æ uppi; illr er dómr norna.

We are cursed, brother, I am become your slayer it is yet again true cruel is the decree of the Norns (Fates).

See also

• Widsith, the 9th century Anglo-Saxon poem, contains some names that align with the names given in the Hlöðskviða
• Oium, the Gothic realm in Scythia, overrun by the Huns in the 370s
• Battle of Nedao, the historical battle where the Goths defeated the Huns in 454

References

• The Battle of the Goths and the Huns. Christopher Tolkien, in Saga-Book (University College, London, for the Viking Society for Northern Research) 14, part 3 (1955-6), pp. [141]-63.

External links

• Hlöðskviða in Old Norse from «Kulturformidlingen norrøne tekster og kvad» Norway.
• translation at Northvegr