THE
LONGOBARDIAN
MIGRATION
SAGA.
by
Viktor Rydberg
What there still remains of migration
sagas from the middle ages, taken from the saga-treasure of the Teutons
themselves,
is, alas! but little. Among the Franks the
stream of national traditions early dried up, at least among the class
possessing
Latin culture. Among the Longobardians it
fared better, and among them Christianity was introduced later. Within
the ken
of Roman history they appear in the first
century after Christ, when Tiberius invaded their boundaries.
Tacitus speaks of them with admiration as
a small people whose paucity, he says, was balanced by their unity and
warlike
virtues, which rendered them secure in the
midst of the numerous and mighty tribes around them. The Longobardians
dwelt at that time in the most northern part
of Germany, on the lower Elbe, probably in Luneburg. Five hundred years
later we find them as rulers in Pannonia,
whence they invade Italy. They had then been converted to Christianity.
A
hundred years after they had become settled
in North Italy, one of their Latin scholars wrote a little treatise, De
Origine
Longobardorum, which begins in the
following manner: "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! Here begins the
oldest
history of our Longobardian people. There
is an island called Skadan, far in the north. There dwelt many peoples.
Among
them was a little people called the Vinnilians,
and among the Vinnilians was a woman by name Gambara. Gambara had
two sons: one by name Ibor, the other named
Ajo. She and these sons were the rulers among the Vinnilians. Then it came
to pass that the Vandals, with their dukes
Ambri and Assi, turned against the Vinnilians, and said to them: ‘Pay ye
tribute
unto us. If ye will not, then arm yourselves
for war!’ Then made answer Ibor and Ajo and their mother Gambara: ‘It is
better for us to arm ourselves for war than
to pay tribute to the Vandals’. When Ambri and Assi, the dukes of the
Vandals, heard this, they addressed themselves
to Odin (Goðan) with a prayer that he should grant them victory. Odin
answered and said: ‘Those whom I first discover
at the rising of the sun, to them I shall give vie tory’. But at the same
time
Ibor and Ajo, the chiefs of the Vinnilians,
and their mother Gambara, addressed themselves to Frigg (Frea), Odin’s
wife,
beseeching her to assist them. Then Frigg
gave the advice that the Vinnilians should set out at the rising of the
sun, and that
the women should accompany their husbands
and arrange their hair so that it should hang like a beard under their
chins.
When the sky cleared and the sun was about
to rise, Frigg, Odin’s wife, went to the couch where her husband was
sleeping and directed his face to the east
(where the Vinnilians stood), and then she waked him. And as he looked
up he
saw the Vinnilians, and observed the hair
hanging down from the faces of their women. And then said he: ‘What
long-beards are they?’ Then said Frigg to
Odin:
‘My lord, as you now have named them,
you must also give them victory!’ And he gave them victory, so that
they, in
accordance with his resolve, defended themselves
well, and got the upper hand. From that day the Vinnilians were called
Longobardians— that is to say, long-beards.
Then the Longobardians left their country and came to Golaida, and
thereupon they occupied Aldonus, Anthaib,
Bainaib, and Burgundaib."
In the days of Charlemagne the Longobardians
got a historian by name Paulus Diaconus, a monk in the convent Monte
Cassino, and he was himself a Longobardian
by birth. Of the earliest history of his people he relates the following:
The
Vinnilians or Longobardians, who ruled successfully
in Italy, are of Teutonic descent, and came originally from the island
Scandinavia. Then he says that he has talked
with persons who had been in Scandinavia, and from their reports he gives
some facts, from which it is evident that
his informants had reference to Scania with its extensive coast of lowlands
and
shallow water. Then he continues: "When
the population on this island had increased beyond the ability of the island
to support them, they were divided into three parts, and it was determined
by lot which part should emigrate from the native land amid seek new homes.
The part whose destiny it became to leave their native land chose as their
leaders the brothers Ibor and Ajo, who were in the bloom of manhood and
were distinguished above the rest. Then they bade farewell to their friends
and to their country, and went to seek a land in which they might settle.
The mother of these two leaders was called Gambara, who was distinguished
among her people for her keen understanding and shrewd advice, and great
reliance was placed on her prudence in difficult circumstances." Paulus
makes a digression to discuss many remarkable things to be seen in Scandinavia:
the light summer nights and the long winter nights, a maelstrom which in
its vortex swallows vessels and sometimes throws them up again, an animal
resembling a deer hunted by the neighbours of the Scandinavians, the Scritobinians
(the Skee* Finns), and a cave in a rock where seven men in Roman clothes
have slept
for centuries (see Nos. 79-81, and No. 94).
Then he relates that the Vinnilians left Scandinavia and came to a country
called Scoringia, and there was fought the
aforesaid battle, in which, thanks to Frigg’s help, the Vinnilians conquered
the
Vandals, who demanded tribute from them.
The story is then told how this occurred, and how the
* The snow-skate, used so extensively in
the north of Europe, is called Ski in the Norse, and I have taken the liberty
of
introducing this word here and spelling it
phonetically—skee, pl. skees. The words snow-shoes, snow-skates, hardly
describe sufficiently these skees used by
the Finns, Norsernen, and Icelanders. Compare the English word skid, the
drag
applied to a coachwheel.—TR.
Vinnilians got the name Longobardians in
a manner corresponding with the source already quoted, with the one addition,
that it was Odin’s custom when he awoke to
look out of the window, which was open, to the east toward the rising sun.
Paulus Diaconus finds this Longobardian folk-saga
ludicrous, not in itself, but because Odin was, in the first place, he
says, a man, not a god. In the second place,
Odin did not live among the Teutons, but among the Greeks, for he is the
same as the one called by the Romans Mercury.
In the third place, Odin-Mercury did not live at the time when the
Longobardians emigrated from Scandinavia,
but much earlier. According to Paulus, there were only five generations
between the emigration of the Longobardians
and the time of Odoacer. Thus we find in Paulus Diaconus the ideas in
regard to Odin-Mercury which I have already
called attention to. Paulus thereupon relates the adventures which
happened to the Longobardians after the battle
with the Vandals. I shall refer to these adventures later on. They belong
to
the Teutonic mythology, and reappear in mythic
sources (see No. 112), but in a more original from, and as events which
took place in the beginning of time in a
conflict between the Asas and Vans on the one hand, and lower beings on
the
other hand; lower, indeed, but unavoidable
in connection with the wellbeing of nature and man. This conflict resulted
in a
terrible winter and consequent famine throughout
the North. In this mythological description we shall find Ajo and Ibor,
under whose leadership the Longobardians
emigrated, and Hengist, under whom the Saxons landed in Britain.
It is proper to show what form the story
about the Longobardian emigration had assumed toward the close of the twelfth
century in the writings of the Danish historian
Saxo Grammaticus. The emigration took place, he says, at a time when a
Danish king, by name Snö, ruled, and
when there occurred a terrible famine. First, those starving had resolved
to kill all
the aged and all children, but this awful
resolve was not carried out, thanks to a good and wise woman, by name
Gambaruc, who advised that a part of the
people should emigrate. This was done under the leadership of her sons
Aggo
and Ebbo. The emigrants came first to Blekingia
(Blekinge), then they sailed past Moringia (Möre) and came to Gutland,
where they had a contest with the Vandals,
and by the aid of the goddess Frigg they won the victory, and got the name
Longobardians. From Gutland they sailed to
Rugen, and thence to the German continent, and thus after many adventures
they at length became masters of a large
part of Italy.
In regard to this account it must be remarked
that although it contains many details not found in Paulus Diaconus, still
it is
the same narrative that has come to Saxo’s
knowledge. This Saxo also admits, and appeals to the testimony of Paulus
Diaconus. Paulus’ Gambara is Saxo’s Gambaruc;
Ajo and Ibor are Aggo and Ebbo. But the Longobardian monk is not
Saxo’s only source, and the brothers Aggo
and Ebbo, as we shall show, were known to him from purely northern
sources, though not as leaders of the Longobardians,
but as mythic characters, who are actors in the great winter which
Saxo speaks of.
The Longobardian emigration saga—as we find
it recorded in the seventh century, and then again in the time of
Charlemagne— contains unmistakable internal
evidence of having been taken from the people’s own traditions. Proof of
this is already the circumstance, that although
the Longobardians had been Christians for nearly 200 years when the little
book De Origine Longobardorum appeared, still
the long-banished divinities, Odin and Frigg, reappear and take part in
the events, not as men, but as divine beings,
and in a manner thoroughly corresponding with the stories recorded in the
North concerning the relations between Odin
and his wife. For although this relation was a good and tender one, judging
from expressions in the heathen poems of
the North (Völusp., 51; Vafthr., 1-4), and although the queen of heaven,
Frigg,
seems to have been a good mother in the belief
of the Teutons, this does not hinder her from being represented as a wily
person, with a will of her own which she
knows how to carry out. Even a Norse story tells how Frigg resolves to
protect
a person whom Odin is not able to help; how
she and he have different favourites among men, and vie with each other
in
bringing greater luck to their favourites.
The story is found in the prose introduction to the poem "Grimnismál,"
an
introduction which in more than one respect
reminds us of the Longobardian emigration saga. In both it is mentioned
how
Odin from his dwelling looks out upon the
world and observes what is going on. Odin has a favourite by name Geirrod.
Frigg, on the other hand, protects Geirrod’s
brother Agnar. The man and wife find fault with each other’s proteges.
Frigg
remarks about Geirrod, that he is a prince,
"stingy with food, so that be lets his guests starve if they are many ".
And the
story goes on to say that Geirrod, at the
secret command of Odin, had pushed the boat in which Agnar was sitting
away
from shore, and that the boat had gone to
sea with Agnar and had not returned. The story looks like a parable founded
on
the Longobardian saga, or like one grown
in a Christian time out of the same root as the Longobardian story. Geirrod
is in
reality the name of a giant, and the giant
is in the myth a being who brings hail and frost. He dwells in the uttermost
North,
beyond the mythical Gandvik (Thorsdrapa,
2), and as a mythical winter symbol he corresponds to king Snö in
Saxo. His
"stinginess of food when too many guests
come" seems to point to lack of food caused by the unfavourable weather,
which necessitated emigrations, when the
country became over-populated. Agnar, abandoned to the waves of the sea,
is
protected, like the Longobardians crossing
the sea, by Frigg, and his very name, Agnar, reminds us of the names Aggo,
Acho, and Agio, by which Ajo, one of the
leaders of the Longobardians, is known. The prose introduction has no original
connection with Grimnismál itself,
and in the form in which we now have it, it belongs to a Christian age,
and is apparently
from an author belonging to the same school
as those who regarded the giants as the original inhabitants of Scandinavia,
and turned winter giants like Jökull,
Snær, &c., into historical kings of Norway.
The absolutely positive result of the Longobardian
narratives written by Longobardian historians is that the Teutonic race
to which they belonged considered themselves
sprung, not from Troy or Asia, but from an island, situated in the ocean,
which washes the northern shores of the Teutonic
continent, that is to say, of Germany.
Viktor Rydberg