Chapter 7 - The Name Geatas

Summary

A READER WITH an interest in geography finds meagre pickings in Beowulf. Swīorīċe for “the realm or dominion of the Swedes,” Swēoðēodfor “the people or land of the Swedes,” and Scedenīġ and Scedeland for “Skåne” (Scania) are the only Scandinavian geographical references that can be regarded as unambiguous. But that does not get us very far. Heorot primarily refers to King Hrothgar's actual hall, but could also secondarily represent his royal seat and, in certain contexts, the whole of the Danish realm. Designations such as Earna næs,“Eagle Point,” and Hrones næs(s)4 may in my view derive from real names. Names like hrefnes holt and hrefna wudu5 are more likely descriptions of natural features than actual names. They are often interpreted as “Raven's Wood,” but in the contexts in which they occur they could just as easily be poetic expressions for “the dark wood,” i.e., “the great wood,” comparable for example with Myrkvið in Hlǫðskviða (8), meaning “Dark Wood” (Lönnroth 2016, 456) or simply “the dark wood.” Nor is hrēosna beorh necessarily a name; it could equally well be a simple description of a place.

At the heart of the poem are the tribal groups Ġēatas (usually translated as “Geats”), Dene “Danes” and Swēon “Swedes.” On the periphery, we find groups such as Ēotan “Jutes,”Frēsan/Frӯsan “Frisians,” Francan “Franks,”Hetware “Hetware,”Hūgas “Frankish Hugas,” Heaðo-Beardan,Ġifðas,Wendlas, Brondingas,Finnas, and Heaþo-Rǣmas.Most of them are easy to distinguish geographically, with the possible exception of the last five, although these groups play marginal roles in the poem.

Quite rightly, it is now generally regarded as incompatible with the geographical logic of Beowulf to regard Ġēatas as synonymous with Jutes or Goths. What is more, the poem explicitly refers to Jutes as Ēotan. The suggestion that Ġēatas refers to the Getae (Leake 1967), a people living to the west of the Black Sea, has met with justified scepticism on both linguistic and extralinguistic grounds.

In the poem, Beowulf's people are spoken of as Ġēatas no fewer than seventy-two times. The word occurs sixty-four times as a simplex,including once with the plural form Ġēotena.As part of a compound, it appears four times in Weder-Ġēatas,twice in Sǣ-Ġēatas,and twice in Ġēatmæcgum/Ġēatmecga, “the Geatish man/men.’