The "Ballad of Eric" (Swedish: "Eriksvisan") is a ballad found in Latin and Swedish about the Gothic king, Erik. It was once seen as a source for Migration Period history but is now regarded as an inauthentic piece of fakelore created during the 16th century.[1][2]
The ballad was published for the first time in Latin by Johannes Magnus in his Historia de omnibus geotherm sueonumque regibus (1554). He states that the original was a song widely sung in Sweden at the time, but Johannes Magnus is considered not to be reliable. The Latin text is composed of ten Sapphic stanzas. It tells the story of King Eric, whose career bears some similarities to a later king Berig whom Magnus claimed united the Swedes and Goths 400 years after Eric. Berig is also found in the Jordanes' 6th-century work Getica. According to the text, Eric, the first king of the Goths, sent troops southwards to a country named Vetala, where no one had yet cultivated the land. In their company, there was a wise man, a law speaker, who was to uphold the law. Finally, the Gothic king Humli sent his son Dan to rule the settlers, and after Dan, Vetala was named Denmark. The first stanza says:
Primus in regnis Geticis coronam
Regiam gessi, subiique Regis
Munus, & mores colui sereno
Principe dignos.
The Swedish text is found in two different versions. One of them is found in Elaus Terserus' translation of Johannes Magnus' work, and this translation was done before 1611, but it was never published. The other one is found in Ericus Schroderus' translation of the same work, which was published in 1620. His version consists of ten five-line stanzas with the rhyme schemeababC, where refrain C says "He was Vetala's first harvest." There are also several later documents of the song, which are unfinished. One of them is found in Olof Verelius' work, in the annotations of the Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, and the other one in Johan Hadorph's work (1690). Both of the versions are closely similar to Schroderus' version. Hadorph relates that the Eric song was still widely sung among the peasantry of Västergötland and Dalsland in the late 17th century.
In 1825, Erik Gustaf Geijer of the Geatish Society reproduced parts of the song.[3] He believed that this was an ancient traditional text, and Geijer was a person of immense authority in Swedish academia. In an analysis of this song's weirdly archaic language in his 1848 Ph.D. thesis, Carl Säve believed that the use of I and u instead of e and o indicated that it was first written down with the runic script. In 1853, Gunnar Olof Hyltén-Cavallius and George Stephens followed Säve. They had missed or just ignored that in 1850 P. A. Munch had argued that the ballad was dependent on the Prosaic Chronicle and suggested that it was composed ca 1449 or 1450.
Henrik Schück initially accepted Munch's reasoning. However, he changed his mind and argued in 1891 that everybody involved in presenting it lied about its wide currency and that it was composed by Johannes Magnus himself. After that, only Einar Nylén (1924) tried to argue that a Swedish version existed before Johannes Magnus, but his opinion was rejected or ignored in subsequent scholarship.[2]
Erik Gustaf Geijer was a Swedish writer, historian, poet, romantic critic of political economy, philosopher, and composer. His writings served to promote Swedish National Romanticism. He was an influential advocate of conservatism, but switched to liberalism later in life.
Dan (or Halfdan) is the name of one or more legendary earliest kings of the Danes and Denmark, mentioned in medieval Scandinavian texts.
Olaus Magnus was a Swedish writer, cartographer, and Catholic clergyman.
Johannes Magnus was the last functioning Catholic Archbishop in Sweden, and also a theologian, genealogist, and historian.
Gaut is an early Germanic name, from a Proto-Germanic gautaz, which represents a mythical ancestor or national god in the origin myth of the Geats.
Berig is a legendary king of the Goths appearing in the Getica by Jordanes. According to Jordanes, Berig led his people on three ships from Scandza (Scandinavia) to Gothiscandza. They settled and then attacked the Rugians who lived on the shore and drove them away from their homes, subsequently winning a battle against the Vandals.
The Diocese of Skara is the oldest existing diocese in Sweden. It was originally a Latin bishopric of the Roman Catholic church, but since the Protestant Reformation has been a Lutheran diocese within the Church of Sweden, with its seat in Skara at Skara Cathedral. In 2014, it celebrated its 1000-year anniversary as a full diocese.
Gothicism or Gothism was a dacianistic cultural movement in Sweden, which took honor in being a Swede, who were related to the illustrious Goths as the Goths originated from Götaland. The founders of the movement were Nicolaus Ragvaldi and the brothers Johannes and Olaus Magnus. The belief continued to hold power in the 17th century, when Sweden was a great power following the Thirty Years' War, but lost most of its sway in the 18th. It was renewed by the Viking revival and Romantic nationalism in the early 19th century, this time with the Vikings as heroic figures.
Scanian law is the oldest Danish provincial law and one of the first Nordic provincial laws to be written down. It was used in the geographic region of Danish Skåneland, which at the time included Scania, Halland, Blekinge and the island of Bornholm. It was also used for a short period on the island of Zealand. According to some scholars, the Scanian Law was first set down between 1202 and 1216, around the same time it was translated into Latin by the Danish Archbishop Anders Sunesøn.
The title of King of the Goths was for many centuries borne by both the kings of Sweden and the kings of Denmark.
Magnus Vasa, prince of Sweden, Duke of Östergötland from 1555. Magnus was the third son of King Gustav Vasa. His mother was queen Margareta Leijonhufvud.
Johan Hadorph was a Swedish director-general of the Central Board of National Antiquities.
"Töres döttrar i Wänge" or "Per Tyrssons döttrar i Vänge" is a medieval Swedish ballad which Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring is partly based on. The ballad type is found throughout Scandinavia, with variants in Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, and Norwegian. The Child Ballad "Babylon" is analogous to the Scandinavian songs.
Harpens kraft (Danish) or Harpans kraft, meaning "The Power of the Harp", is the title of a supernatural ballad type, attested in Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic variants.
Roland og Magnus kongen literally "Roland and King Magnus," also known under the English title "Roland at the Battle of Roncevaux" is a Norwegian ballad about the legendary hero Roland of Charlemagne's court. The ballad is cataloged NMB 171, and categorized TSB type E 29. In the ballad, Roland's sword is compared to a sickle, its name corrupted to Dvælje=Dvolg, explained as meaning "dwarf-fiend" or "enemy of the dwarfs" Storm was of the opinion that the ballad could not be younger than the end of the 15th century, and Halvorsen also said it "must have been handed down orally since the late Middle Ages".
"Elveskud" or "Elverskud" is the Danish, and most widely used, name for one of the most popular ballads in Scandinavia.
Events from the year 1756 in Sweden
The Historia de omnibus Gothorum Sueonumque regibus is a posthumously published, partly pseudo-historical work by Johannes Magnus, Sweden's last Catholic archbishop. In 1554 it was published in Latin by his brother Olaus Magnus.
Pro Fide et Christianismo is a Christian association within the Church of Sweden. The organization was an "informal or semi-official national school board" prior to the founding of Sweden's public education system and made a significant impact on Sweden's early education system.
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