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Finn, son of Folcwald | |
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Reign | c. 400 |
Finn, son of Folcwald, was a legendary Frisian king. He is mentioned in Widsith , in Beowulf , and in the Finnesburg Fragment. He is named in the Historia Brittonum , while a Finn, given a different father but perhaps intending the same hero, appears in Anglo-Saxon royal pedigrees.
He was married to Hildeburh, a sister of the Danish lord Hnæf, and was killed in a fight with Hnæf's lieutenant Hengest after Hnæf was himself killed by Frisians.
A passage from Beowulf as translated by Seamus Heaney (lines 1089–1090) reads:
A possible reference to a lost tradition on Finn appears in Snorri Sturluson's Skáldskaparmál . Snorri talks of the animosity between Eadgils and Onela (which also appears in Beowulf ), and writes that Aðils (Eadgils) was at war with a Norwegian king named Áli (Onela). Áli died in the war, and Aðils took Áli's helmet Battle-boar and his horse Raven. The Danish berserkers who had helped him win the war demanded three pounds of gold each in pay, and two pieces of armour that nothing could pierce: the helmet battle-boar and the mailcoat Finn's heritage. They also wanted the famous ring Svíagris. Aðils considered the pay outrageous and refused.
Finn, the son of Fodepald (i.e. Folcwald) is also mentioned in the pedigree list of Saxon ancestors of the legendary kings of Kent that appears in Historia Brittonum. The Wessex and Bernician royal genealogies in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Anglian collection instead make the Finn in the royal pedigree son of Godwulf, and it is uncertain whether the same heroic Finn was originally intended. Richard North notes that Folcwalda is "identical with the first element of fólcvaldi goða ('ruler of the host of gods') which is an epithet reserved for Freyr". He also notes similarities with "fólkum stýrir ('he leads peoples', Húsdrápa) which celebrates Freyr". [1]
Finn is a central subject of Finn and Hengest , a study of the Finnesburg Episode by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Alan Bliss and published posthumously in book form in 1982.
Hrólfr Kraki, Hroðulf, Rolfo, Roluo, Rolf Krage was a semi-legendary Danish king who appears in both Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian tradition.
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The Ingaevones[ɪŋɡae̯ˈwoːneːs] were a West Germanic cultural group living in the Northern Germania along the North Sea coast in the areas of Jutland, Holstein, and Frisia in classical antiquity. Tribes in this area included the Angles, Frisii, Chauci, Saxons, and Jutes.
Ongentheow was the name of a semi-legendary Swedish king of the house of Scylfings, who appears in Old English sources.
Eadgils, Adils, Aðils, Adillus, Aðísl at Uppsölum, Athisl, Athislus or Adhel was a semi-legendary king of Sweden, who is estimated to have lived during the 6th century.
Yrsa, Yrse, Yrs or Urse was a tragic heroine of early Scandinavian legend.
Ohthere, Old Norse Óttarr vendilkráka was a semi-legendary king of Sweden of the house of Scylfings, who is said to have lived during the Germanic Heroic Age, possibly during the early 6th century.
Onela was according to Beowulf a Swedish king, the son of Ongentheow and the brother of Ohthere. He usurped the Swedish throne, but was killed by his nephew Eadgils, who won by hiring foreign assistance.
Finn and Hengest is a study by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Alan Bliss and published posthumously in book form in 1982.
Various gods and men appear as sons of Odin or sons of Wodan/Wotan/Woden in old Old Norse and Old High German and Old English texts.
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Weohstan, Wēohstān or Wīhstān is a legendary character who appears in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf and scholars have pointed out that he also appears to be present in the Norse Kálfsvísa.
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The Battle on the Ice of Lake Vänern was a 6th-century battle recorded in the Norse sagas and referred to in the Old English epic Beowulf. It has been dated to c. AD 530.
The Battle of Finnsburg was a conflict in the Germanic heroic age between Frisians with a possible Jutish contingent, and a primarily Danish party. Described only in later Anglo-Saxon poetry, if the conflict had an historical basis it most likely occurred around 450 AD.
The "Finnesburg Fragment" is a portion of an Old English heroic poem about a fight in which Hnæf and his 60 retainers are besieged at "Finn's fort" and attempt to hold off their attackers. The surviving text is tantalisingly brief and allusive, but comparison with other references in Old English poetry, notably Beowulf, suggests that it deals with a conflict between Danes and Frisians in Migration-Age Frisia.
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