The Hundings (Old English: Hundingas, the "hound-clan") are a legendary tribe or clan in early Germanic sources, mostly mentioned due to their feud with the Wulfings (the "wolf-clan").
In the Poetic Edda, Hunding is a king of the Saxons, slain by Helgi Hundingsbane. The Gesta Danorum mentions a Danish king Helgo who slew Hundingus, king of Saxony, in single combat. [1] The historical core of the story is likely a conflict between the Eastern Geats (the wolf-clan) and the Lombards (the hound-clan). [2]
Hunding itself is a patronymic translating to "son of a hound", while the Hundings as a clan ( sibb ) would be the descendants of Hunding. Being named a "hound" or "dog" was by no means an insult in pre-Christian Germanic culture, but that the animal was rather a symbol of the warrior, [3] while in Christian Germanic culture, it became associated with heathendom, "heathen hounds" being an appellation especially of the pagan Vikings (cf. Ulfhednar). [4]
The name of Lamicho, king of the Lombards, may mean "little barker" (Harris 2004).
In Paulus' Historia Langobardorum , the Lombards terrorize their neighbors by spreading the word that they had dog-headed warriors, possibly a reference to ulfhednar. In Paulus's account, Lamicho is one of seven sons of a "prostitute" (meretrix), who is fostered by king Agelmund. This "prostitute" has been explained by Rudolf Much (followed by Höfler and others) as going back to a word for bitch. The Lombards' original ethnic name, Winnili, has also been connected with "savage dogs" by Much.
In Eddaic account of a feud between the Hundings and the Wulfings surrounding Helgi Hundingsbane may correspond to the Lombard story, and Malone (1926) explains the whole story of Lamicho as the Hunding version of the same feud. Jacob Grimm (1848) compared the story of Lamicho to the German legends of the origins of the Welfen, in German legend tracing their ancestry to fostered babes who were given the surname of "whelps" (Harris 2004). Hundings also appear in Sturlaugs saga starfsama, where they are a tribe of Cynocephali dwelling in Hundingjaland, which is apparently in much the same latitudes as Bjarmaland. These Hundings may relate to those Cynocephali mentioned by Adam of Bremen.
The Hundingas are mentioned in such Old English literary works as Beowulf and Widsith. Widsith mentions the Hundings twice, once in a list of Germanic clans, as ruled by Mearchalf, and a second time among outlandish tribes and peoples, in the sequence mid hæðnum ond mid hæleþum ond mid hundingum "with heathens, heroes and dog-people", implying a re-interpretation of the name as a remote people of "heathen hounds". [5] This re-interpretation is complete in a later Anglo-Saxon manuscript on the Marvels of the East, where the Cynocephali are glossed as healf hundingas. [6]
The Lombards or Longobards were a Germanic people who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774.
The Rugii, Rogi or Rugians, were one of the smaller Germanic peoples of Late Antiquity who are best known for their short-lived 5th-century kingdom upon the Roman frontier, near present-day Krems an der Donau in Austria. This kingdom, like those of the neighbouring Heruli and Scirii, first appears in records after the death of Attila in 453. The Rugii, Heruli, Scirii and others are believed to have moved into this region from distant homelands under pressure from the Huns, and become part of Attila's Hunnic empire which also moved and came to be based in this region. The Rugii were subsequently part of the alliance which defeated Attila's sons and the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Nedao in 454, giving their kingdom independence. In 469 they were part of a similar alliance who lost to the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Bolia, weakening their kingdom significantly.
Hrólfr Kraki, Hroðulf, Rolfo, Roluo, Rolf Krage was a semi-legendary Danish king who appears in both Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian tradition.
Hrothgar was a semi-legendary Danish king living around the early sixth century AD. Many years later, Hrothgar paid money to the Wulfings to resolve a blood feud they had with Ecgtheow, Beowulf's father.
Wulf was one of the most prolific elements in early Germanic names. It could figure as the first element in dithematic names, as in Wulfstan, but especially as second element, in the form -ulf, -olf as in Cynewulf, Rudolph, Ludolf, Adolf etc., it was extremely common. Förstemann explains this as originally motivated by the wolf as an animal sacred to Wodanaz, but notes that the large number of names indicates that the element had become a meaningless suffix of male names at an early time.
Mundus or Mundo was a Barbarian commander of Gepid, Hun, and/or Gothic origins. He appears to have been the son of the Gepid king Giesmus. In the early 500s he commanded a group of bandits in Pannonia, eventually allying himself to the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great. After Theodoric's death in 526, Mundus entered Byzantine service under emperor Justinian I, fighting in the Balkans, defending Justinian during the Nika riots, and fighting in the first stage of the Gothic War, during which he died in 536.
The Ingaevones were a Germanic cultural group living in the Northern Germania along the North Sea coast in the areas of Jutland, Holstein, and Lower Saxony in classical antiquity. Tribes in this area included the Angles, Chauci, Saxons, and Jutes.
The characteristic of cynocephaly, or cynocephalus, having the head of a canid, typically that of a dog or jackal, is a widely attested mythical phenomenon existing in many different forms and contexts. The literal meaning of cynocephaly is "dog-headedness"; however, that this refers to a human body with a dog head is implied. Such cynocephalics are known in mythology and legend from many parts of the world, including ancient Egypt, India, Greece, and China. Further mentions come from the medieval East and Europe. In modern popular culture cynocephalics are also encountered as characters in books, comics, and graphic novels. Cynocephaly is generally distinguished from lycanthropy (werewolfism) and dogs that can talk.
"Widsith", also known as "The Traveller's Song", is an Old English poem of 143 lines. It survives only in the Exeter Book, a manuscript of Old English poetry compiled in the late-10th century, which contains approximately one-sixth of all surviving Old English poetry. "Widsith" is located between the poems "Vainglory" and "The Fortunes of Men". Since the donation of the Exeter Book in 1076, it has been housed in Exeter Cathedral in southwestern England. The poem is for the most part a survey of the people, kings, and heroes of Europe in the Heroic Age of Northern Europe.
Hnæf son of Hoc is a prince mentioned in the Old English poems Beowulf and the Finnsburg Fragment. According to the listing of tribes in the poem Widsith, Hnæf ruled the Hocings. Hoc is called Hoc Healfdene, suggesting a partly Danish ancestry.
Halga, Helgi, Helghe or Helgo was a legendary Danish king living in the early 6th century. His name would in his own language (Proto-Norse) have been *Hailaga.
Geatish kings, ruling over the provinces of Götaland (Gautland/Geatland), appear in several sources for early Swedish history. Today, most of them are not considered historical.
Ecgþēow, Edgetho, or Ecgtheow is a character in the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf. He is not mentioned outside the Bēowulf manuscript, and it is not known whether he was based on a real person. He belonged to a probably Swedish family called the Waegmundings. He married the daughter of Hreðel, king of the Geats, and was the father of Bēowulf.
The Wulfings, Wylfings or Ylfings was a powerful clan in Beowulf, Widsith and in the Norse sagas. While the poet of Beowulf does not locate the Wulfings geographically, Scandinavian sources define the Ylfings as the ruling clan of the Eastern Geats.
Beowulf is a legendary Geatish hero in the eponymous epic poem, one of the oldest surviving pieces of English literature.
The Varini, Warni or Warini were one or more Germanic peoples who originally lived in what is now northeastern Germany, near the Baltic Sea.
Old Saxony was the homeland of the Saxons during the Early Middle Ages. It corresponds roughly to the modern German states of Lower Saxony, eastern part of modern North Rhine-Westphalia state (Westphalia), Nordalbingia and western Saxony-Anhalt (Eastphalia), which all lie in northwestern Germany. It had four provinces: Nordalbingia, Eastphalia, Westphalia and Angria, these provinces, in turn, were divided into smaller territories, the gaue, which are equivalent to modern Districts of Germany (Kreise), and were equivalent to the English shires.