*** Welcome to piglix ***

Hlöðskviða


Hlöðskviða or The Battle of the Goths and Huns is sometimes counted among the Eddic Poems. It has been preserved as separate stanzas interspersed among the text in Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks (chapters 13 and 14, the stanzas are numbered 1 to 32, after their arrangement within the prose). It is generally agreed that it was originally a poetic whole. The length of the preserved text amounts to 233 lines, constituting a fragment of a longer poem.

Heiðrekr, king of the Goths, had two sons, Angantýr and Hlöðr. Only Angantýr was legitimate, so he inherited his father's kingdom. Hlöðr, whose mother was the daughter of Humli, king of the Huns, and who was born and raised among the Huns, claimed half the inheritance, Angantýr refused to split evenly and war ensued, claiming first Hervör, their sister, then Hlöðr himself as casualties.

Stanza 1 lists peoples and their rulers:

Ár kváðu Humla
Húnum ráða,
Gizur Gautum,
Gotum Angantý,
Valdarr Dönum,
en Völum Kíarr,
Alrekr inn frækni
enskri þjóðu.

Of old, goes the tale, did Humli
rule the Huns
Gizur the Geats
Angantyr the Goths
Valdar the Danes
Caesar the Walha (Romans)
and brave Alrek (possibly Alfred the Great[1])
the English nation

Valdar is named as a king of the Danes in Guðrúnarkviða II; Saxo Grammaticus has Humblus son of Danus, first king of the Danes, but Humli here is mostly identified with Attila.


...
Wikipedia

...