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Tjelvar


Gutasaga (Gutasagan) is a saga regarding the history of Gotland before its Christianization. It was recorded in the 13th century and survives in only a single manuscript, the Codex Holm. B 64, dating to ca. 1350, kept at the National Library of Sweden in together with the Gutalag, the legal code of Gotland. It was written in the Old Gutnish dialect of Old Norse.

The saga begins with Gotland being discovered by a man named Þieluar (Tjalve) (Gutnish: Tjelvar). He was a mythical figure who shows up twice in the Prose Edda and once in Gutasaga. Gotland is under a spell and under water during the day and out of water only during the night, a spell that is broken by Þieluar lighting a fire on the Island. Þieluar's son Hafþi (Havde) and his wife Vitastjerna (Gutnish: Hwitastierna) had three sons named Graip, Gute and Gunfjaun, the ancestors of the Gutes. After Havde's and Vitastjerna's first night together, she had a dream about three snakes entwined in her bosom. This was interpreted as a symbol that all things are connected in circles and that they would have three sons. The subject is depicted on some of the picture stones on Gotland.

The saga says that after his father died, Gute was appointed to be the chief, and shall have given his name to both the island and the Gutnish people. They shared Gotland, where Gute held the midsection, Graip the northern and Gunnfjaun the southern part. Gotland was divided in three parts, a division that was reflected in a division of Gotland into three Tredingar, a division that remained legally to 1747 and still remains within the church, which still today retains this division into three Deaneries.

The saga tells of an emigration, that is associated with the historical migration of the Goths during the Migration Period:


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