Who was Gēat?

julho 01, 2018

An English Beach. Could they have been associated with Gēat?
By Daniel Seaxdēor

Anglo-Saxon Heathenship lacks a coherent series of "higher" mythos that could be comparable with the extant Norse mythology, which left many more accounts of their earlier beliefs. Apart from scholars like Stephen Pollington in his books, especially Elder Gods, translations of Beowulf, poems of the Exeter Book like The Wanderer, Maxims I (and Maxims II, which is not from the Exeter Book), Judith, or the Nine Herbs Charm in the Lacnunga, we have got almost no sources touching the theme of pre-Christian beliefs, let alone something that isn't an attack to the English Heathenship. Many figures are lost, while other well known source of deities are the Royal Genealogies of the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, in which at least the first and the second names are sometimes recognised as theonyms anywhere else in the Germanic sources. Wōden is one of the most well understood Anglo-Saxon gods, as well as the less known Bældæg, Seaxnēat, and Gēat.

So, Gēat is supposed to be an important god, one important enough to be recognised as such even under a Christian like Alfred the Great. We may compare this case to that of Seaxnēat, which is the head of the East Saxon genealogy, and apparently appears as Saxnôt among the Old Saxons in their baptismal vow, suggesting that he was as important as Uuoden and Thunaer, apparently cognates of Óðinn and Þórr, widely known Scandinavian and Icelandic deities throughout the Viking Age. It may imply that Gēat was also a well known early deity. Gapt/Gaut is mentioned by Jordanes in his Getica (XIV). This is what we can find in Nordgren's book, strengthening this view:
Older than Ostrogotha, the king of the Black Sea Goths, is Amal with whom the history of the Amali starts. But older than Amal and the Amali is Gaut and the Scandinavian Gautar (Gauts). This scheme is supported by the mentioning of Humli, the son of Gaut and father of the Danes, which again shows towards Scandinavian ancestry. Besides they come of the Aesir-Ansis. Óðinn has been added but still they considered Gapt/Gaut the original ancestor. This was the very best the Amali could achieve since their family was so young.They had in spite of all a divine ancestry. The Tervingi hailed before the battle Getic gods and ancestral spirits.
(WOLFRAM, in NORDGREN, Ingemar, The Well Spring of he Goths: About the Gothic peoples in the Nordic Countries and on the Continent)
The Old English noun Gēat is often suggested as a cognate of the Old Norse word Gautr, which is itself one of Óðinn's kennings. Then Gēat is sometimes thought to be one of Wōden's kennings and another face of Him. But Asser begins his Annals of the Reign of Alfred the Great, tracing back king Alfred's ancestry, including among his forefathers a certain Gēat, who, as Asser says, "the heathens long worshipped  as  a  god", adding a passage attributed to a poet called Paschal:
When  gentile  poets  with  their  fictions  vain,
In  tragic  language  and  bombastic  strain,
To  their  god  Geat,  comic  deity,
Loud  praises  sing,  &c.
(Asser, Annals of the Reign of Alfred the Great)
Wōden was then mentioned apparently as a human while four apparently humans are named before him (Frithowald, Frealaf, Frithuwulf and Godwulf). This might imply a Christian euhemerisation of the deities, now compared in honour to some well known old forbidden gods.  As says Nordgren, there are a  number of Germanic royal families — Anglo-Saxon, Danish,  Jutish,  some  Langobardic  kings  and  the  Goths that claim ancestry  from Geat/Gaut.

As we will see, among the Goths the figure of Gaut/Gapt is not clearly separate from that of  Óðinn:
Wodan/Óðinn was already the main-god of the Goths after the ethnogenesis during the migration in the 3rd c. described by Jordanes in Getica. [...] Wolfram thinks the Goths were part of the cultic league of the Vandili during the early period but that they around 150 AD had developed an own cultural characteristic — they buried their dead men without weapons. Wolfram believes it depends on that they had no battles to fight after death. It is possible if you look to Irmin, but it is contradicted of their burial-custom with weaponless men’s graves — also in connection with inhumation which is unique for the Goths. This very well may be connected with their religious belief and hence not only be a cultural habit, and so it can suggest they never ceased to worship Gaut.
(NORDGREN, Ingemar, The Well Spring of he Goths: About the Gothic peoples in the Nordic Countries and on the Continent)
Nordgren also notes that while Gapt was possibly linked to a warrior/kingly cult, it is possible that his worshipers weren't buried with their weapons. Asser quoted poem may also provide a link here. Nordgren also notes that Gapt may mean "to pour", in the sense of  "the one who poured us [in the earth]", and this might be supported by his central place in Alfred's Genealogy. But this pouring act could also be linked to a river, the Göta älv (Goth-Elba), which may be translated as "the river of the Gautar (Gauts)". According to the Bosworth-Toller dictionary, geat may refer to a "gate, doorway, passage between hills". As a verb, gēotan means "to pour out", also linked is gitan, "to obtain" e getan, "to destroy".

But there are more mentions of a person with this name in the Anglo-Saxon sources. In the poem Deor we read:
That for Mǣðhild, of us      many have heard
that boundless became      Geat's desire,
that him this sad love      entirely deprived of sleep.
As that passed away,      so may this.
(Deor)
As an explanatory note to this passage, the Anglo-Saxons.net says:
Maethhild (Matilda) and Geat may have been as famous as Romeo and Juliet in their day, but only a fragment more has survived to ours, and that not from mediaeval sources but from Scandianavian ballads recorded in the nineteenth century. Magnild (Maethhild) wept, apparently, because she foretold she would drown in the river. Gauti (Geat) retorts that he will build a bridge over the river, but she notes that none can flee fate. Sure enough, she is drowned (either falls off the bridge, or the bridge collapses). Gauti calls for his harp, and, like a Germanic Orpheus, plays so well that his wife's body rises out of the waters. In one version she returns alive; in the darker version, she is dead, but Gauti buries her properly and makes new strings for his harp from her hair.
So, we are probably not dealing here with the same character, but some other Gēat, this time a hero with this name, though the relation between Gēat and the water still remains here, which also suggest and euhemerization and transformation of a god into a hero. But this account is even more interesting because there is a 19th century English fairy tale registered by Joseph Jacobs called Binnorie in which an older daughter of the king (of the area around the mill-dams of Binnorie) drowns her younger sibling because she had gained the attention of her groom. So, a bard was travelling around there and saw the young woman dead, and he went back some time ago after that. He then found her grave, and made a harp with the breast bone and the hairs of the girl.

I'm not saying that there is a link between Gēat and this kind of harp made out of bones and hairs of a dead girl, but it seems to be a quite Germanic theme that may be well understood and used in modern Anglo-Saxon Heathenry. It would seem to mean a stronger relation with the Otherworld and its boundaries. It is also worthy of note that the harp made out of bones and hairs in the Binnorie acts as an agent of retribution or justice, as this harp reports the fratricide and the reasons why she was submitted to death.

Theory


Gēat was certainly understood as a god in the Anglo-Saxon heathen age. He may be linked to the themes similar to that of Wōden, as a founder of royal lineages, a god of kingship, and possibly linked to libations or rivers, or even gates, suggesting a role as a psychopomp, a shaman-like deity or a guardian of boundaries. As there already is Wada, fulfilling this role of Guardian of the Otherworld's gates in modern Fyrnsidu practice,  I think that it is up to the individual practioner choose among them. As Seaxnēat, Gēat may be a tribe maker, thus being associated to the Ancestors and the thēaw or custom.

I would suggest also a stronger link between Gēat and the sea, as Berig seems to be quite linked to Gēat, and he brought the Goths over the river. It is possible that the old Gapt was seen as a kind of sea deity, as well as a kingmaker, and the creator of humanity, an initiator of mysteries.

Last but not least I would stress that the theme of the morbid harp made out of girl's bones and hairs may also be of some importance to understand him as a possibly god of poetry. I would suggest that his cult was stronger once, and then it was merged into the cult of Óðinn, who may have taken the later fame. In practice, Gēat doesn't seem to be much different from a chieftain imagined in the Migration Era, a seafarer, a warrior, singer, poet, one versed in magic knowledges, one who may have lost his love to the waters, and who may later become another liminal deity.

Disclaimer: This was not thought to be the only and one interpretation of this quite obscure figure. However, I, as a reconstructionist, think that it is better begin to understand Gēat, which hopefully might bring new and most accurate visions over the time, and I'll be glad of rectifying this text later.

References


ASSER, Annals of the Reign of Alfred the Great, translated by J. A. Giles <http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/asser_giles.pdf>



NORDGREN, Ingemar, The Well Spring of he Goths: About the Gothic peoples in the Nordic Countries and on the Continent <www.daastol.com/books/Nordgren,WellSpringofGoths.pdf>

JORDANES, Origins and deeds of the Goths, trans. by Charles C. Mierow <http://people.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html>

Bosworth-Toller Online Dictionary <http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz>

JACOBS, Joseph, English Fairy Tales <http://mce.ucoz.ru/_ld/0/94_English-Fairy-T.pdf>


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