Ethnogonic Texts in the Indo-European Tradition

С.Г. Проскурин, А.В. Проскурина

The Origin of the Name of the Ingaevones Tribe

The text of Tacitus makes it possible to restore the segment about the origin of the Germanic peoples: Ancient chants (the Germans know only this kind of story about the past and only such annals) glorify the god Tuisto, born of the earth. His son Mannus is the progenitor and forefather of their people; they ascribe to Mannus three sons, by whose names those who live near the Ocean are called Ingaevones, in the middle lands - Herminones, all the others - Istvaeones (Tacitus, 2010).

We originally reconstructed the thula's segment: * Ingui - * Ermin Teuz - * Istwas. This segment takes into account the ancient Germanic principle of versification and the peculiarities of thula. It lists the totem deities of the three Germanic tribes. Three Germanic tribes formed an important sequence within the cultural theme of thula's chants.

Cultural transfer of information is embodied in the oldest Germanic poetic tradition, in the genre of thula, which is an alliterative enumeration of names. The thula's composition is based on a cyclical principle determined by the duration of human life. A cycle is equal to the epoch, or Old Norse verqld / OE weorold “world”. Verqld/weorold `human + time' encompasses two interconnected plans: generation (age) and a large cosmic cycle (epoch). The content of the thula is presented in the form of a genealogical listing of names. This chronological sequence was created in ascending order (A + B + C +...). The story began from the time of the creation of thula and was traced back to the ancient German deity Odin (Woden):

Cynric Cerdecing, Cerdic Elesing, Elesa /sling, Elsa Gewising, Gewis Wiging, Wig Freawing, Freawine Fridugaring, Fridugar Broading, Brond Baeldaeging, Baeldaeg Wodening

Information about the life of society was stored in such lists and passed on from generation to generation. As will be shown below, such thula correlated not only with the name of the ancient German supreme deity, but also correlated along the line “totem - ethnonym”. There were certain laws of information transfer in the syntagmatics and paradigmatics of thula.

Let us return to the ethnogonic myth about the origin of Ingaevones:

The role of the mythological progenitor *Mannaz is reflected in some legends of Scandinavian mythology, for example, in the myth of the first human that is the giant Ymir. It is of particular interest for us to reconcile the main fragments of the myth about the progenitor with the segments 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 from the Anglo-Saxon series of runes.

The text of the myth, which is reconstructed in its most important aspect of proper names, reflects the specifics of settlement, and hence the set of elements in the sequence of the third family of runes: 20 - Man “the first man”; 21 - lagu “water”; 22 - Ing “Ing” (one of Mannus's sons); Edel “Homeland” (the place of birth). So, the main elements of the myth are fully consistent with the sequence of runes adopted by the Anglo-Saxons. The elements of the series are different from the general Germanic principle of the arrangement of runes in syntagmatics. The principle of the cycle is replaced in the Anglo-Saxon series of runes by the principle of the ethnocultural code, which plays a prominent role in the explication of the sequence of runes. Suppose that this segment reflects some of the historical and cultural features of the origin of the Ingaevones tribe settled closer to the sea and water.

In the rune poem, the verse about “man” says (hereinafter the contexts are given according to: (The Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem), our translation - S.P. andA.P.):

Man byb on myrgbe his magan leof: sceal beah anra gehwylc oSrum swican, forSum drihten wyle dome sine b®t earme flssc eorban betecan.

“A person is loved in joy by his fellow tribesmen. However, they must leave each other, because by God's will his poor body was commanded to be buried” (cf. the motive “man is the earth” and the Tacitus's myth).

The 21^strune of the Anglo-Saxon series - “water”, according to our hypothesis, is located in a place that is conditioned by the segment “water” - “Ing”, and the very semantics of this rune is reflected in the myth of the tribe of Ingaevones that is the ocean coast. Scandinavian texts convey clear correspondences of this rune in form lqgr and semantics “water flow”.

In the Gothic etymological dictionary of V. Lehmann, Goth. laas is interpreted by analogy with the runic name from the futhark daaz, i.e. daaz - dags, hence laas - * lagas (Lehmann, 1986: 224). It is important to mention other opinions, which, in general, come from the renaming of this rune. According to W. Krause's hypothesis, the name of this rune goes back to the common German * laukaz (Old Norse laukr). The runologist proceeds from the analysis based on the philological method (runica manuscripta), in which, along with the secondary, in his opinion, the form lqgr, there are several cases of writing laukr “onion”, which he interpreted as primary and common Germanic. This possibility cannot be ruled out. However, for our analysis, it is just that the rune is ethnically derived, that is, its semantic context is based on local, deeply specific Anglo-Saxon ideas.

W. Krause relies on the mythological context of the Edda, where the onion is named among the first plants to appear on earth. In the mythology of the Indo-European people, the onion was an attribute of the phallic cult. W. Krause's hypothesis points to yet another very convincing argument: among the three most famous “sacred words” in the runes, there is also the lexeme laukar “onion”. This lexeme has an indisputable etymology (cf. OE leac, Middle-Dutch look, Old-High German louh) and reveals a strong connection with the extra-runic ritual (Smirnitskaya, 1989: 47). In general, W. Krause's hypothesis about a different concept of 21^strune in the all-Germanic series does not contradict our assumption about the semantic connection between the myth and segment. As suggested by R. Page, Old English and Scandinavian forms are Christian replacements caused by strong pagan connotations of * laukaz (Page, 1973: 83). Our view of the problem (close to W. Krause) allows us to refrain from emphasizing any role of systemic worldview factors in this replacement and to explain variations in the name of the rune by their ethnically derived character.

The segments 20-23 of the Anglo-Saxon series of runes are aimed at explicating the main points of the ethnogonic myth of the Ingaevones. Hence, a series of the futhark, which apparently originally included Indo-European patterns (“movable” - “immovable property”), fluctuates in the direction of ideas about the Ingaevones. According to the studied Old English sources at least there is no evidence of the use of any other runic names other than lagu “water” in the Anglo-Saxon tradition.

Lagu byb leodum langsum gebuht, gif hi sculun neban on nacan tealtum and hi ssyba swybe bregab and se brimhengest bridles ne gym[eS].

The Anglo-Saxon rune poem runs: “the water seems endless to people if they are brought in a boat to sway and cut the sea waves, and do not remember the bridle of the sea horse”. Rune О Ing - hero Ing (son of Mannus, the first of the Ingaevones tribe). We do not find a parallel to the unique representation of the Ingaevones tribe like is the hero Ing in Scandinavian texts. Thanks to the reconstruction of the Germanic poetic prototype, we restore the three Germanic heroic names * Ing - * Ermin - * Istwas. There is no doubt that Ing is one of the legendary figures of the East German tribes. The Anglo-Saxon poem says:

Ing wss srest mid East-Denum gesewen secgun, ob he siSSan est ofer wsg gewat; wsn sfter ran; Sus Heardingas Sone hsle nemdun.

“Ing was seen first by the people of the East Danes, until the moment when he went to the east (sometimes read eft `back') across the sea. His chariot followed him. That is why the Heardings called him a hero”. We note that East Danes in the epic Beowulf called Ingwine (favourites of Ing) are probably the very Ingaevones, whom Tacitus distinguishes as a Germanic tribal group that from all other tribes lived closest to the sea (OE lagu). Another implication in the poem about Ing is an indication of the chariot (vaen) that accompanied the hero on the voyage. This episode echoes the Germanic ritual described by Tacitus and dedicated to the goddess Nerthus (compare Old Norse Njqrdr, the god of wealth and fertility, Freyr's father), during which the chariot of the deity moved, making its way through the crowd of those gathered. Snorri Sturluson, already in the period of the author's German literature, informs about his second name according to his ancestors - Yngui. Perhaps this evidence prompted W. Krause to reconstruct the common Germanic proto form Ingwas - “deity of fertility”. Such a reconstruction based on the ethnically derived rune name seems to us to be very likely. The Indo-European world knows many ethnonyms, as well as the names of the heroes of individual tribes, the names of which go back to the deity worshiped by the tribe, but who was also recognized by the neighbours, cf. Greek cult of Athena.

In the rune Я , which takes the 23^rdplace in the reconstruction according to the Rune Poem, the meaning of “land”, “home”, “homeland” comes to the fore, rather than “real estate”, as indicated in the cyclical futhark. This is evident in the context of the poem. In the Futhark, this rune occupied the 24^thposition.

In the earliest alphabetic inscriptions, for example, the bracteates from Vadstena and Grumpan, we can observe fluctuations in the general cyclic scheme, which are sometimes difficult to justify purely technological errors (it is especially difficult to assume this from the bracteate from Grumpan with the ending m, l, n, o, d). Note that the author of the text of the Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem seems to inherit Grumpan's pattern and puts the rune Я in the 23^rdplace. Reconstruction using the “parallel row” method, carried out by us by comparing the chain of names of runes 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 in the Futhark, as well as conceptualizing the myth about the origin of the Germanic peoples, results in correlating the basic features of the ethnogonic myth (Ing is the son of the prehuman Mannus, a hero of the Ingaevones tribe, who lived on the ocean coast in the homeland in the house of their ancestors). By the way, even such a perceptive analyst of Anglo-Saxon runic texts as R. Page neglects the sequence of the runic row in the Anglo-Saxon poem, giving the rune Я eSel its usual 24^thposition (Page, 1973: 84). Such a bias towards the common Old Germanic pattern does not correspond to the sequence of verses in manuscripts, as well as to the textual meaning of the name of the rune in the poem (“Motherland is the house of ancestors”).

Ebel byb oferleof sghwylcum men, gif he mot Ssr rihtes and gerysena on brucan on bolde bleadum oftast.

“The house of ancestors is dear to every man if he can enjoy in his house in eternal prosperity what is righteous and decent”. There is a correlation between the proper name Ing and the name of the Ingaevones tribe.

Alliteration of Rulers and Names of Kingdoms