Re: [tied] Hun-hunting

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 6238
Date: 2001-02-28

The Humber was called Humbre (feminine!) before the first viking raids upon the British Isles; also the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria ("North of the Humber") was formed under that name very early in the 7th c. Geoffrey de Monmouth and Drayton fantastically derived the Humber's name from that of a Hunnish king who was drowned there while being chased by Locrine, the son of Brutus. As all the world knows, rivers and estuaries are usually named after heroes who drown in them, but there are at least eleven and perhaps up to fifteen rivers Humber in England (according to Eilert Ekwall) and a Hun called Humber can hardly have perished in each of them.
 
The etymology of English (or other) placenames cannot be discussed meaningfully without investigating the recorded history of each place, older spelling variants (Old English, Domesday Book), etc. Otherwise, how would you hope to guess that, e.g., Brighton (the resort) was "Beorhthelmes tu:n" once opon a time?
 
Hunstanton (Nf) (pronounced "hunston" locally) < Hun(e)stanes tu:n 'Hunstan's farmstead', but Hunston (Sf) < Hunteres tu:n 'Hunter's farmstead', while Hunston (W Sussex) < Hunan sta:n 'Huna's boundary stone'. The rather common Anglo-Saxon personal name Huna, which underlies dozens of Hun- placenames in Britain, meant "bear's cub", not "Hun".
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: tgpedersen@...
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2001 1:34 PM
Subject: [tied] Huns


Something from Galster's book that might interest also non-Danes:

Saxo: Dan and Angel were the sons of a king Humbli.

Roman de Brut, verse 1331: ...Humbers, roi des Hunus...

The ON poem "The Battle of the Goths and Huns" describes Humli as the
leader of the Huns.

Jordanes: Hulmul/Humal.

which all seems to suggest that the Danes and the Angles at one time
were subjugated by the Huns.

"A Frankish source" (some annal of the plunderings of the Normans in
France 833-896) calls their homeland "Scanzia" and states that it is
populated by Goths, Huns and Danes, which would suggest they are not
yet extinct at that time. Galster suggests a connection with the
river Humber in England and the village of Hunsborough a few km south
of Northampton. Morton, writing in the 18th century, states that a
Danish camp was situated there, therefore, presumably Huns went a-
viking with the Danes. In 448, Priskos, a Roman emissary, was told in
Attila's camp in Pannonia that Attila had just added "the islands in
the Ocean" to his empire.

Saxo: Humbli's successor was Loter, his brother.

Roman sources: Attila's brother-in-law war Laudarius.

"The battle of the Goths and the Huns": Hlodr is also called
Humlungr, thus presumably Humbli's son.

Torsten