Torsten, one of your last posts made me find a thing I've sought for
some time i e. some antique paralell to this quote from Dudo:
"For these nations, greatly inflamed by lascivious unchastity, and
ravishing very many women with singular baseness, by performing in
this way, men beget from them countless filthy offspring through
mingling in a union of unlawful sexual union. These offspring, who
would have been superfluous had they continued after they had come to
maturity by holdings of goods to dwell in the inadequate land which
they inhabited, savagely fighting against their fathers and their
grandfathers or more often amongst themselves, are driven out by lot -
the multitude of those reaching puberty having been brought
together - according to long-standing usage (note 3) , into the
realms of foreign nations to obtain for themselves in battle realms
whereby they might be able to live in never-ending peace, as did, for
instance, the Getae, Goths who pillaged almost all of Europe up to
where they now reside.
Besides, as the completion of their expulsions and departures,
they would at some future time offer sacrifices, venerating their god
Thor. They would not propitiate him by some offering of cattle or
sheep or wine or grain, but they would sacrifice human blood,
reckoning it the most precious of all offerings, and therefore, in
accordance with the prior determination of a soothsayer priest,
several victims would at the same time be struck abominably in the
head by a team of oxen and, once the brain (note 4) of whichever one
had been chosen by lot in that land was dashed by a solitary blow,
that one would be thrown to the ground and the filament on the left
side of his heart, that is the blood-vessel, would be hunted down.
Besmearing their own heads and those of their followers, as is their
custom, with his drained blood, they swiftly launch the canvas sails
of their boats to the winds and, reckoning that they have appeased
the winds by such business, they would swiftly ply the oars of their
boats. If, on the other hand, after a more important casting of lots,
horsemen were to depart, they would raise up the martial banners of
battle. And thus, slipping away from their own borders, they would
conceive a deadly plan for the extortion of other nations.
Indeed, they live in exile from their fathers, to butt manfully
like rams against kings. They are sent away from their homes,
destitute, to gain their banquets from strangers. They are deprived
of the estates of their own families, to be calmly hired for those of
others. Exiled, they are banished, to hunt, battling. They are thrust
out from their own homes, to partake with those born in foreign
lands. They are separated from their own nation, to give thanks for
the holdings of foreigners. They are forsaken by their fathers,
perhaps not to be seen by their mothers. The fierceness of the youths
is aroused for the purpose of demolishing nations. The fatherland is
delivered, cleansed for its own residents. Other provinces suffer
greatly, vilely poisoned by so numerous an enemy. Thus do they
pillage all the places which stand against them. They sail close to
the coasts of the sea, to claim for themselves the spoils of the
lands. Whatever they ravish from one realm, they escort to another.
They beg for harbors as part of a negotiated peace, for the sake of
exchanging ravished gain. (Thus the Dacians are called by their own
people Greeks (Danai, my insertion)or Danes, and they boast that they
are descended from Antenor. He entered with his followers the
Illyrian borders, having slipped away from the midst of the Achaeans
who pillaged Troy.)
For these Dacians, once ejected from their own lands by means of
the reported rite, have savagely landed with duke Anstign where
Francia extensively spreads out its tracts..."
http://orb.rhodes.edu/ORB_done/Dudo/chapter02.html
So he says that it's the lot that settles which of the sons that are
expelled unless sacrificed.
Not the first-born as I read in Herodous' account of Boeotia.
So now I found this instead in Herodotus:
"On waking, he went in quest of them, and, after wandering over the
whole country, came at last to the district called "the Woodland,"
where he found in a cave a strange being, between a maiden and a
serpent, whose form from the waist upwards was like that of a woman,
while all below was like a snake. He looked at her wonderingly; but
nevertheless inquired, whether she had chanced to see his strayed
mares anywhere. She answered him, "Yes, and they were now in her
keeping; but never would she consent to give them back, unless he
took her for his mistress." So Hercules, to get his mares back,
agreed; but afterwards she put him off and delayed restoring the
mares, since she wished to keep him with her as long as possible. He,
on the other hand, was only anxious to secure them and to get away.
At last, when she gave them up, she said to him, "When thy mares
strayed hither, it was I who saved them for thee: now thou hast paid
their salvage; for lo! I bear in my womb three sons of thine. Tell me
therefore when thy sons grow up, what must I do with them? Wouldst
thou wish that I should settle them here in this land, whereof I am
mistress, or shall I send them to thee?" Thus questioned, they say,
Hercules answered, "When the lads have grown to manhood, do thus, and
assuredly thou wilt not err. Watch them, and when thou seest one of
them bend this bow as I now bend it, and gird himself with this
girdle thus, choose him to remain in the land. Those who fail in the
trial, send away. Thus wilt thou at once please thyself and obey me."
Hereupon he strung one of his bows- up to that time he had carried
two- and showed her how to fasten the belt. Then he gave both bow and
belt into her hands. Now the belt had a golden goblet attached to its
clasp. So after he had given them to her, he went his way; and the
woman, when her children grew to manhood, first gave them severally
their names. One she called Agathyrsus, one Gelonus, and the other,
who was the youngest, Scythes. Then she remembered the instructions
she had received from Hercules, and, in obedience to his orders, she
put her sons to the test. Two of them, Agathyrsus and Gelonus,
proving unequal to the task enjoined, their mother sent them out of
the land; Scythes, the youngest, succeeded, and so he was allowed to
remain..."
http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.4.iv.html
Isn't this also the lot that settles the deal if anything?
I just can't help see some similarities here to Agathyrsus in the
Bewulf Ongentheow and the Angantyr in the Icelandic sagas. E g. the
the one from the <holmgång> on Samsö.
Then the question of the naming of Samsö arises again. Has it
anything to do with the way the Thor/Hercules figure in the Old
Testament, Samson is thought to have gotten his name- from the
Assyrian sun-god Shamash or a corresponding figure?
Best wishes
Anders