Gizur, Gizurr or Gissur was a King of the Geats

King of the Geats

Geatish kings , ruling over the provinces of Götaland , appears in several sources for early Swedish history...

. He appears in The Battle of the Goths and Huns, which is included in the Hervarar saga

Hervarar saga

Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks is a legendary saga from the 13th century combining matter from several older sagas. It is a valuable saga for several different reasons beside its literary qualities. It contains traditions of wars between Goths and Huns, from the 4th century, and the last part is used as...

and in editions of the Poetic Edda

Poetic Edda

The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century...

. Gizur was the foster-father of Heidrek

Heidrek

Heidrek or Heiðrekr was one of the main characters in the cycle about the magic sword Tyrfing. He appears in the Hervarar saga, and probably also in Widsith, line 115, as Heathoric together with his sons Angantyr and Hlöð , and Hlöð's mother Sifka...

, who made a coup-d'état in Reidgotaland

Reidgotaland

Reidgotaland, Hreidgotaland or Hreiðgotaland was a land in Scandinavian sagas as well as in the pre-Viking English Widsith, which usually referred to the land of the Goths...

, the land of the Goths

Goths

The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....

 (see Oium

Oium

Oium or Aujum was a name for an area in Scythia, where the Goths under their king Filimer settled after leaving Gothiscandza, according to the Getica by Jordanes, written around 551...

 and the Chernyakhov culture

Chernyakhov culture

The Sântana de Mureș–Chernyakhiv culture is the name given to an archaeological culture which flourished between the 2nd and 5th centuries in a wide area of Eastern Europe, specifically in what today constitutes Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, and parts of Belarus...

).

Ár kváðu Humla	In the old days, they said Humli
Húnum ráða,	Ruled the Huns,
Gizur Gautum,	Gizur of the Geats,
Gotum Angantý...	of the Goths Angantyr...

When Heidrek was dead, Gizur arrived in the Goth capital Arheimar

Árheimar

Árheimar was a capital of the Goths, according to the Hervarar saga. The saga only states that it was located on the river Dnieper, which flows from Ukraine to the Black Sea.- Hervarar saga :...

 on the Dniepr (Danpar) to pay homage to his foster-son. Heidrek's son Angantyr

Angantyr

Angantyr was the name of three characters from the same line in Norse mythology, and who appear in Hervarar saga, in Gesta Danorum and Faroese ballads....

, who was the new king of the Goths, held a great banquet in the honour of his father. Then Heidrek's illegitimate son Hlöd

Hlöd

Hlod or Hlöd was the illegitimate son of Heidrek, the king of the Goths.He appears in the Hervarar saga and probably also as Hlith in Widsith, line 115, together with his father Heiðrekr , half-brother Angantyr , and his mother Sifka .-Claiming his inheritance:Hlöd had grown up with his grandfather...

, who had grown up among the Huns

Huns

The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...

, arrived to claim his share of the inheritance. Angantyr offered a great many riches and a third of the Goth kingdom, but before Hlöd could answer, Gizur reminded Angantyr that Hlöd was only a bastard son and did not deserve such riches.

This caused an invasion of the Hunnish Horde (approximately 350,000 men), and prospects looked grim. Gizur supported Angantyr and helped him fight the Horde, presumably with his own Geatish forces.

Since he helped the Goths, Hlöd

Hlöd

Hlod or Hlöd was the illegitimate son of Heidrek, the king of the Goths.He appears in the Hervarar saga and probably also as Hlith in Widsith, line 115, together with his father Heiðrekr , half-brother Angantyr , and his mother Sifka .-Claiming his inheritance:Hlöd had grown up with his grandfather...

 mockingly called the king the Grýtingaliði, an Ostrogoth

Ostrogoth

The Ostrogoths were a branch of the Goths , a Germanic tribe who developed a vast empire north of the Black Sea in the 3rd century AD and, in the late 5th century, under Theodoric the Great, established a Kingdom in Italy....

(Greutungi) warrior and "Angantyr's man":

Taki þér Gizur	You be seized
Grýtingalinða,	Ostrogoth warrior,
mann Angantýs,	Angantyr's man,
kominn af Árheimum.	Arrived from Arheimar.