Hygelac - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

King of the Geats

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

according to the poem Beowulf

Beowulf

Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...

. He was the son of Hrethel and had brothers Herebeald

Herebeald

Herebeald was the son of the Geatish king Hreðel in Beowulf. He was killed with an arrow by his brother Hæþcyn in a hunting accident which caused their father Hreðel to die from grief. Then Hæþcyn became king of the Geats. The hero Beowulf was his nephew....

and Hæthcyn. His sister was married to Ecgtheow and had the son Beowulf. Hygelac was married to Hygd

Hygd

Queen Hygd, introduced in line 1925 of the poem Beowulf, is the wife of King Hygelac of Geatland.After Beowulf defeats Grendel and Grendel's mother, he and his men returned to their native country, where they are received by Hygelac and Hygd. Hygd is beautiful, wise, courteous, and attentive...

and they had the son Heardred

Heardred

Heardred , d. ca 530 AD, is the son of Hygelac, king of the Geats, and his queen Hygd, in Beowulf. After Hygelac's death, in Frisia, Hygd wants to make Hygelac's nephew Beowulf, king of Geatland, as she fears that the young Heardred won't be able to defend his people...

, and an unnamed daughter who married Eofor

Eofor

Eofor , son of Wonred, was a Geatish warrior in Beowulf. When the Swedes invaded Geatland , the Geatish king Hæþcyn was killed by the Swedish king Ongenþeow. Hygelac, who became the new king, sent Eofor and his brother Wulf to fight against the hoary-bearded Swedish king...

. When Hygelac's brother Hæthcyn was fighting with the Swedes

Suiones

The Swedes e, "one's own [tribesmen/kinsmen]"; Old English: Sweonas; , Suehans or Sueones) were an ancient North Germanic tribe in Scandinavia...

, Hygelac arrived one day too late at Hrefnesholt

Hrefnesholt

Hrefnesholt is a location in Beowulf where the Geatish king Hæþcyn had taken the Swedish queen. The Swedish king Ongenþeow arrived to save her and killed Hæþcyn. The Geatish force was, however, reinforced by Hygelac, whereupon the Swedes sought refuge in a hillfort, but were stormed by the Geats...

to save his brother, but managed to rescue the surviving Geatish warriors, who were besieged by the Swedish king Ongentheow. The Swedes found refuge at a hill fort but were assaulted by the Geats and the Swedish king was slain by Eofor. After the death of his brother, Hygelac ascended the Geatish throne. Hygelac then went on a Viking raid to Frisia

Frisia

Frisia is a coastal region along the southeastern corner of the North Sea, i.e. the German Bight. Frisia is the traditional homeland of the Frisians, a Germanic people who speak Frisian, a language group closely related to the English language...

and was killed. Hygelac was succeeded by Heardred

Heardred

, according to Beowulf

Beowulf

.

The raid to Frisia

Frisia

enabled N. F. S. Grundtvig

Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig

Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig , most often referred to as simply N. F. S. Grundtvig, was a Danish pastor, author, poet, philosopher, historian, teacher, and politician. He was one of the most influential people in Danish history, as his philosophy gave rise to a new form of nationalism in...

to approximate the date of Hygelac's death to ca 516, because a raid to France under a King Chlochilaicus, king of the Danes is mentioned by Gregory of Tours

Gregory of Tours

Saint Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of Gaul. He was born Georgius Florentius, later adding the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather...

. In these sources he appears as invading the Frankish Kingdoms

Frankish Empire

Francia or Frankia, later also called the Frankish Empire , Frankish Kingdom , Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century...

during the reign of Theuderic I

Theuderic I

Theuderic I was the Merovingian king of Metz, Rheims, or Austrasia—as it is variously called—from 511 to 533 or 534....

in the early sixth century, and was killed by a military force led by Theudebert, son of the king of the Franks

Franks

The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

. Gregory of Tours calls this king Danish. He is called the king of the Getae in the Liber Monstrorum

Liber Monstrorum

The Liber Monstrorum is a late seventh-or early eighth-century Anglo-Latin catalogue of marvellous creatures, which may be connected with the Anglo-Saxon scholar Aldhelm...

(rex Getarum) and of the Goths in Liber historiae Francorum

Liber Historiae Francorum

Liber historiae Francorum is a book that briefly starts as secondary source for early Franks in the time of Marcomer, and it gives a short breviarum of events until the time of the late Merovingians, where it becomes an important primary source of the contemporaneous history...

(rege Gotorum).

There are two theories on how the account of Chlochilaicus' raid came to be preserved in the epic Beowulf

Beowulf

, and they have a bearing upon the date assigned to the poem. It may date to the early 8th century, but some have suggested that it was composed as late as the 10th century. One view considers the account to have kept alive by the oral tradition of heroic poetry until it was included in the epos. It has also been suggested that the poem is dependent on Liber historiae Francorum (727), because it mentions the Attoarii, which in Beowulf become Hetware. One scholar considers it to be inconceivable that independent oral tradition would have faithfully transmitted such a detail. Walter Goffart

Walter Goffart

Walter Andre Goffart is a historian of the later Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages who specializes in research on the barbarian kingdoms of those periods. He is a senior research scholar and lecturer at Yale University....

estimated that Beowulf could not have been written with these historical details before 923.

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