SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Beowulf, Swedes and Geats
a semi-independent existence until a considerably later
time. Dr Sisam has recently drawn attention to a
number of considerations which indicate that the Geats
survived for a very long time after 550. 6 2 He cited the
title of the present Swedish king as Sveriges, Gates, och
Vendes Konung, and an Icelandic tradition in which the
Geats are treated as a distinct people.s" Harald Fairhair
(c. goo) is said to have fought many battles against them,
and to have won part of their territory. Finally, Dr
Sisam tells us that Ailnoth, a Canterbury monk, in his
life of St Knud of Denmark (d. 1086) spoke of five
peoples in Scandinavia - Danes, Swedes, Geats, Norwegians
and Icelanders.
Since some British scholars have recently maintained
that the fall of the Geats could well have taken place
c. 550, it seems necessary to review the evidence for their
continued survival. Professor Gwyn ] ones considers
Tacitus's testimony shows that about A.D. 100 the Swedes
were 'more powerful and better organised in their
Uppland province than any of the tribes that surrounded
them' .64 He holds further that the date at which they
gained supremacy over their southern neighbours, the
Geats, is 'bewilderingly uncertain', and may have taken
place as early as post 550 or as late as c. 1000. 65 Dr
O'Loughlin has recently stated as a strong probability
that 'barbarian Swedes' overthrew the Geatish kingdom
'a decade or two before the middle of the sixth century'r"
The first point to make in a revaluation of the evidence is
that Tacitus's account of the states (civitates) of the
Sweones is not clear evidence for the supremacy of the
Svear over their southern neighbours, Geats, or anyone
" K. Sisam, The Structure of Beowulf (1965), esp. 51-9. I wish here to
acknowledge my debt to Dr Sisam; the implications raised by this chapter of
his are the basis of the present article.
66 See Lee M. Hollander 'The Gautland Cycle of Sagas', Journal of English
and Germanic Philology II (1912), 61-81, 209-17 .
.. A History of the Vikings (1968), 34.
•• ibid .
•• See note 50 above. Dr O'Loughlin's arguments will be discussed below.