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270 Beowulf, Swedes and Geats
Gregory of Tours.s- the hero of the poem dies after the
middle of the sixth century, and we can hardly expect
the poet to write further on Scandinavian history.
Secondly, the life of legend is not to be equated with the
import of goods; people wrote about Eormanric or
Theodoric without themselves having contact with the
Gothic kingdom, and the Scandinavian traditions reflected
in Beowulf may well have had currency long after a first
period of active contact had ceased.
Professor Gwyn Jones, with considerable caution, cites
the Sparlosa stone and Alfred's account of Wulfstan's
voyages as evidence to support a claim that the Geatish
fall took place c. 800. 85 The limitations of the Wulfstan
account have been noted above.f" and the most recent
interpretation of the Sparlosa stone differs from the one
which reads in it a statement that Alrikr, son of King
Eirikr of Uppsala, ruled over Vastergotland about the
year 800. 87 Thus the claims for the fall of the Geats about
550 do not have solid support. A realistic view, based on
such scant evidence as we have, is that the Gautar were
gradually dominated by the Soear, and that they were
gradually subsumed into the larger kingdom of Sweden,
while maintaining their cultural identity in many respects.
This process was not completed until well after A.D. 1000.
There is no evidence for a destruction of the Gautar as a
people at any time. This account does not contradict
what is said in Beowulf about the relations between the
.