Ek ErilaR

San Antonio, Texas - July 2002 CE

Controversial Foundations: I began what I thought was going to be a rather straight forward approach to the question of the Heruli earlier this year. Much to my surprise I found that the subject is a mine-field of controversy. All of which is generated by who's interpretation you accept. Were they a distinct tribe of Germanic folk, like the Saxons, or were they a mixed group, banded together in a common cause? In either case, how does the "runemaster" interpretation fit in? During the course of this report, we shall look at some of the variables, and finish with the runic corpus of the erilaR. The Historical Erulians: The ancient literary records have the (H)erulians as having originated in "Thule", or more exactly, Denmark. Apparently they were then "driven" out by the Danes, and from there migrated to either Norway or Sweden. It is thought that the Eruli followed the same migratory route as the Goths, from somewhere in "Thule", probably E. Norway, down the river systems of Poland and Russia, to the marshlands just to the north of the Sea of Azov. From there, they launched a series of naval attacks against the holdings of the Eastern Empire via the Black Sea. First mentioned in 267 CE - Jordanes - Getica 117 ".reduced under his [Geberic, Gothic king] sway the remainder of the tribe of the Eruli, whose chief was Alaric. ..dwelt near Lake Maeotis [Sea of Azov] in swampy places which the Greeks call hele; hence they were named (H)eruli." There are several schools of thought on just exactly who these (H)erulians were, from being a distinct tribe [Jakobsen and Moltke], to them being composed of "warrior bands" > kriegerverbands, from various tribal backgrounds, forming a "network" of "warrior rune magicians", with Woden as their war-god. One proponent of the later theory is Otto Hfler (1970-71), who sees in the inscription on the bronze Helmet of Negau (A) [3rd - 1st cent. BCE] c. eril > (c)enturio Erul(i)> [ ]. According to Hfler, this Germanic auxiliary, who, in contact with the N. Ital. script, develops the "form" of the Elder runic script. This would account for one explanation of the apparent "intra-tribal" mode of the dispensation of Runic knowledge among the peoples of the far north.

During the latter years of the 3rd cent., the period of the "Scythian" wars, a certain group of Eruli left the area and departed to the north or northeast. Nothing more is heard of them. From the 3rd to the 5th cent. we can find Erulian "pirates" from "Thule" on the western coasts of Europe, and into the Med. itself, as far as Italy. > 350 CE, they are included in the realm of Ermanaric. > 450 - 600 - period of the ek erilaR runestones found Scandinavia. > In 454, many GMC tribes under the leadership of the Gepid King Ardaric, defeated the remaining Hunnic military after the death of Attila, and set up a series of kingdoms as 'federates' of Constantinople, in fact, the emperor's bodyguard was composed of Erulians in the 6th cent. There were many Eruli in the army of the East, both in Persia and Italy; Procopius has 2000 of them in the army under Narses, who joined Belisarius in Italy. > The following tribes were strung out along the left bank of the Danube, from the Lower Austrian Wachau Valley to the Transylvanian Carpathians: A. Gepidia replaces Gothia (Dacia) B. Skirian and Sarmatian kingdoms between the Danube and the Tisza C. Suebian - w. of (B.) along w/Vandals and Alans D. Erulian - Lower Austrian and Moravian Marches - until the 6th cent. Subjugated Langobards during this period. E. Lower Austrian Rugians w. of (D.) - royal seat- Krems F. Ostrogoths in Pannonia > 476 - Majority of soldiers in Odoacer's army are Eruli, which overrun Italy. > 488 - B., C., E., and F., had fallen which created a power vacuum, this was promptly filled by the Erulians. According to Procopius, a Byzantine historian, c. 552, in his work (in Greek) De bello Gothico, t. ii. c. 14 & 15, around 493 the Erulians attacked their neighbors, the Langobards, they suffered a decisive defeat, and their king, Rodulf, was killed in battle: > "They then hastily left their dwelling-places, and set out with their women and children to wander through the whole country [Hungary] which lies north of the Danube. When they came to the district where the Rugians had formerly dwelt, who had joined the army of the Goths and gone into Italy, they settled there; but as they were opposed by famine in that district, which had been laid waste, they soon afterwards departed from it, and came near to the country of the Gepidae [Siebenburgen]. The Gepids allowed them to establish themselves and to become their neighbors, but began thereupon, without the slightest cause, to commit the

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most revolting acts against them, ravishing their women, robbing them of cattle and other goods, and omitting no kind of injustice, and finally began an unjust war against them. The Eruli then crossed the Danube to Illyria [Slovenia and Croatia] and settled somewhere about what is now Serbia under the Eastern Emperor Anastasius (491-518). Some of the Eruli would not cross the Danube, but decided to establish themselves in the uttermost ends of the inhabited world. Many chieftains of royal blood now undertaking their leadership, they passed through all the tribes of the Slavs one after another, went thence through a wide, uninhabited country, and came to the so-called Varn. Beyond them they passed by the tribes of the Danes [in Jutland], without the barbarians there using violence towards them. When they thence came to the ocean [c. 512] they took ship and landed on the island of Thule and remained there." It is known that the group in the south maintained contact with those who went to Thule, or Norway, The story is related, that the Eruli of the south decided to see if they could rule themselves without a king. So they killed Ochon. Later, when they regretted their decision, they sent some of their bravest and best to Norway to find a new king of royal blood. He was found, but died along the way. Two brothers of royal blood were then found and were accompanied by 200 Erulian warriors. > 508 - Erulian Kingdom falls to the Langobards (Lombards). > 536 - Converted to Christianity, some to Athanasian (close to the modern Catholic creed), but the majority to Arianism. As the Langobards (Athanasian) and the Gepids (Arian) moved to war, obviously the Eruli were enlisted as well. The Langobards practically exterminated the other side and nothing more is heard of the survivors. One could conjecture though, that in keeping with their wandering nature, that they may have made their way back to Norway. > through 557 - Those who were serving in the Imperial army, men of high renown, were eventually settled in the Trient district as garrison troops along the frontier. In 557, they attempted a revolt that was unsuccessful and nothing more is heard of them. (Again, did the remainder of the Eruli make their way back to the North?) > Adding further controversy, Elias Wessn, in De Nordiska Folkstammarna Beowulf, 1927, challenges the accuracy of the historical narrative in the poem to support his view that the Danes presented in Beowulf are in reality the Eruli. > Cultural characteristics: conservative preservation of the heathen faith ("they worshiped many gods.."), a berserkr- like mindset to their style of warfare- fighting without armor, the sacrificing of the old and the practice of sutee.

Etymology of the word: The etymology of the word erilaR is uncertain and not without controversy. The symantic field does offer some interesting clues though > "The Ulster Annals s.a. 847 have the form erell in a context where it is clear that Scandinavian jarl is meant. Marstrander thought this a reflex of Common Scandinavian *irill (*erell), which would have been the expected descendant of runic erilaR, but it may be that this and the forms ierll s.a. 892 and iarla s.a. 917 are all reflexes of Common Scandinavian jarl or (before breaking) *erl. In any case, Middle Welsh iarll 'count', iarlles 'countess', iarlaeth 'county' stem from Scandinavian jarl." Marvin Taylor - General Lingustics "Forms with initial h (rough breathing in Greek) are common, but the h- is inorganic;...A form Elouroi with both inorganic h- and metathesis was derived by folk etymology from Greek elos 'swamp'; this etymology...is also mentioned by Jordanes (Getica 117). (The 'swamp' of Maeotis is the Sea of Azov, the first area of East Erulian settlement and the point of departure for the raids of the third century, of which Dexippos was an eyewitness)." "The currently accepted etymology of Eruli was advanced in its essentials more than 150 years ago: both Aschbach and Zeuss linked the name with Olc. jarl, OE eorl 'earl', and Zeuss added that Icelandic, which should have yielded *jorl as the reflex of *erul-, 'may have had a different vowel in the suffix'. "To sum up, we cannot reconstruct a meaning for Eruli on Germanic evidence alone; the name is related to the jarl words and erilaR, but cannot be equated with any of them. On the other hand, their close relationship means that we ultimately are looking for one etymology, not three." "Until recently, most proposals centered on one or both of the semantic fields 'war' and 'man'. The 'war(rior)' etymology was supported by the following considerations leaving aside the 'sword' and 'army' etymologies based on inorganic h- in the form Heruli: 1) The supposed existence of a name *Er for the Germanic war *Tiwaz, based primarily on...'Tuesday'. The suspicion soon arose, however, and was eventually confirmed, that the Er- in Ertag is not Germanic, but a corrupt and umlauted form of the name Ares from a half-translated Areos aemera. There remains, to be sure, the Germanic word ermin- 'large', as in the Saxons' custom of constructing an Irminsul 'universalis columna', to which victory sacrifices were apparently made. But attempts to etymologize ermin- as 'warrior' (through Olc. jara 'battle') remain dubious." "2) A supposed etymological connection with Olc. jara 'battle' also <*er- by

breaking; OHG ernust, OE eornust (eo<e by OE breaking) 'seriousness, battle'; Grk. eris, 'strife'. etc. (According to Noreen, the connection with jara was first made by Nordenstreng. This connection has been accepted tentatively by almost all etymological dictionaries...though many of the words involved remain problematic and none of them has an -l- suffix. I will return to this etymology below." 3) The fact that jarl and eorl refer to the political military sphere. 4) The particularly warlike nature of the Eruli as described by Migration Period historians. The 'man' etymology was argued as follows: 1) OS erl 'man, person' preserves an original, neutral semantic basis underlying also the rank designations jarl and eorl. This must be correct, as most recently Ebbinghaus has emphasized. Adherents of the 'war' etymology had tended to argue the opposite: 'Old Saxon erlos means 'men, people', originally 'warriors, heroes'. And even Bugge, who did see the *er-l- words as diminutives of a root *er-, 'man', still could not resist infusing the semantic element 'war' into them: 'The word jarl, stem erila- and erla-, contains a diminutive suffix and means etymologically 'a young man', 'a young male warrior'." "2) An etymological connection with a supposed IE root *er- 'man, masculine', especially in names of young and male animals. The animals involved are Norw. jerv 'wolverine'; OHG irah 'male goat'; Grk. eriphos 'young male goat', Lat. aries 'ram'; and Olc. orri, OHG orrehuon, 'Auerhahn'; the 'Auerhahn' words are examples of an extended stem *ers attested also in Avestan arsan 'man, male animal', Attic arraen, Homeric arsaen, 'masculine'. The youth element was supported by ernos, 'scion', the Heysychios gloss ereas tekna and Neo-Phrygian eiroi 'children'. From the beginning this argument suffered from confusion about the relative importance of the semantic elements 'youth' and 'maleness' in the reconstructed root; few of the supposed cognates attest both together. Bugge, for example, ety-mologized jerv as 'young male animal' while Falk-Torp preferred simply 'das Junge'. Bugge postulated a Germanic god *Er 'the male' and...Elgqvist produced a logical combination of these two ideas: the term erilaR, referring to the rune-carver in his religious function, would have meant 'the little man', i.e. the priest as representative of his god *Er- 'the man'. Still more destructive to the 'male' hypothesis was the emergence of new etymologies for many of the words involved: jerv is now thought to mean 'brown animal', irah to be a loan from Latin hircus, and eraephos and aries to be from the root for 'goat' or 'horned animal' unrelated to the rest..." "Uhlenbeck's proposal linking the 'earl' words (by ablaut) to Gothic ara, Olc. orn 'Eagle', Grk. ornis 'bird' survived long enough to be mentioned by Pokorny, but Ebbinghaus and Lehmann, for example, have dismissed it. Although it does have the advantage of offering Baltic and Slavic analogues to the Germanic -l- suffix (e.g. Lith. erelis, Russ. orel), this is hardly a compelling point; furthermore, the

semantic link is not obvious and would have to be like that between the meanings 'boar' and 'prince' of Olc. jofurr. Walde-Pokorny had mentioned a possible connection between l. *er- 'eagle' and *er 'move', but this suggestion does not appear in the Indogermanisches etymologisches Woerterbuch_(IEW). Antonsen (1975) is reluctant to offer an etymology for erilaR (erilaz) in his transcription): 'etymologically obscure, perhaps a derivative of proto indoeuropean '/er-/, cf. Go. airus 'messenger', Lat. orior 'arise', Lith erelis, arelis 'eagle' (?). This is a rather eclectic set of cognates; as far as I know, airus is always taken for airus with long first vowel (cf. Olc. eri, pl) and has been mentioned by no one else in this connection. Two important recent proposals involve different roots altogether. In two articles...Jan de Vries proposed a root *er- cognate with Sanskrit aryah, 'lord, hospitable lord',...'master of a house'... aryama, Avestan airyaman 'companion, host, deity name', and covering the semantic fields 'worldly and divine sovereignty' and 'the people of social construct.' This root would have two triplets of derivatives in Germanic, each triplet dividing up these semantic 'functions' (in Dumzil's sense)..." Basically it is the root *er- cognate going back to Sanskrit aryah 'lord'. The root would have two triplets of derivatives in Germanic, each triplet dividing up these semantic 'functions' (in Dumzil's sense) more or less precisely by suiffix ablaut. One of the three in the first triplet set is *ermuna with Olc. Jormunr = name of Odinn, and jormungandr = world serpent. "For *ermana-/*ermina-/*ermuna, the standard etymology is also fairly solid: ...it is *er- 'move', the meaning 'great' having developed through something like 'exalted, risen'. Whether this is a medio-passive participle cognate with Grk. ormenos < ornumi 'excite', 'move' is another matter. de Vries objected that this particle suffix is attested nowhere else in Germanic and is never known to display e-o-zero ablaut, so the Germanic forms must be substantive derivations. This has been accepted by, e.g. Polom, who nevertheless stands by the old etymology: Jormunr, Erminones etc., are thus substantivized adjectives (*Ermanaz 'apparently designates the skygod Tiwaz as "the exalted one') and irmin- is this adjective functioning as intensifying morpheme. Old Icelandic jormuni 'ox, horse' had posed a problem for the old etymology: it was traced to another root 'fit', and even *ermana-/*ermina- *ermunawas sometimes derived from this root and explained as 'firmly joined, massive'...".

Summing up, I am convinced that these Erulians were a specialized class within the Mannerbund, which itself was part of the greater, cross-tribal, Kriegerverbunds, eventually becoming a network of rune-warriors, spread over a wide geographical area. I believe that they were the major catalyst for the spread of runic knowledge. The "runemaster" > ek erilaR > runic formula shows up relatively late in the history of the Eruli,

thus placing the word into the semantic field. Used as a prestigious title, perhaps immortalizing their prestigious past, this phrase, and how it is used, is important to our understanding of the function of the RuneMaster. These were bold and daring men, and if Hfler is right, sometime between the 1st cent. BCE and 1st cent. CE, one of them was "initiated" to the "form" whereby he could codify the ancient wisdom. The knowledge was obviously passed to other "Erulians", and thereby they became keepers and disseminators of this form of the secret tradition. Because of the lack of widespread runic artifacts, one can deduce that the knowledge of runes was a closely guarded discipline. I believe it was less than 1% at any given time during the "active" period. Compiled Spring - 2002 CE Vallfr Vaerulsson Wolf Drighten

Sources:

Danmarks Runeindskrifter, by Lis Jacobsen and Erik Moltke, Copenhagen, 1942 In Northern Mists, by Fritjof Nansen Jordanes - Gothic Historian Procopius - 6th cent. CE, Byz. Historian The Germanic People, by Francis Owen, Barnes and Noble, 1993 The Roman Empire and It's Germanic Peoples, by Herwig Wolfram Dictionary of Northern Mythology, by Rudolf Simek, trans. by Angela Hall, D.S. Brewer,
Cambridge, 1993. First pub. as Lexikon der germanischen Mythologie, by Alfred Krner, Verlag, Stuttgart, 1984

The Goths, by Peter Heather

Below is the corpus of the Rune Master formulas> The runic corpus: There are 8 of these formulas: 1. Rosseland st. [sw nor. c. 450] > KJ69 ekwagigaZirilaZagilamudon ekwagigaRirilaRagilamudon ek WagigaR irilaR Agilamu(n)don could be > gen. "I WagigaR, the runemaster of Agilamundon", or "I WagigaR, the runemaster, (son) of Agilamundon"; or dat. "I WagigaR, the runemaster, (carved the runes) for Agilamundon". 1. Kragehul ash spear shaft [Fyn c. 500-550] > KJ27 ekerilaZasugisalasmuhahaitegagagaginugahelijahagalawijubig(x) ekerilaRasugisalasmuhahaitegagagaginugahelijahagalawijubig(x) ek erilaR asugisalas muha haite ga ga ga ginu gahelijahagala wiju big(x) 1. Lindholm horn amulet [Skane c. 500]> KJ29 (side A) :ek erilaR sa wilagaR hateka: ek erilaz sa wilagaz hateka (side B) :aaaaaaaaRRRnnnxbmuttt:alu: aaaaaaaazzznnnxbmuttt:alu 1. Veblungness st.-cliff [m. nor. c. 500] > KJ56 ekirilaZwiwila ekirilaRwiwila > note: the first two runes are bound ek irilaR wiwila > "I [am], the Eurlian Wiwila ("the little sanctified one") 1. Bratsburg bow fibula [s. nor. c. 500] > KJ16 ekerilaZ ek erilaR > "I the runemaster" 1. Jrsberg st. [w. swed. C. 500-550] > KJ70 ubarhiteharabanaZhait ubarhiteharabanaRhait Ubar h(a)ite, HrabanaR hait(e) > "Ubar, I am called, Raven, I am called,"> ekerilaZrunoZwritu ekerilaRrunoRwritu ek erilaR runoR writu "I, the runemaster carve the runes"

1. By st. [se nor. 550-600] > KJ71 ekerilaZ ekerilaR > ek erilaR And the Bracteates: > IK.II.3, 1-2 skatorp and Vsby with the same stamped formula> uuigaZeerilaZfihiduuuilald uuigaReerilaRfihiduuuilald wigaR e erilaR fihidu wilald > Wi(n)gaR e(k) erilaR f(a)hid(o) wilald "Wingar (the consecrator), I the runemaster colored this art (the brac.)".