Rabenschlacht in the context of Ermanaric


Rabenschlacht in the context of Ermanaric

⭐ Core Definition: Rabenschlacht

Die Rabenschlacht (The Battle of Ravenna) is an anonymous 13th-century Middle High German poem about the hero Dietrich von Bern, the counterpart of the historical Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great in Germanic heroic legend. It is part of the so-called "historical" Dietrich material and is closely related to, and always transmitted together with another Dietrich poem, Dietrichs Flucht. At one time, both poems were thought to have the same author, possibly a certain Heinrich der Vogler, but stylistic differences have led more recent scholarship to abandon this idea.

Die Rabenschlacht concerns a failed attempt by the exiled Dietrich to reclaim his kingdom in Northern Italy from his treacherous uncle Ermenrich, with the help of an army provided by Etzel, king of the Huns. In the course of this attempt, Dietrich's younger brother and Etzel's young sons by his wife Helche are killed by Dietrich's former vassal Witege outside of Ravenna. Witege then flees into the sea and is rescued by a mermaid rather than fighting against Dietrich. The poem may be a dim reflection of the death of Attila's son Ellac at the Battle of Nedao in 454, combined with Theodoric the Great's siege of Ravenna in 491–493. It would therefore be one of the oldest parts of the legends about Dietrich von Bern.

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Rabenschlacht in the context of Fróði

Fróði (Old Norse: Frōði; Old English: Frōda; Middle High German: Vruote) is the name of a number of legendary Danish kings in various texts including Beowulf, Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda and his Ynglinga saga, Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum, and the Grottasǫngr. A Danish king by this name also appears as a minor character in the Middle High German epic Rabenschlacht. The name is possibly an eponym for the god Freyr.

  • The Fróði of the Grottasǫngr is said to be the son of Fridleif, the son of Skjǫldr. According to Ynglinga saga it was in this Fróði's beer that King Fjǫlnir drowned. Snorri Sturluson here and in the Skáldskaparmál make this Fróði the contemporary of Roman emperor Augustus and comments on the peacefulness of his reign, referred to as Fróði's Peace, suggesting a relationship to the birth of Christ. Though Icelandic sources make this Fróði a very early Danish king, in Gesta Danorum (Book 5), Saxo puts him late in his series of rulers, though including the chronological equation with Augustus and mentioning the birth of Christ.
  • The Fróði who, according to Ynglinga saga and Gesta Danorum, was the father of Halfdan. He would have lived in the 5th or 6th century. He appears to be the same king who later in the Ynglinga saga aided the Swedish king Ongenþeow in defeating the thrall Tunni. Because of this, Egil and his son Ottar (Ohthere) became tributaries to the Danish king.
  • Fróði the father of Ingjald, who in Beowulf is Froda the father of Ingeld and king of the Heathobards. The existence of the Heathobards has been forgotten in Norse texts and this Fróði there sometimes appears as the brother of Halfdan with the long hostility between Heathobards and Danes becoming a family feud between Halfdan and his brother Fróði. Fróði kills Halfdan and is himself slain by Halfdan's sons Helgi (Halga) and Hroar (Hrothgar). (In Arngrímur Jónsson's Latin summary to the lost Skjöldunga saga the names Fróði and Ingjald are interchanged. Saxo Grammaticus (Book 6) makes this Fróði instead to be a very late legendary king, the son of Fridleif son of Saxo's late peaceful Fróði. Saxo knows some of the story of this feud but nothing of any relationship to Halfdan. Instead Saxo relates how this Fróði was slain by Saxons and how, after a marriage alliance between his son Ingel and a Saxon princess to heal the feud, Ingel opened it again at the urging of an old warrior, just as the hero Beowulf prophesies of Ingjald in the poem Beowulf.
  • A legend from Ydre in the South Swedish highlands tells that a king known as Frode was killed by Urkon, the same cow that created Lake Sommen.

The form Fróði is still in use in Icelandic and Faroese and appears Latinized as Frotho or Frodo. The latter form of the name is used by J. R. R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings for the main character of the story, Frodo Baggins. Alternative anglicizations are Frode, Fródi, Fróthi and Frodhi. The Danish, Norwegian and Swedish form is Frode. The meaning of the name is "clever, learned, wise".

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