Talk:Widewuto

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Part of the Cimbri or Kimbern came to Prussia ( Old Prussi Land ) Cimbri or Kimbern lived in northern Germania on the Juetland peninsula, called Cimbric Chersonaise 2000 years ago. More than 100 years before the birth of Christ Kimbern/Cimbri???, Teutones and Ambriones went south and west to defend against take-over attacks by the Roman empire. A group of Cimbri went from Juetland along the Baltic Sea further east and lived in Prussia. King Widewuto/ Waidewut and his brother, priest (B)Pruteno lead a Cimbric tribe and ruled over the Gaue- lands of Old Prussi Land. The lands were named after the sons of king /reik Widewuto. or Waidewut.

Wide /Waid - German for Wissen, knowledge, wit ( see Saxon chief Wittekind, Widukind ) Wut - German for rage, fury ( see Odin Germanic highest god ) Wut - as a positive force, as in Arbeitswut , determination to work

Wotan ,called Odin Or Oden is the North Germanic language, are all one and the same name for the German god Wotan Wuotan, Woden etc. Differences in sounds and later spellings are caused by the many different Germanic languages or dialects. D = T (Thueringer -pronounce it Dueringer) A=E, O=U, Y-I etc.

Wut and Rage are the German language words for fury, rage. Zu wueten in German means to rage. Wotan was as unpredictable as nature itself.

Wotan was a nature god as were all the ancient gods of people in the world, before christianisation, or taking on of other religions. Wotan was present everywhere and always in disguise. On his travels throughout the world he wore an all encompassing big blue coat. This was the Himmel or sky. He was present in water and all naturplaces were held sacred. Modern Germans still hold nature places sacred and each city has a city forrest where every evening or at least every Sunday city dwellers "go back to their roots", as many people in other places do too.

The Catholic church turned all Germanic nature gods into anti-gods. Powerfull papal propaganda and individual zeal of monks to stamp out all "heathenism" turned the Germanic god Wotan into a wild warring beast, Freya or Frigg into a witch , Old Prussian language god Deiw ( lat.Deus ,greek Zeus ) into Deiwel-Teufel , or devil.

For the months of the year the Roman names have prevailed. For the days of the weeks the Germanic gods were kept.

While Slavic people had completely different gods, the Polish word for water is Woda. ---

An Old Prussi chief was named Warpoda/e went to see the pope.

Warp - low German language for werfen - to throw ,High German sound shift P=F or PF Oda ,Ode - wealth, treasure (German Allodie, Kleinode ). On Saxon emperors Otto I, II, III 's coins

the name was spelled ODO or ODDO.

Old Prussian - Alt Preussen - used Wurf Keulen and Schlag Keulen, wooden throwing clubs and hitting clubs / maces. Prussians did not used metal swords, wooden clubs were deemed sufficient enough to do what is necessary and were not so final. Only later with attacks by other people did they have to take up swords.

Other Cimbri went to Italy and until the 20th century there were still people speaking a form of German Cimbric in Italy.

It is also assumed by historians and archeologists that Cimbri gave their name to Cimmerians at the Mediterranian Sea as well as ancient people in England.

H. Jonat --

Samo is derived from a Germanic language word for same (as in the same way ,same, similar in ME, ON ,Gothic,IE ). Samen in German means seed. H. J.


 * This is interesting (to me, at least. I love etymology), but it does not help the article because the possibility that the name means 'same' or 'seed' is irrelevant to the content.  It doesn't apply to Widewuto, nor does it tell us anything meaninful about a Frankish ruler ruling non-Franks. --MichaelTinkler

Besides, in many Slavic tongues, "sam" means "self." Your point, whatever it may have been, is moot.

To: Michael Tinkler Samo was supposed to have married twelve Wendish wifes. At that time the Wends were still in Moravia. Look on a map and you will find Moravia west of the Vistula river, this was Magna Germania. These 12 Wendish wives after 622 lead me to believe that they were refugees from the Avars or some other group from further east storming Germania. Samo sought semi-independence from the western Franks. During that time Arabs also came in from the south west via Spain and Huns and Bulgars and what all else roaming wild.

Anyway, these twelve Wendish (as I read in some book from England) or Moravian wifes, named for the Morava river ,no doubt had children. These children had a German father and lived in Frankish/German ruled land in Magna Germania. Therefore they were Germans. The Frankish rulers like Charlemagne, Louis, Arnold etc all ruled over that land, or rather the local rulers pleadged allegiances to the Frankish and German rulers. When a king/ emperor died, they often tried to refuse pledge of allegiance for the land held in lien (in Magna Germania) and wars ensued. samples: 983, 1002, 1024 , 1410.

First recording of Wends ( and of Jews) in the later Berlin area was ca 720 ( Spreewaner and Havellaner ). Names used were the old Germanic river names of the Spreha ( German: Spree) and Havila ( German : Havel). Tacitus recorded the river names, as known to the locals. No one read Tacitus until the writings were found again in the 14th century.

Word meanings: Waner - woner is Germanic for a person or thing living in a space, such as German : Einwohner - inhabitants or German : Wahn -obsession (crazy idea living in your head ).

Old Prussians (Alt Preussen) had many Burgen, one called : wallewona. Wallewona - would translate to walls and inhabitants, therefore inhabitants living in walled fortifications (German : Wallburgen)

Prussians had three main nature gods : Perkunos, Pikullos and Potrimpos. ("Translate" those and see what you come up with ). H. Jonat --

I'm not sure about 'many' prussian saga histories, or the 13th century. I know of references to Widewut published in the 16th century that are based on folklore (NOT the same as a 'history'), but I don't think they make any credible claim to age. Sagas are interesting evidence, but they are not un-changing. Their evidence is subject to considerable alteration with time. We know a LOT about how the stories of Homer do and do not represent the 13th c. B.C. Trojan War (about 5 centuries before they were written down) and a good bit about how the Scandinavian sagas do and do not represent the Viking age accurately. --MichaelTinkler

Contemporary sources say that Samo was a Wend...which makes him a Slav. There are several fairly recent studies on Samo and the location of his kingdom that include archaeological evidence. It's been about four years since I've read them, but I certainly don't recall his being tied to the Prussian (at any rate, NOT German) leaders. I think that it is best to treat primary sources, especially literary ones, critically. Please try to bear this in mind. I'll try to dig up the sources -- i know they're in the journal Welt der Slawen, but need to find the citations. JHK -- The Oxford History of Medieval Europe,Edited by George Holmes, Oxford University Press, 1992 paperback ,ISBN 0-19-285272-8 page 86-87 ' For Fredegar things went sour when Arnulf retired and Dagobert left Pippin's side to take up residence in Neustria. 'He forgot the justice he had once loved.' One of his foreign campaigns illustrates his internal problems. He sent an expedition of Austrasian Franks to Bohemia, against the Wends, a Slavic people. The Wends were led by Samo, an enterprising Frankish merchant, who had so impressed the Wends that he ruled them, and his twelve Wendish wives, for thirty-five years. Dagobert's Austrasians were defeated, not according to Fredegar, because of the strength of the Slavs but rather through the demoralization of the Austrasians, who apparently felt that Dagobert had deserted them by going to live in Neustria. Samo's Wends were encouraged by this victory, and by an alliance with the Sorbs, another Slavic people, and began raiding in Frankish territories further west. In 631 the Saxons offered to help Dagobert against the Wends if he remitted the 500 cows they had paid yearly- to the Austrasians- since the time of Chlothar I ; Dagobert agreed, but to little effect, said Fredegar, for in the following year,the Wends were attacking again.'

To your Welt der Slawen ,by the year 1000 and thereafter, like the famous Drang nach Osten, called by the Flamish writers etc , people were so confused by all the different tribes intermingled in ' the East' and they just called it all Slav territory, similar to the simplistic attitutes of US historians, copied by many, during the Cold war, were everything east of the Elbe starting with GDR was simply 'Communists' and the enemy.

Before the Baltic laguages were called Baltic, they were often called Letto-Slavic. One look at the languages shows, that they are totally seperate languages, but how many people take that one look ?

By the way, notice the Frankish ? H. Jonat - Oh my. I'm off to the dentist, but will return later. Welt der Slawen is a respected academic German-language journal, by the way. The people who publish there are mostly historians and archaeologists from Germany and some Slavic countries, although there are occasionallly articles in English and French.

I note (again) that your translation of Fredegar says Frankish. Have you read the Latin? There has been much scholarly debate on the identity of Samo -- there are also arguments for his being Celtic. Once I have re-read the arguments (and also Fredegar, if i can find a copy IN LATIN without going to the University (30 miles away)) I will be back. Suffcie it to say at this time (AGAIN) that, although Fredegar is a major primary source, he is writing from a particular POV, as did all historians of the time. In the fredegar world-view, he may have considered Samo Frankish because he paid allegiance to the Frankish king. I will check more particular sources. Please remember that your source is a basic history, meant more for laypeople, and is therefore a bit less critical. JHK
 * JHK's point about Samo being considered 'Frankish' because he paid allegiance to the Frankish king is like the question of Copernicus and 'ethnicity'.
 * not sure I understand what you're saying? and who said it?JHK

Sagas?
Can someone supply the name of the saga(s) being referenced? --Iggle 06:29, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * There are no authentic sagas that have existed prior to the 1500s. All there is are two 16th century fiction novels by Erasmus Stella and Simon Grunau, with less authenticity to them than Snorri's Edda. --2003:DA:CF08:E00:352E:684:3B03:54E3 (talk) 17:37, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

No relation to the sources
The legends recounted here have next to nothing in common with the original 16th century books. According to Stella (writing before Grunau), Widewuto had nothing to do with the Cimbri, nor did Widewuto and Bruteno name the Old Prussians. Stella writes that the Old Prussians originally lived in the Ural Mountains when they were already called prutheni, but during the reign of Valentinian I (4th century CE) were expelled from there by the Alans. Eventually, the prutheni re-settled in later Prussia/Kaliningrad, accepting the Alanic soldier Widewuto as their king.

According to Reinhold Trautmann (Die altpreußischen Sprachdenkmäler, 1910), Grunau next used Stella's fiction to base his own fiction novel purely of his own invention on Stella, according to which the Goths were originally an ancient Italian tribe that were expelled from the Italian peninsula by Byzantine general Narses during the early 6th century CE. Going north, the Goths then supposedly founded the German city of Göttingen before attacking Denmark. In order to pacify them, the Danish king gave them the island of Cimbria (modern-day Gotland), ever since which (roughly seven centuries after the historically-attested authentic cimbri who had attacked Rome around 110 BCE) these Italo-Goths were supposedly called cimbri. Furthermore according to Grunau, Widewuto was an Italo-Gothic king of Gotland who conquered and subjected the Old Prussians by means of a military campaign, giving them laws and religion, and they accepted him as their king in 521 CE. Grunau also invented another 16th century source called Pseudo-Christian, according to which the prutheni were named after Widewuto's brother Bruteno who became their first high priest. --2003:DA:CF08:E00:352E:684:3B03:54E3 (talk) 17:37, 29 April 2020 (UTC)