LÖDDE Å --- RIVER LUD ?
upriver it changes its name
picture source mislaid.
 | LÖDDESBORG |
Jordanes the Goth names a millng multitude of tribes engendered in Scania (Scandza or Scandinavia), which he memorably categorised as the Womb of Nations, and adds that they were taller and more ferocious than the Germans. Among these tribes was one named the Liothida. This tribe lived sub uno with four other tribes. It has been speculated that Liothida is cognate with and related to a word which occurs in Skåne, as in Lödde älv or å (river) and Löddeköpinge, a market town. Others are of the opinion that the Liothida encompassed virtually the whole of Skåne. These people do appear to have lived in a flat and fertile region, which well describes Skåne. Check sources Arild Hauge here and Wikipedia here. |
 | Löddesborg is marked at left, with this sign:. There are other interpretations of the word Lödde, Lyd, Lud, or Liothida. I feel the well-known joke attributed to Voltaire coming on, but will control myself, with commendable restraint. Liothida has been claimed to be the same as German Leute, and simply means "people". Another suggestion is that it is cognate with lid, a "hillside" or a "slope". Since Skåne is mostly flat as a pancake, this seems unlikely. |
Löddesborg is the reformed spelling of what was formerly Lydesborg. If Lyd or Lud was anybody, he was certainly somebody. He may not ever have been any one person, however.My objectives in compiling these notes are growing clearer to me. First, I want to disseminate the truth that Swedish is the key to a correct appreciation of the Anglo-Saxon language. I sense that Oppenheimer's researches appear to support this belief; although he calls the language spoken in England during Neolithic times Old English, whereas I, more advisedly, call it Old Scandinavian. Old English is an absurd term, since it was nothing like what has later come to be called English. Old Norse is equally out of the question, since these people were anything but "Northern", and came from the womb of nations, an area more or less level with Yorkshire, and well south of Scotland. In spite of Oppenheimer's irritating and bewildering use of "English" in place of "Old Scandinavian", here's an interesting remark he throws out on page 416 of his opus. "The evidence against a Dark Ages root of English goes deeper than (an early "Norse" influence). In terms of vocabulary, English is nowhere near any of the West Germanic languages it has traditionally been associated with. It actually roots closer to Scandinavian than to Beowulf, the earliest "Old English" poem and probably written in the elite court of the Swedish Wuffing dynasty of East Anglia. One study suggests that, on this lexical evidence, English forms a fourth Germanic branch dating to before AD 350 and probably after 3,600 BC." Is he having us on ? What lexical evidence does he have in mind, pre-350 AD, and post-3,600 BC ? I'd like to see some literature from, say, 3,500 BC. Of course, what he calls "English", and I call "Old Scandinavian" (or even "Proto-Scandinavian") would naturally be closer to Modern Scandinavian than to Beowulf. This discussion is circular. Nonetheless, it also simply has to be said that Beowulf is much, much closer to Modern Scandinavian than to Modern English. Second, I contend that the Old Scandinavians came to Britain regularly, and settled on the land now and then, for at least several thousand years before the birth of Christ. The residents in what was once called Wessex, as well as Kent (sparsely), East Anglia, the Isle of Wight, were close kin with the Angles, if you insist on that name. They came from Stone Age Angelholm, Lud's Chipping and Lund, and partook substantially in the founding and naming of London. Thirdly, My purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset. One of the reasons these Old Scandinavians came to the East coast of Britain, and further inland, was to traffic and trade, in amber and gold, and other commodities. Another reason was to congregate at Stonehenge, the Temple of Bel, or Billing, the original Apollo, and God of the sunset and the evening. On their pilgrimages to Billing's temple, the Old Scandinavians would travel along Billing's route or gateway to reach the "magnificent sacred precinct of Apollo", in what we now call Wiltshire. Oppenheimer's gene map appears to solidly confirm this perception, developed many years before I looked at his book. Here's the map, paperback p 232. See further below.
There's a Billeberga in Skåne, as well as a Billingsgate in London and a Billingshurst in Sussex. I just thought I'd throw that in. Lots of Billings in Ekwall's English Placenames. "Gate" means route, street, way, but Hellquist has some annoying things to say about this word. Of course, the later English, in London, have confused its meaning with another word, of different import.
Let me repeat that Bel, Belinus or Billing, was the original god Apollo. He was worshipped at Stonehenge, and was taken to Delos by two young damsels called Arge and Opis. They were followed by another two damsels, called Hyperoche and Laodice. Apollo and Artemis were born on Delos in the very instant that the second two damsels arrived from Hyperborea. This country might have been Britain or Scandinavia, or either, or both. Doggerland, in other words. Culled from the internet, see here, are these comments on Belenus: Belenus was usually depicted riding the sun across the sky in a horse drawn chariot. A model horse and chariot carrying a sun-disc was found in Denmark and thought to be a representation of Belenus. Healing shrines with a dual Roman association to the god Apollo and Belenus, such as the one found in Sainte-Sabine in Burgundy, demonstrates the god's association with healing and regeneration. Julius Caesar apparently referred to Belenus as the god Apollo and this association was common throughout the Celtic-Roman world. Billingsgate in England is also thought to be named after the god. |
Stonehenge was, and is still, a place of immeasurable importance, visited by peoples from all over the European world during the twenty centuries BC, and since. "In Hyperborea there is both a magnificent sacred precinct of Apollo and a notable temple which is adorned with many votive offerings and is spherical in shape." See accounts of Hyperborea recorded by Diodorus, Hecateus and Herodotus, here. "We wonder if the Hyperboreans are the real "early Athenians." After all, the Greeks are said to be "Sons of the North Wind," Boreas. The builders of Stonehenge might as well have been Old Scandinavians as anyone else. It must be obvious by now that the Ancient Greeks also came from Scandinavia. If I'm not mistaken, I think Mary Renault was of that opinion. She pointed out that Alexander was fair-haired. |
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My text from the previous page, written several years ago, was "Didn't the Angles come from Scandinavia ?"
Wikipedia, of course, will have none of this, and pursues a totally different derivation of "Lud", or "Ludd". See also E.O.Gordon's Prehistoric London, 1932, which book, I believe, never once mentions Scandinavia.
essays and papers top © Charles Harrison-Wallace 2015 |
