The saga tells the history of the family of Hervör and Heidrek over several generations. Then, the story turns to the sons of
Arngrim, a
Viking Age tale also told in the
Hyndluljóð. Next, the tale tells of
Hervör, daughter of
Angantyr; then of
Heidrek son of Hervör. At this point, the setting of the tale changes from the Kingdom of the Goths to somewhere in
Eastern Europe ( 4th–5th century); finally, the tale returns to the historically later date. Kershaw considers that the latter part of the tale involving the Huns and Goths has an origin separate from that of the earlier parts and, in chronological time, is actually taking place several centuries earlier. In addition to attempts to understand the relationship between the events in the saga and real-world historical characters, events, and places (see
§ Historicity), the manuscripts and contents are also useful to research into the attitudes and cultures of the periods in which they were composed or written down. Hall thinks the text derives ultimately from
oral tradition, not from the invention of an author. Hall believes the poem
Hervararkviða (or 'The Waking of Angantýr') was composed specifically for a narrative closely akin to the tale told in
Heiðreks saga, as it is consistent in style and forms a consistent narrative link between the events in the tale. Tolkien considers it unequivocally older than the saga itself. The exact nature of the original underlying narrative for the poem is a matter of scholarly debate. Some passages of the poetry in
Heiðreks saga also appear in variant forms in ''
Örvar-Odd's saga (lines 97–9, 103-6), and the outline story of the duel between Arngrímr and Hjálmarr also appears in books 5 and 6 of the Gesta Danorum. There are also elemental plot similarities between the saga and Sturlaugs saga starfsama'' up to the point that a protagonist receives the magic sword from a female figure; Hall surmises that the two may share a narrative origin. The section of the saga concerning Heiðrekr's disregard for his father's advice is common to a widely known family of tales (called by
Knut Liestøl "The Good Counsels of the Father"). In general there are three counsels; in the saga, a set of three (1st, 2nd, and 6th) fit together. Tolkien proposes that after the counsels were introduced into the work, further counsels were added, further extending that theme through the saga. The poem
Hlöðskviða (or "Battle of the Goths and Huns") has numerous analogues that overlap in topical coverage. The oldest of these is thought to be the Old English poem
Widsith. Several of the characters who appear in the battle of the Goths and Huns appear are mentioned in this poem: Heiðrekr (Heaþoric),
Sifka (Sifeca), Hlǫðr (Hliðe), and Angantýr (Incgenþeow). Tolkien considers that the poem, though seemingly considerably altered over time, once formed part of a continuous poetic narrative that gave a complete description of the Goth-Hun conflict and existed as a separate work.
Historicity of "The Battle of the Goths and Huns" In the 17th century, when the Norse sagas became a subject of interest to scholars, they were initially taken as reasonably accurate depictions of historical events. Later, in the 19th and 20th centuries, scholars realized that they were not completely historically accurate.
Carl Christian Rafn considered that the battle between Goths and Huns was a legendary retelling of the battle between the Gothic king
Ostrogotha and the Gepid king
Fastida, which was described by
Jordanes in Ch. 17 of his history of the Goths.
Richard Heinzel , in his analysis
Über die Hervararsaga, suggested the battle described was the same as the
Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (451 CE), identifying Angantyr as the Roman general
Aetius and Hlothr as the Frankish
Chlodio, with the incorporation of parts of the general
Litorius, whereas the Vandal
Geiseric is the prototype for Gizurr Grytingalithi. Rudolf Much proposed alternative attributions for the battles. One, recorded by
Paul the Deacon, took place between the
Langobards and the
Vulgares Bulgars; in that battle,
Agelmundus (
Agelmund) was killed, and his sister (conflated with Hervor) is taken prisoner. In the other battle, the new Langobardian king Lamissio is victorious; Much conflates this battle with that of the Goths and Huns. He also identifies the battlefields to be north of the River
Danube in the
Carpathian Mountains, near modern-day
Kraków. In the latter half of the 19th century, Heinzel's theory was predominant and widely accepted. Later,
Gustav Neckel and
Gudmund Schütte further analyzed the textual and historical information. Neckel placed the events after the death of
Attila (d. 453 CE) during the later Gepid-Hun conflicts, whereas Schütte identified either Heithrekr or Heathoric as transformations of the name of the Gepid king
Ardaric. In the early 1900s,
Henrik Schück and
Richard Constant Boer both rejected Heinzel's attribution and the link with Attila. Schück split the legend of the strife between brothers from that of the Goth-Hun war, as well as their geographic locations, and identified both sites as being in southern Russia. Boer associated the Dunheithr with the
Daugava River but placed the battle further north in central European Russia, in the
Valdai Hills. Further scholarship in the 20th century added more name and place attributions, with
Otto von Friesen and
Arwid Johannson returning to the western end of the Carpathians; Hermann Schneider placing the Goths in the
Black Sea area (
Crimean Goths); and Niels Clausen Lukman reanalyzing the tale, not in the context of Jordanes' history but in that of
Ammianus Marcellinus. Lukman shifted the date to 386 CE, when a mass migration of peoples under
Odotheus (conflated with Hlothr) was destroyed by the Romans on the
Danube; in his reconstruction Heithrekr is the visigothic
Athanaric. In an analysis of parts of the tale, identifies the place where Angantyr revenges his father's (Heithrekr) killing by slaves as being at the foot of the Carpathians, using linguistic analysis based on consonant shifts (see
Grimm's Law) in the term "Harvath Mountains". The place
Árheimar in
Danparstathir mentioned in association is unidentified, though "Danpar-" has been assumed to be some form of the river
Dnieper. Similarities with the
Battle of Nedao (454 CE) have also been noted. It is a testimony to its great age that names appear in genuinely Germanic forms and not in any form remotely influenced by Latin. Names for Goths appear that ceased to be used after 390 CE, such as
Grýting (cf. the Latin form
Greutungi) and
Tyrfing (cf. the Latin form
Tervingi). The events take place where the Goths lived during the wars with the Huns. The Gothic capital
Árheimar is located on the Dniepr (
...á Danparstöðum á þeim bæ, er Árheimar heita...), King
Heidrek dies in the
Carpathians (...
und Harvaða fjöllum), and the battle with the Huns takes place on the plains of the
Danube (...
á vígvöll á Dúnheiði í Dylgjudölum). The mythical
Myrkviðr [Mirkwood] that separates the Goths from the Huns appears to correspond to the
Maeotian marshes. ==Influence, legacy, and adaptions==