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The 'Haddingjar' refers on the one hand to legends about two brothers by this name, and on the other hand to possibly related legends based on the Hasdingi, the royal dynasty of the Vandals. The accounts vary greatly.

Contents

Origins

In legend and mythology

Notes

Sources

Origins

It has been suggested that they were originally two Proto-Germanic legendary heroes by the name
★ ''Hazdingōz'', meaning the "longhairs", and that they were identical to the ''Alci'' mentioned by Tacitus. According to Tacitus, the Alci were worshiped as gods by priests in female clothing:
:[...] ''and the Nahanarvali. Among these last is shown a grove of immemorial sanctity. A priest in female attire has the charge of it. But the deities are described in Roman language as Castor and Pollux. Such, indeed, are the attributes of the divinity, the name being Alcis. They have no images, or, indeed, any vestige of foreign superstition, but it is as brothers and as youths that the deities are worshipped''.^[1]
Cassius Dio mentioned c. 170 the ''Astingoi'' as a noble clan among the Vandals, and the ''Asdingi'' reappear, in the 6th century in Jordanes' work as the royal dynasty of the Vandals.
The root appears in Old Icelandic as ''haddr'' meaning "women hair", and the motivation for the name ''Haddingjar''/''Astingoi''/''Asdingi'' was probably that men from Germanic royal dynasties sported long hair as a mark of dignity (cf. the "longhaired Merovingians").

In legend and mythology

#In the Middle High German heroic lays, there are two brothers named ''Hartunge'', who also appear in the Scandinavian ''Þiðrekssaga'' as ''Hertnið'' and ''Hartnið''. In later Middle High German works, they appear as Ortnīt and Hirðir.
#In the ''Hervarar saga'', ''Gesta Danorum'', ''Orvar-Odd's saga'' and ''Lay of Hyndla'', there are two Haddingjar among the twelve sons of the berserker Arngrim.
#Oddly, in ''Orvar-Odd's saga'', after his friend Orvar-Odd had killed these two Haddingjar, Hjalmar mentions in his death song two Haddingjar among his friends back in Sigtuna.
#In ''Hversu Noregr byggðist'', there is a Hadding Raumsson who was the king of Haddingdalen in Norway. He is succeeded by a son and a grand-son by the same name. After his great-grand-son Högni, there is a succession of three more generations named Hadding, making six Haddingjar in the same line.
#The prose section following ''Helgakviða Hundingsbana II'', there is a Helgi Haddingjaskati (Helgi the prince of the Haddingjar, i.e. the Hasdingi of the Vandals) referring to a now lost poem named ''Káruljóð'', which was named after Helgi's beloved, the Valkyrie Kára. This poem survives in an altered form as ''Hrómundar saga Gripssonar'', where Helgi fights in the service of two Swedish kings by the name ''Haldingr''.
#In the oldest one of the Gudrun lays, the ''Guðrúnarkviða II'', Gudrun says that the potion of oblivion that her mother had given her contained several runes, and among them the "unshorn corn ear of Haddingland", possibly a magic Vandal rune.
#In ''Kálfsvísa'', in Snorri Sturluson's ''Skáldskaparmál'', it is said that the king of the Haddingjar (the Vandals) rode a horse named Skævað.
#In ''Gesta Danorum'' there is a Haddingus about whom Saxo Grammaticus has many things to tell. He is possibly a memory of the Hasdingi, the royal clan of the Vandals.

Notes

1. ''Germania'' at Wikisource

Sources

★ Ohlmarks, Åke. (1982). ''Fornnordiskt lexikon''. Tiden. ISBN 91-550-2511-0

★ The article ''Hadding'' in ''Nordisk familjebok'' (1909)