On Thu,
> On Thu,
> >
> > Rafal Prinke
< rafalp@HUM.AMU.EDU.PL> wrote:
> > >As I showed in the previous reply,
the name Burizlav also appears in the
> > >dynasty of the dukes of Ruegen.
> >
> > Ruegen is of course very interesting
geographically. Jomsborg is
> > supposed to have been there. If the Jomsvikings closest
neighbours were
> > called Burislaw, it is not surprising that the name was
well-known in
> >
> > transformed into it.
>
> Hmm . . . . This might explain the saga tradition of Sigvaldi, leader
of
> the Jomsvikings, marrying Astrid, daughter of "Burizlaf." If
Sigvaldi
> actually married a Polish/Wendish woman of a family which used the
name
> Burislaw, this might have helped the sagamen combine this tradition
with
> the known marriage of Svein Tjuguskegg to Gunnhild,
"daughter" of Boleslav
> Chrobry . . . .
>
Here are some quotes from Gwyn Jones' A HISTORY OF THE VIKINGS, pp.127-9,
concerning Jomsborg, the Jomsvikings, and the dealings of Harald
Bluetooth and Svein Forkbeard with the Wends:
-----------------------
Harald appears to have married at least twice, and the last of his wives,
wid probably after 965, was a Wendish princess. A runic stone found in the
west wall of Sonder Vissing church, in mid-eastern Jutland, bears the
inscription, 'Tovi [or Tova], Mistivoj's daughter, wife of Harald the Good,
Gorm's son, had this memorial made for her mother.' A further twofold
tradition associates Harald with Wendland: it was to Wendland that he
fled for shelter from his son Svein near the end of his life, and it was
in Wendland that he is credited with establishing the viking
fortress of
Jomsborg, the home of the legendary Jomsvikings. This if it stood
anywhere stood at the mouth of the
the Dievenov, on the site of the little town now known as Wollin, the
Jumne of Adam of Bremen. _Pace_ Adam, it was not 'the largest town in
Europe,' and no trace has been found there of its artificial harbour for
360 warships, or of a citadel, unless the near-by hill of Silberberg is
accepted as the site of such; but there were Norsemen there around the
year 1000, and the archaeological finds reveal a mixed population of
vikings and Slavs. . . . .
---------------------
The best account of the town is that of the excavators, O. Kunkel and K.
A. Wilde, JUMNE, 'VINETA,' JOMSBURG, JULIN: WOLLIN, Stettin, 1941.
There is a brief summary for the English reader in N. F. Blake, THE SAGA
OF THE JOMSVIKINGS, 1962, pp. xii-xv. There is no doubting the fictional
nature of JOMSVIKINGA SAGA, but Lauritz Weibull's denial that Jomsborg
and the Jomsvikings ever existed (KRITISKA UNDERSOEKNINGAR, pp. 178-95,
HISTORISK-KRITISK METOD, pp. 79-88; see the reprints in NORDISK HISTORIA,
I, 349-58, 432-55) has not universally commended itself. But it has
induced a proper caution and prudence. There are some good comments in
Bjarni Athalbjarnarson, HEIMSKRINGLA, I, cxi-ii and 272 ff.
----------------------
Maybe it was a Christian scruple which inhibited Harald from conducting
the campaign in person, maybe his authority was now on the wane, but in
983 the Danes under Svein Forkbeard, his son, captured and destroyed
Otto's fortress in Slesvig and drove the Germans south. Concurrently his
father-in-law, king Mistivoj of Wendland, invaded Brandenburg, and then
or later Holstein, and sent Hamburg up in flames.
----------------------
Rafal Prinke has suggested that Adam of Bremen's Polish king
Boleslav who gave his "sister of daughter" to the Swedish king
Erik, and the
"Burizlaf, King of Vindland" who appears in HEIMSKRINGLA and in
Snorri
Sturluson's source JOMSVIKINGA SAGA, might actually refer to Boleslav
Chrobry's father
Mieszko, or an otherwise unknown Wendish king named
Burislaw or Borislaw.
But the Wendish ruler in those times was named
Mistivoj, not
Burislaw, and King
Mistivoj of Vindland was father of Svein
Forkbeard's stepmother Tovi.
Jared Olar