Angul (mythology)

Angul (or Angel) is a figure in Nordic mythology who, according to the Gesta Danorum was the ancestor of the Danes, along with his brother Dan. He was also the ancestor of the Angles in Denmark, who later migrated to Great Britain, naming the land they settled England.

Angul, depicted with his brother Dan.

Attestations

Gesta Danorum

Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum describes how the two sons of Humble, Angul and Dan, are the forefathers and founders of the Danes. Together, they became rulers of their realm through the support of their kinsmen but did not use the term "king".[1]

Angul is then described as also being the ancestor of the Angles, who later migrated to Britain, naming the region England after Angul:

Latin text[2] Elton & Powell translation[1] Friis-Jensen and Fisher translation[3]
Ex quibus Angul, a quo gentis Anglicae principia manasse memoriae proditum est, nomen suum provinciae, cui praeerat, aptandum curavit, levi monumenti genere perennem sui notitiam traditurus. Cuius successores postmodum Britannia potiti priscum insulae nomen novo patriae suae vocabulo permutarunt. Magni id factum a veteribus aestimatum. Testis est Beda, non minima pars divini stili, qui in Anglia ortus sanctissimis suorum voluminum thesauris res patrias sociare curae habuit, aeque ad religionem pertinere iudicans patriae facta litteris illustrare et res divinas conscribere.

Of these two, Angul, the fountain, so runs the tradition, of the beginnings of the Anglian race, caused his name to be applied to the district which he ruled. This was an easy kind of memorial wherewith to immortalise his fame: for his successors a little later, when they gained possession of Britain, changed the original name of the island for a fresh title, that of their own land. This action was much thought of by the ancients: witness Bede, no mean figure among the writers of the Church, who was a native of England, and made it his care to embody the doings of his country in the most hallowed treasury of his pages; deeming it equally a religious duty to glorify in writing the deeds of his land, and to chronicle the history of the Church.

Old reports maintain that the English race arose from this Angel, who had his name given to the region he governed, resolving to pass on an undying recognition of himself by an easy kind of memorial. His descendants later conquered Britain and substituted the new title of their own land for the island's original name. This action was highly thought of in past ages. One witness to this is Bede, a major contributor to Christian literature, who as an Englishman, took pains to bring his country's history into the sacred treasury of his books, considering it in equal piety both to pen the deeds of his motherland and to write about religion.

Interpretation and discussion

Relationship to other Germanic tribal beginnings

Though not mentioning Angul, his brother Dan is referred to in other other medieval works as the ancestor of the Danes. In the Chronicle of Lejre Dan, the son of King Ypper of Uppsala, becomes king of the Danes, while his brothers Nori and Östen become kings of Norway and the Swedes.[4] Consistent with this, in Jordanes' Getica, written in the 6th century, the Danes, of the same tribe as the Swedes, are said to have emigrated from Sweden to Denmark in ancient times.[5] Unlike other accounts such as the Prose Edda, Gesta Danorum makes the founders of the Danish royal line descended from humans rather than gods.[6]

Inclusion by Saxo Grammaticus

In contrast to many other writers at the time that traced the descent of the nation in question to the Trojans, Saxo favoured heathen forefathers from the land itself. This was possibly intended to show that the Danes were independent from, and equal, to the Romans.[7][8] It has been argued that Dan and Angul resembling Romulus and Remus, fitting into a wider system of parallels between the accounts in Gesta Danorum and Roman tradition.[8] It is unclear when Saxo conceived of Dan and Angul as having lived, with the Chronicle of Lejre recording that Dan lived at the time of Emperor Augustus, while Saxo puts them over twenty generations before him. This would be a further similarity with Romulus and Remus, with whom they would have been roughly contemporaries by his account.[9]

It has been further proposed that Saxo included Angul in his account of the origin of the Danes to emphasise the close connection between the Danes and the English.[10] This is consistent with earlier Old English literature that shows that the history of the Angles during and before the migration from the Danish region was remembered and seen as part of the history of the English more widely.[11] It has also been noted that along with the works of Bede, Saxo refers to the writings of Dudo and Paul the Deacon who discuss the origins of the Normans and the Langobards, who, like the English, can be seen as having descended from the Danes.[12]

See also

Citations
  1. GD1 English.
  2. GD1 Latin.
  3. Friis-Jensen & Fisher 2015, pp. 18–21.
  4. Allport 2022.
  5. Getica, pp. 56–57.
  6. Friis-Jensen & Fisher 2015, pp. 18.
  7. Berend 2018, p. 82.
  8. Bailey 2002, pp. 59–61.
  9. Friis-Jensen & Fisher 2015, pp. 19–20.
  10. Chismol 2018, p. 12.
  11. Hordern 2004, pp. 15–16.
  12. Friis-Jensen & Fisher 2015, pp. 18–21, 594–597.

Bibliography

Primary
  • Friis-Jensen, Karsten; Fisher, Peter (2015). Gesta Danorum: the history of the Danes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198205234.
  • Grammaticus, Saxo. The Danish History, Book 1. Translated by Elton, Oliver; Powell, Frederick. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
  • Grammaticus, Saxo. Gesta Danorum, Liber 1, Caput 1. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
  • Jordanes (1915). The Gothic history of Jordanes in English version;. Translated by Mierow, Charles. Princeton, Univ. Press. Retrieved 8 May 2023.

Secondary
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