Romans and Huns and Goths and...Tolkien?

Mike Duncan's excellent Roman history podcast is getting into the barbarian invasions now.

This week's podcast:

169- Huns and Vandals and Goths, Oh My

In the 430s the Romans dealt with increasingly agressive and confident barbarian tribes living both inside and outside the traditional borders of the Empire.

169- Huns and Vandals and Goths, Oh My

I'll have to listen to it again and take notes.

I did bring a copy of Bury's classic book on the Barbarian Invasions with me (you can find the book on line here) but although I read it twice, I still can't keep them straight.

more free ebooks here.

The joke is that the Chinese built the great wall to keep out the Huns, so they attacked Rome. Probably a closer explanation is that it was a domino effect, where the Rouran Khaghanate chased the Turkish tribes to chase out the Goths from the Maeotian marshes and into the Roman empire.

Essentially the Huns invaded the Goths, some of whom just joined up with them, and some of them fled over the Danube into Rome, etc.

So where does one find the history of the Goths vs the Huns? I was listening to a podcast speech by Professor Tom Shippey where he mentions that this battle is remembered in the sagas, specifically in Hervarar's saga, which was translated by Christopher Tolkien (among others) and influenced Tolkien.

Hervarar saga. from wikipedia:

Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks is a legendary saga from the 13th century combining matter from several older sagas. It is a valuable saga for several different reasons beside its literary qualities. It contains traditions of wars between Goths and Huns, from the 4th century, and the last part is used as a source for Swedish medieval history. Moreover, it was an important source of inspiration for Tolkien when shaping his legends of Middle-earth.

Of course, the sagas are about as accurate as Greek legends. Biblical stories, or modern movies as a guide to history, but until I started telling stories to my grand daughter here I didn't realize how the teller reshapes the story for the audience...Tolkien's classic lecture on Beowulf (the Monster and the critics) reminds us that sagas have history embedded in them, but are not history but stand on their own for their beauty as a work of art...