Forward they go, toward the south-east, seemingly along the German
marches, the debateable land between Teuton and Sclav, which would,
mechanically speaking, be the line of least resistance. We hear of
Gothland--wherever that happened to be just then; of Anthaib, the land
held by the Sclavonian Anten, and Bathaib, possibly the land held by the
Gepidae, or remnant of the Goths who bided behind (as Wessex men still
say), while the Goths moved forward; and then of Burgundhaib, wherever
the Burgunds might be then. I know not; and I will dare to say, no man
can exactly know. For no dates are given, and how can they be? The
Lombards have not yet emerged out of the dismal darkness of the north
into the light of Roman civilization; and all the history they have are a
few scraps of saga.
At last they take a king of the family of the Gungings, Agilmund, son of
Ayo, like the rest of the nations, says Jornandes; for they will be no
more under duces, elective war-kings. And then follows a fresh saga
(which repeats itself in the myths of several nations), how a woman has
seven children at a birth, and throws them for shame into a pond; and
Agilmund the king, riding by, stops to see, and turns them over with his
lance; and one of the babes lays hold thereof; and the king says, 'This
will be a great man;' and takes him out of the pond, and calls him
Lamissohn, 'the son of the fishpond,' (so it is interpreted;) who grows
to be a mighty Kemper-man, and slays an Amazon. For when they come to a
certain river, the Amazons forbid them to pass, unless they will fight
their she-champion; and Lamissohn swims over and fights the war-maiden,
and slays her; and they go on and come into a large land and quiet,
somewhere about Silesia, it would seem, and abode there a long while.
Then down on them come the savage Bulgars by night, and slay king
Agilmund, and carry off his daughter; and Lamissohn follows them, and
defeats them with a great slaughter, and is made king; and so forth: till
at last they have got--how we shall never know--near history and historic
lands. For when Odoacer and his Turklings and other confederates went up
into Rugiland, the country north of Vienna, and destroyed the Rugians,
and Fava their king, then the Lombards went down into the waste land of
the Rugians, because it was fertile, and abode there certain years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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