The following two pages (in the MGH, obviously these do not correspond to pages in the manuscripts) in Getica contain a sufficient number of pearls to generate hundreds of dissertations. There are some posts already on them on this site but it’s worth to recap and add a new one point.
Lake Musianus and the Vindelici
On Lake Mursianus or Morsianus but also Lake Musianus much has been written. On the post that identifies Lake Veneticus (that is the Bodensee) as Lake Musianus I wrote here.
This, of course, creates a problem for mainstream historiography because if Slavs reached to the Bodensee in Jordanis’ time, if the Bodensee had been called Lake Veneticus before (it had) and if Slavs were called Veneti (they had been), then that would suggest that the people referred to later as Slavs must have lived on the Bodensee already in Roman antiquity. It would also suggest that the name “Vindelici” referred to not “Celts” but to (later) Slavs. Of course this would be hardly surprising to anyone who ever gazed upon the Tropaeum Alpium with its Licates, Rucinates and Cos-VANETES. I leave the Catenates for others to explain. For more see here.
The fact that Pliny wrote “Germanorum genera quinque: Vindili, quorum pars Burgodiones, Varinnae, Charini, Gutones.” might also suggest that these Vindili or as other manuscripts also call them Vandalici, Vandilici (elsewhere Vandili, Vandali) were not exactly the same as the Vandals of the invasion of Gaul, Spain and Africa four hundred years later. More on that here.
This would also suggest an answer to the question of why Nestor, more than a millennium later, refers to Slavs as the Norici. I should also note that the Suevi maintained relations both with the Rhaetians and Noricans (apparently, one of Ariovistus’ wives was the sister of King Voccio or Voccion of Noricum). More on that here.
I should also note that Morsianus may well be Slavic even with the “r”. Compare, for example, the Slavic name for “sea”: morze, more. To this day when it you have light rain, Poles will say that it mże. Mżeć, mżyć means to have a light rain where the “o” has been eliminated. The source of this is the concept for wetness (compare with mgła, that is, “fog”). At least one version of the Slavic word for “blink” or “flicker” may also come from the same wetness concept (migać),
For that matter, you may ask yourself whether the Morini were not a Slavic tribe. Even aside from their name, we have a curious passage in Jerome who says: “the Morini, ‘the last of men’… have been transferred to Germania.” Just a note on pillaged goods being sent inland to barbarian country or a transfer of population? Incidentally, it was the Ossismi that were the last of men in Gall as per Caesar. (For that phrase see also Vergil’s Aeneid 8, 727).
And you have an explanation for Morava.
Rani
The passage attesting the later attested as Slavic tribe of the Rani is equally fascinating.
Spali
On the Spali I wrote here.
Oium
All of that has been discussed. But there is another curious reference and that is to the land named Oium. If you click on the picture above, however, you will note that there are at least three or four ways that this name appears in the manuscripts:
- oium
- ocum
- ouim
- ouin
There is thus a school of thought that would would connect (but see above objection) the name Ouin with the Wends.
Of course, there is another that hints at “eggs” (jaja pronounced “yaya”) and suggests “eyes” (ojos but better the Slavic oczy) …
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