4. _Myrging._ Nothing is known with any degree of certainty about this tribe. Chambers concludes that they dwelt south of the River Eider, which is the present boundary between Schleswig and Holstein, and that they belonged to the Suevic stock of peoples. See vv. 84, 85, below.
5. _Ealhhild._ See notes to vv. 8 and 97, below. Much discussion has taken place as to who Ealhhild was. Summing up his lengthy discussion, Chambers says (_Widsith_, p. 28): "For these reasons it seems best to regard Ealhhild as the murdered wife of Eormanric, the Anglian equivalent of the Gothic Sunilda and the Northern Swanhild."
7. _Hræda king._ That is, the Gothic king.
8. _Angles._ One of the Low Germanic tribes that later settled in Britain, and from whom the name England is derived. Their original home was in the modern Schleswig-Holstein. _Eormanric._ See v. 88, below, and _Deor's Lament_, v. 21. He was a king of the Goths. After his death, about 375 A.D., he came to be known as the typical bad king, covetous, fierce, and cruel. According to the Scandinavian form of the story, the king sends his son and a treacherous councillor, Bikki (the Becca of v. 19) to woo and bring to the court the maiden Swanhild. Bikki urges the son to woo her for himself and then betrays him to his father, who has him hanged and causes Swanhild to be trampled to death by horses. Her brothers revenge her death and wound the king. At this juncture the Huns attack him, and during the attack Eormanric dies.
11. The proverb, or "gnomic verse," is very common in Old English poetry.
14. _Hwala_ appears in the West Saxon genealogies as son of Beowi, son of Sceaf (see _Beowulf_, vv. 4, 18).
15. _Alexander_ [_the Great_]. The writer speaks of many celebrities who were obviously too early for him to know personally. This passage is usually considered to be an interpolation.
18. _Becca._ See note to v. 8. The _Banings_ are not definitely identified. The _Burgundians_ were originally an East Germanic tribe. During the second and third centuries they were neighbors of the Goths and lived in the modern Posen. Later they moved west, and finally threatened Gaul, where in the middle of the fifth century they were defeated by the Roman general, Aetius. Shortly afterward they were defeated by the Huns. The remnant settled in Savoy, where they gradually recovered, and by the middle of the sixth century became an important nation. _Gifica_ (or Gibica) was traditionally spoken of as an early king who ruled over the Burgundians while they were still in the east, living as neighbors of the Goths on the Vistula.