CHAPTER IV.
THE JUTES, GOTHS, AND NORTHMEN.
THE Jutes, who, according to the English chroniclers, were one of the three nations by which England was settled, are but little mentioned under that name by early historians of Northern Europe. Bede calls them Jutes, so that we may conclude that at the end of the seventh century this was the name by which these people were known in England. In early records relating to Germany and the North they appear to have been called by many names—Vitungi or Juthungi, Jutæ, Gætas, Gothi, Gothini, Gythones, Guthones, Gutæ, Gautæ, Vitæ, and Gæta.[1] The name Geats they derived from Geat, a mythological ancestor of Woden, according to the West Saxon genealogy, and Asser tells us that Geat was worshipped as a god.[2]
Tacitus mentions Goths under the name Guthones, and states that they occupied the country east of the Vistula. He says also that the Goutai lived in the island of Scandia, and we may identify the locality with the Swedish province of Gothland.[3] The people around the Gulf of Riga at the present day, including the Livonians, are partly of Teutonic origin, and may in part be descendants
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