ABSTRACT
ALTHOUGH Jordanes and Paul the Deacon declare that the Goths were passionately dedicated to hunting expeditions, through which they fell into differences with the Huns and from that to the most bitter fighting, one never, or rarely, finds set out in any writings either the names or times of such activities, or their achievements in this sphere. 1 Indeed they describe but briefly and patchily even the remarkable battles they waged in those far-off days to deliver the oppressed or to extend their dominions. Saxo complains of this at the outset of his History, as later does my predecessor, lord Johannes the Goth, archbishop of Uppsala, although he claims that there were very important reasons for such neglect. 2 Therefore, to console people in the North, it is only right to go hunting 3 elsewhere for noble instances, so that they may at least recognize that at one time the greatest monarchs on earth by no means basked in sloth or surrendered themselves to a shameful existence.
