Geats
Geats, or GÃÂötar in Swedish, is the Old English spelling of the name of a Scandinavian people living in GÃÂötaland, land of the Geats, currently within the borders of modern Sweden. The name of the Geats lives on in the Swedish counties of VÃÂästra GÃÂötaland and ÃÂÃÂstergÃÂötland, the Western and Eastern lands of the Geats, as does the city GÃÂöteborg, known in English as Gothenburg.The Geats were formerly politically independent of the Swedes, whose old name was Svear. Starting in the 500s, the Geats slowly lost their independence and became tributaries of the Swedish kings. It is a long-standing controversy whether the Goths were Geats.
NOTE:
The common identification between Geatas and Gautar/GÃÂötar is usually based on the observation that the EA diphthong og the Anglo-Saxon language was the equivalent of the AU diphthong of Old Norse and the ÃÂàsound in modern Swedish.
Bread-Braudr-BrÃÂöd, Dream-Draumr-DrÃÂöm, Leaf-Laufr-LÃÂöv, etc., etc.
This correspondence seems to tip the balance for most scholars. It is also based on the fact that in Beowulf, the Geats are in close contact with both the Svear and the Danes, between whom the Gautar lived.
Moreover, the story of Beowulf, who leaves Geatland and arrives at the Danish court also appears in Rolf Krake's saga, where Beowulf's cognate Bodvar Bjarke leaves Gautland and arrives at the Danish court where he kills a beast that has been terrorizing the Danes for two years.
However, since the 19th century, several other nations have been suggested to correspond to the Geats, such as the Danes (Curt Weibull), the Jutes (Pontus Fahlbeck 1884), the Goths and the Gotlanders. See e.g. the OED which identifies the Geats through Eotas, IÃÂótas, IÃÂútan and GeÃÂátas) with the Jutes referred to in the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. ' (See: Jutes.)
However, in Beowulf, the Geats are clearly distinguished from both Jutes EÃÂótenas and Danes. Thus any identification between the Geatas and these two nations is refuted by the epic itself.
Moreover, the reconstructed root for both Geat and Gaut is *Gaut-, whereas the reconstructed root of Goth and Got(-land) is *Gut-. The root of Jute is usually regarded as unknown.
However, even if the identification made in this article may seem to be generally accepted or to be the simplest one, the matter is not dead and it will continue to raise harsh feelings even in the future. Especially, in Sweden, where the whole debate about Sweden's history prior to the 11th century is infected.
Especially, some conspiracy theorists of the highly controversial GÃÂötaland theory deny the connection between the Geats and the Gautar, because they want to place the Svear in GÃÂötaland. For such a discussion see the following link (the text is in Swedish): http://home.swipnet.se/dx/vaggan/skolan.htm