Talk:Vadamerca

Notability?

@Andrew Lancaster, Obenritter, and Berig:

"Vadamerca" is a potentially legendary person about whom nothing is known except that she married Balamber, a Hunnic ruler who may not have existed. Is there enough to keep this article? Almost all the information here is about Balamber and Vinitharius. She has no article in the Reallexikon or any of the other places I've looked.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:02, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Ermenrich She is attested in Jordanes as the granddaughter of Vinitharius. Not sure why it would be necessary to delete her altogether. The secondary sources from the existing article are legit. Honestly, I am ambivalent on this one, but there are lots of other barely attested people who show in Wikipedia. Is there an ongoing effort to delete people based on limited mention?--Obenritter (talk) 17:45, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: I think you are right and I would think the article could be folded into the connected ones. So I think I'd support that proposal. As we all know though, that type of best practice is rarely followed and Wikipedia is full of stub articles for minor medieval characters like this, so I'm not sure it is realistic. Still worth discussing, because it is difficult to maintain quality on such articles. Such stubs are more often than not a way to keep genealogical theories or old myths that might not have made it in an article with more attention. (Have not looked at this one closely though.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:48, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster:, getting rid of the article is probably not possible given the average mentality here, you're right. We can at least make sure that it presents accurate information though - maybe Obenritter has easy access to the sources used and can verify the information? I'm trying to clean up c. 75 articles that were started by the sock puppeter Giray Altay on Hunnic topics from stuff like this. At the very least, the article needs to make clear that if Balamber's existence is questioned, Vadamerca's certainly is as well. A good first step might be to remove the extraneous material here that isn't actually about her.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:20, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

I think she can have an article. Something that can be added that is specific to this person is an etymology for her name. Her name means "horse ruler" according to Förstemann (1094f, 1496 and 1509), just like Eomer, BTW.--Berig (talk) 21:56, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Berig what’s the first element? “Walda-“ missing the L or is there a root “Wada-“ that means rule too?—Ermenrich (talk) 22:13, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

The first element is Wald-, 'ruler'. The L may not have survived in the oral tradition, or it was assimilated into the following D. Förstemann also adds the form Valadamarca as variant of the name. Personal names are very prone to changes. Earlier linguists like Tolkien called it "corruption".--Berig (talk) 22:33, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: I'm fine with either approach.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:41, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Berig, would you mind added an etymology section? I don't currently have access to Förstemann.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:37, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Sure! I will do that tomorrow. It is bedtime here :-).--Berig (talk) 21:53, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: Done! I must say that the name looks authentic as the name of a Gothic princess in the Ukranian steppes of the 4th century.--Berig (talk) 14:33, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Berig, the name might be authentic, the problem is Balamber, who might just be the same as Valamir but transposed backward in time.—Ermenrich (talk) 14:47, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Not unlikely at all. Characters in Germanic legends were often reused in new contexts.--Berig (talk) 16:15, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

If Ostrogotha existed, why not Vadamerca? Srnec (talk) 00:48, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I believe she was a historical figure, but time and oral tradition may have mixed up too many facts and turned her into a legendary figure (something that many consider to be the same thing as "fictional"). The belief in a binary opposition of historical vs fictional has never been my cup of tea, but it is oh so popular among hypercritical historians, and especially in academic and ideological power struggles.--Berig (talk) 08:39, 24 December 2022 (UTC)