The
7th-century Origo Gentis Langobardorum, and Paul the Deacon's
8th-century Historia Langobardorum derived from it, recount a founding
myth of the Langobards, a Germanic people who ruled a region of what is
now Italy. According to this legend, a "small people" known as the
Winnili were ruled by a woman named Gambara who had two sons, Ybor and
Agio. The Vandals, ruled by Ambri and Assi,
came to the Winnili with their army and demanded that they pay them
tribute or prepare for war. Ybor, Agio, and their mother Gambara
rejected their demands for tribute. Ambra and Assi then asked the god
Godan for victory over the Winnili, to which Godan responded (in the
longer version in the Origo): "Whom I shall first see when at sunrise,
to them will I give the victory."[15]
Meanwhile, Ybor and Agio called upon Frea, Godan's wife. Frea
counseled them that "at sunrise the Winnili should come, and that
their women, with their hair let down around the face in the likeness of
a beard should also come with their husbands". At sunrise, Frea turned
Godan's bed around to face east and woke him. Godan saw the Winnili,
including their whiskered women, and asked "who are those Long-beards?"
Frea responded to Godan, "As you have given them a name, give them also
the victory". Godan did so, "so that they should defend themselves
according to his counsel and obtain the victory". Thenceforth the
Winnili were known as the Langobards ('long-beards')
