Editing Heruli (section)

===Possible Scandinavian origins===
[[File:Scandza.PNG|thumb|right|Map of [[Scandza]] based upon one interpretation of [[Jordanes]], with the [[Småland|Herulian homeland]] located in the south of Sweden or on the Danish isles.]]
Although contemporary records locate the Heruli first near the Sea of Azov, and later on the Middle Danube, their ultimate origins are traditionally sought in [[Scandinavia]].<ref name="Angelov_Germanic"/><ref name="Green_131">{{harvnb|Green|2000|p=131}}. "[T]he Heruli who in the course of their migrations sent a party back to Scandinavia for a king from amongst the members of their royal family who had remained behind."</ref>{{sfn|Speidel|2004|p=44}}{{sfn|Ellegård|1987}} The Heruli are thus commonly believed to have migrated from the [[Baltic Sea]] to the [[Black Sea]] before the 3rd century AD. In line with this, their Black Sea neighbours the Goths, and their Danubian neighbours [[Rugii]], are both believed to have had their origins on the southern Baltic shore, and there are proposals that their ultimate origins were in Scandinavia. The idea that they came from regions near the Baltic is consistent with the fact that many of these peoples, such as the Goths, spoke [[Germanic languages]], and these originated near the Baltic.{{sfn|Heather|2010|p=116}}

The source of the idea that such peoples specifically came from Scandinavia is the 6th century historian [[Jordanes]], who was based in Constantinople. He believed that the Goths and Gepids both came from Scandinavia many centuries before his time, which he described as "like a workshop or even better the womb of nations" (''quasi officina gentium aut certe velut vagina nationum''). [[Origin stories of the Goths|This narrative]] was extremely influential for later writers. Jordanes also made specific remarks concerning the Heruli, but these have been more difficult to interpret. He said that the Heruli had been driven out of their own settlements in Scandinavia by the [[Danes (Germanic tribe)|Danes]] (''Herulos propriis sedibus expulerunt'').{{sfn|Jordanes|1908|p=III (23)}} This is interpreted by various scholars in at least two different ways.{{sfn|Prostko-Prostyński|2021|p=24}}
*The expulsion happened centuries before Jordanes, and the Heruli origins are ultimately in present-day Denmark or southern Sweden.{{sfn|Goffart|2006|pp=205-209}}{{sfn|Steinacher|2017|pp=148-152}} 
*This expulsion from Scandinavia was not long before Jordanes, and at least some of the expelled Heruli were themselves recent immigrants to Scandinavia, from the Danube. (Historians also note that Jordanes also mentions Rugii in the same passage about Scandinavia. The Rugii on the Danube, old neighbours of the Heruli, had also been recently lost their kingdom there to the Lombards.) This possibility still leaves debate open about whether the ultimate origins of the Heruli were in Scandinavia.{{sfn|Prostko-Prostyński|2021|pp=27,186}}
The evidence for this second possibility is that [[Procopius]], a contemporary of Jordanes, recounted a migration by sixth-century Heruli noblemen to Scandinavia ("[[Thule]]") from the Middle Danube, where their kingdom had been destroyed by the Lombards.<ref name="Procopius_VI_XVI"/> Apparently aligning with the story of Jordanes, when other expatriates from the Danubian kingdom established themselves to the south, in the Balkans and needed a king, they sent embassy to the Scandinavian Heruli and returned with one.<ref name="Procopius_VI_XVI">{{harvnb|Procopius|1914|p=}}, [[:Wikisource:History of the Wars/Book VI#XV|Book VI, XV]]</ref> 

While a migration to Scandinavia can itself be seen as evidence of an old and continuous connection between the Heruli and Scandinavia, some scholars are sceptical of this interpretation, noting that Procopius specifically says that the Heruli who moved to Scandinavia left the "home of their ancestors".{{sfn|Steinacher|2017|pp=148-152}}{{sfn|Goffart|2006|pp=205-209}} In contrast, in 2021 Prostko-Prostyński argued that there is "no doubt" about Scandinavian origins. Even though Procopius does not explicitly mention it, "it is hard to assume they ventured so far north without a reason of such nature".{{sfn|Prostko-Prostyński|2021|pp=27,186}} In his review of Prostko-Prostyński, Roland Steinacher asserts that this is debatable.{{sfn|Steinacher|2022}}

Ellegård, one of the scholars who argued that the expulsion involved immigrants whose real homeland was on the Danube, wrote that "the only thing we can say with reasonable certainty is that a small group of Eruli lived there [in Scandinavia] for some 38-40 years in the first half of the 6th century AD". 

More controversially, Ellegård proposed that the evidence makes it most likely that the Heruli were "a loose group of Germanic warriors which came into being in the late 3rd century in the region north of the Danube limes that extends roughly from Passau to Vienna".{{sfn|Ellegård|1987}} This proposal has not been widely accepted.