The name Irung, Iring, as a synonym of Gjuke, is of more importance from a mythological point of view. Widukind of Corvei (about the year 950) tells us in ch. 13 of his Saxon Chronicle that "the Milky Way is designated by Iring's name even to this day." Just previously he has mentioned a Saxon warrior by this name, whom he believes to have been the cause of this appellation (_ ... Iringi nomine, quem ita vocitant, lacteus cœli circulus sit vocatus_; and in the Aursberg Chronicle, according to J. Grimm, _... lacteus cæli circulus Iringis, nomine Iringesstraza sit vocatus_). According to Anglo-Saxon glossaries, the Milky Way is called _Iringes uueg_. With this we should compare the statements made above, that the Milky Way among the Teutonic population of England was called the way of the Watlings (that is, the descendants of Vate, _i.e._, Ivalde). Both the statements harmonize. In the one it is the descendants of Ivalde in general, in the other it is Slagfin-Iring whose name is connected with the Milky Way. Thus Slagfin, like Volund and Orvandel-Egil, was a star-hero. In "Klage" it is said of Iring and two other heroes, in whose company he appears in two other poems, that they committed grave mistakes and were declared banished, and that they, in spite of efforts at reconciliation, remained under the penalty to the end of their lives. Biterolf says that they were exiles and threatened by their foes. Here we have a reverberation of the myth concerning the conflict between the gods and the Ivalde sons, of Frey's unsuccessful effort to reconcile the enemies, and of their flight to the extreme north of the earth. In the German poems they take flight to Attila.
The Gjuke synonym Aldrian is a name formed in analogy with Albrian, which is a variation of Elberich. In analogy herewith Aldrian should be a variation of Elderich, Helderich. In Galfrid of Monmouth's British History there is a Saxon saga-hero Cheldricus, who, in alliance with a Saxon chief Baldulf, fights with King Artus' general Cador, and is slain by him. How far the name-forms Aldrian-Elderich have any connection with the Latinised Cheldricus I think best to leave undetermined; but there are other reasons which, independently of a real or apparent name-identity, indicate that this Cheldricus is the same person as Aldrian-Gjuke. Bugge has already pointed out that Baldrian corresponds to Balder, Cador to _Hödr_; that Galfrid's account has points of contact with Saxo's about the war between Balder and Hoder, and that Galfrid's Cheldricus corresponds to Saxo's King Gelderus, _Geldr_, who fights with Hoder and falls in conflict with him.
