Kreka

Kreka was a wife of Attila. She was the mother of three of his children, “of whom the eldest already ruled the Akatziri and the other peoples who live in Scythia along the Pontus”.^[1] That eldest son is the Ellac of Jordanes.^[2]

Priscus visited her in 449, during the embassy of Maximinus, to bring her gifts. Her houses stood inside the enclosure of Attila’s residence. Some were built of carved boards elegantly fitted, others of straight planed timbers set on wooden bases bent into circles, which rose to a moderate height from the ground.^[1]^[3] He found her lying on a soft coverlet. The floor was spread with woollen carpets, and a crowd of servants was round her. Maids sat on the floor opposite, embroidering in colours the cloths that were laid over the clothes of the barbarians for ornament.^[1] A few days later she invited the Roman envoys to dinner at the house of Adamis, who managed her affairs. There each of the Huns present stood in turn and handed a guest a full cup. When the guest had drunk, the Hun embraced and kissed him and took the cup back.^[4]

The excerpts of Priscus write her name Kreka, and a later passage Erekan. Some scholars hold Erekan to be the original, since the Germanic legends remember Attila’s wife as Herche or Helche. They derive the name from the Turkic arïɣ qan, the pure princess.^[5] Others offer either that Turkic etymology or a Turkic and Mongolic word for wife.^[6]

References

^ a b c Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 89
^ Thompson 1948, p. 114
^ Bury 1923, p. 285–286
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 93
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 408
^ Golden 1992, p. 88

Sources

Priscus

Literature

Karl Müller (ed.), Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Bd. IV (darin: Menandri Protectoris fragmenta, griechisch mit lateinischer Übersetzung) (1851)
J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian, vol. I (1923)
Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen, The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture (1973)
E. A. Thompson, A History of Attila and the Huns (1948)
Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)