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According to Wikipedia, three possible roots for "barth" could be: 1) an Old Norse root Barth or Barði, meaning "beard". This word root is shared with the Heaðobards mentioned in both the Beowulf and Widsith ancient stories; or 2) an Old High German root, barta, meaning “axe” (and related to English halberd); or 3) Börde (or Börd) meaning “a fertile plain by the side of a river,” for example a district near Magdeburg called the Lange Börde and the towns Bardengau and Bardewick in the neighborhood of the Elbe River, lower Saxony, Germany.
The Heaðobards (Old English: Heaðubeardan, Old Low German: Headubarden, "war-beards") were possibly a branch of the Langobards, who conquered lands from Scandanavia to northern Italy as the surname further evolved to Lombard.That surname is the root of the present-day Italian region of Lombardy. Lombard kings ruled this region during the years 568-774.
Beowulf is an Old English epic poem written down around the year 1000. The story is set in Scandinavia and named for its main character, the hero Beowulf.