Rodulf or a similar traveler who provided Cassiodorus or Jordanes with the information for their extensive lists and details of Scandinavian peoples and tribes. In any case, Rodulf was not the only Nordic warlord who visited the Goths and potentially could have provided knowledge about Scandinavian tribes. He probably traveled together with a band of warriors. In the Getica, it is said that Rodulf spurned and fled his own kingdom, in times which were still recent for Jordanes. The way that his text has come to us, Rodulf is described as king of the "Ranii" who are described as one of several peoples living near the Danes. Jordanes describes him as achieving what he desired from Theoderic. The passage, as translated by Christensen, is as follows: Modern historians are uncertain whether Jordanes intended to say that Rodulf was king of the Ranii tribe alone, or if he ruled all, or any other of the tribes described in the same context. Historian Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen, who accepted Mommsen's identification, thought Rodulf should actually be read as king of the Heruli, with a short list of neighbouring tribes have been inserted confusingly, namely the "Granii, Augandzi, Eunixi, Taetel, Rugii, Arochi, Ranii." In contrast, other historians have proposed that Rodulf had been kings of the list of seven peoples (Granii ... Rani), but most of these can not be identified with any confidence. Since Mommsen's edition of Jordanes, with index notes by Karl Müllenhof, there have been proposals connecting them to Norway. Some modern historians, mostly Norwegian, have continued to make such proposals and imply that Rodulf was a king of all seven of these peoples there. For example, the list has been interpreted as referring to the inhabitants of "Grenland, Halogaland, Telelmark, Ryfylkem, Hordaland, and Ranrike or Romsdal". The vast geographic distances between the tribes, scattered throughout the Norwegian coast, and the unlikeliness of a unified kingdom of such a magnitude at this early point has been cited as an argument against such a possibility. The name of the Rugii, on the other hand, matches another Middle Danubian people, who were neighbours of the Heruli, and they are thought to have migrated from the Baltic Sea. Historian Axel Kristinsson has speculated that it could have been natural for Rodulf to seek out some of his kinsmen, namely the Danubian Rugians who had joined the Ostrogoths after their kingdom was destroyed in 487.