Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Wealhtheow and Her Name: Etymology, Characterization, and Textual Criticism

  • Published:
Neophilologus Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article reconsiders the interpretation of Wealhtheow and her name in the light of recent advances in onomastic and textual scholarship. It argues against the supposition of a relationship between name-etymology and characterization in Beowulf, while raising the possibility that the genuine name of Hrothgar’s queen might have been obscured during the poem’s textual transmission.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. It is an established convention of Beowulf scholarship to refer to this character as “Wealhtheow,” but it should be noted that her name is generally transmitted as Wealhþeo, with omission of the concluding wynn (ƿ). This article uses the former spelling to refer to the character and the latter spelling (italicized) to refer to her name. On the chronological significance of the þēo spellings in the Beowulf manuscript, see Fulk et al. (2008: 327–328), Fulk (2014: 25–26) and Neidorf (2017a: §§56–57).

  2. The central insight of onomastic scholarship that has not yet been fully integrated into literary scholarship on names in Beowulf is that there is a fundamental division between a language’s lexicon and its onomasticon. The corpus of eligible name-elements was fixed, archaic, and conventional; the formation of dithematic names was governed by onomastic rather than semantic considerations. See Clark (1992: 452–458), Kitson (2002: 93–97), Insley (2006: 113–114) and Hough (2010: 5–8).

  3. For arguments against the notion that the Beowulf poet might have invented many of the characters in his poem, see Neidorf (2013a) and Shippey (2014).

  4. The text of Beowulf is cited throughout by line number from the edition of Fulk et al. (2008); translations derive throughout from Fulk (2010).

  5. Orchard remarks: “From the opening word of her speech, Wealhtheow establishes herself as one who speaks primarily in the imperative mood; she issues no fewer than four such imperatives in the first six lines” (2003: 220). For other observations about Wealhtheow’s character that militate against the suggestion that she is servile, see Damico (1984: 58–86) and Olsen (1997: 319–320).

  6. For reasons to associate Wealhtheow with both the continental Wulfings and the East Anglian dynasty of the Wuffings, see Newton (1993); see also O’Loughlin (1964). For the suggestion that she might be a Swede, see Farrell (1972: 247–250).

  7. Additionally, the existence of Waladeo, Wealhþēo, and Valþjófr could be taken to lend support to the notion of a particular North-West Germanic onomasticon; see Nicolaisen (1995), Insley (2006: 113–114), Hough (2010) and Townend (2015: 8).

  8. Worthy of particular note is Gordon’s observation that “the oldest known name containing the -þewaz element, olþuþewaʀ, inscribed in runes on a third-century sword-chape from a bog-find at Thorsbjærg, is usually interpreted as Wolþuþewaʀ, the older form of a Norse *Ullþér, ‘servant of the god Ullr’” (1935: 171).

  9. It is significant that the Old High German name-stock includes both masculine names (with -deo, -theo) and feminine names (with -diu, -thiu), since Wealhþēo appears rather anomalous in the context of the Old English and Old Norse name-stock, its deuterotheme being restricted in the recorded corpora of these languages to masculine personal names. Jurasinski (2007) would account for this anomaly by suggesting that Wealhþēo might have entered the name-stock as a descriptive nickname, which was eventually dissociated from its meaning and passed on to later bearers (such as the Danish queen) as a semantically emptied formation. Wealhtheow’s name is not necessarily a gender mismatch, though, since Proto-Germanic *þiwī (cf. Gothic þiwi) could be expected to evolve into Old English -þeo (I thank R. D. Fulk for clarifying this point to me). There are, of course, other personal names in which the grammatical gender of the deuterotheme, when viewed synchronically within the Old English onomasticon, appears to be at odds with the gender of the name’s bearer; for examples, see Hough (2010: 7), Okasha (2011), Colman (2014). It should be noted that the -þēow element, attested in Old English only in legendary or mythological names, was plainly not productive in insular namegiving. On the antiquity of this element and its declining popularity off the continent, see Wessén (1927: 49), Haubrichs (2004) and Insley (2006: 122–124).

  10. Gordon’s views receive sympathetic treatment in Damico (1984), though she also credits the ‘foreign slave’ etymology by developing Malone’s (1929) contention that Wealhtheow’s name referred originally to Yrse, and that the Beowulf poet conflated the two figures. A number of improbabilities attend Damico’s position; see Harris (1986).

  11. On the etymological accuracy of the proper names in Beowulf, see Fulk (1982: 343–345), which responds to the remarks of Stanley (1981: 207); see also Shippey (2005), Neidorf (2014: 46) and Townend (2015: 16).

  12. For accounts of the history of textual conservatism in Old English studies, which highlight its intellectual shortcomings, see Lapidge (1993, 1994) and Fulk (1996, 1997). For advocacy of textual conservatism, see Stanley (1984).

  13. See Neidorf (2013b, 2015, 2017a: §§88–125) and Shippey (2007: 474–476, 2014). For pertinent remarks in earlier scholarship, see Sisam (1953: 37) and Tolkien (2006: 32, 2014: 148). Scribal unfamiliarity with proper names belonging to a defunct legendary tradition supports the hypothesis that the composition of Beowulf antedated the production of its extant manuscript by several centuries. On the dating of Beowulf, see Fulk (1992), Lapidge (2000), Russom (2002), Cronan (2004), Neidorf and Pascual (2014); and the summary of recent philological scholarship in Neidorf (2016b).

  14. These remarks are informed by the lexemic theory of scribal behavior (Neidorf 2017a: §§126–160), which holds—contrary to the position, e.g., of O’Brien O’Keeffe (1990)—that scribes copied from their exemplars mechanically, on a word-by-word basis, not following the continuous sense of the narrative or participating in the creation of a new literary work. The lexemic theory accords with the conclusions of Orton (2000: 189–208).

  15. On this metrical regularity, see Sievers (1885: 255) and Bliss (1967: §64–65). Although textual conservatives (e.g., Stanley 1984) reject emendation on the basis of metrical considerations, recent publications have corroborated the supposition that unmetricality is a reliable indicator of textual corruption. See Fulk (1997), Neidorf (2016a) and Pascual (2013–2014, 2015, 2017).

  16. For additional discussion of Unferth’s name and its corruption at the hands of the scribes, see Fulk (1987) and Neidorf (2017a: §92, 2017b: 441–443).

  17. For iterations of this argument, see Tupper (1910: 170), Kaske (1967: 287), Earl (1994: 22–25) and Vickrey (2009: 34).

  18. Cf. Patterson: “if a certain kind of reading is demonstrably scribal where it is weakly attested then it must be just as scribal where it is strongly and even unanimously attested” (1987: 85).

  19. The name Wealhræfn, which occurs only in Domesday Book, probably represents a corruption of Wælhræfn, with scribal representation of wæl- (or Old Norse val-) as Wealh. The form thus appears to provide an interesting parallel to the corruption of Wælþēo into Wealhþēo.

References

  • Björkman, E. (1919). Zu einigen Namen im Beowulf: Breca, Brondingas, Wealhþeow. Anglia Beiblatt, 30, 170–180.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bliss, A. J. (1967). The metre of Beowulf (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Breen, N. A. (2009). Beowulf’s Wealhtheow and the Ðeowwealh: A legal source for the queen’s name. ANQ, 22, 2–4.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chickering, H. D., Jr. (Ed.). (2006). Beowulf: A dual-language edition (2nd ed.). New York: Anchor Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, C. (1992). Onomastics. In R. Hogg (Ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language: The beginnings to 1066 (Vol. 1, pp. 452–489). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Colman, F. (2014). The grammar of names in Anglo-Saxon England: The linguistics and culture of the Old English onomasticon. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cronan, D. (2004). Poetic words, conservatism, and the dating of Old English poetry. Anglo-Saxon England, 33, 23–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Damico, H. (1984). Beowulf’s Wealhtheow and the Valkyrie tradition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dumville, D. N. (1976). The Anglian collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists. Anglo-Saxon England, 5, 23–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Earl, J. W. (1994). Thinking about Beowulf. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farrell, R. T. (1972). Beowulf, Swedes, and Geats. London: Viking Society for Northern Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Faull, M. L. (1975). The semantic development of Old English wealh. Leeds Studies in English, 8, 20–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fulk, R. D. (1982). Review article: Dating Beowulf to the Viking age. Philological Quarterly, 61, 341–359.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fulk, R. D. (1987). Unferth and his name. Modern Philology, 85, 113–127.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fulk, R. D. (1992). A history of Old English meter. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fulk, R. D. (1996). Inductive methods in the textual criticism of Old English verse. Medievalia et Humanistica, 23, 1–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fulk, R. D. (1997). Textual criticism. In R. E. Bjork & J. D. Niles (Eds.), A Beowulf handbook (pp. 35–53). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fulk, R. D. (2007). The etymology and significance of Beowulf’s name. Anglo-Saxon, 1, 109–136.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fulk, R. D. (Ed.). (2010). The Beowulf manuscript: Complete texts, and the Fight at Finnsburg. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fulk, R. D. (2014). Beowulf and language history. In L. Neidorf (Ed.), The dating of Beowulf: A reassessment (pp. 19–36). Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fulk, R. D., Bjork, R. E., & Niles, J. D. (Eds.). (2008). Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg (4th ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gordon, E. V. (1935). Wealhþeow and related names. Medium Ævum, 4, 169–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harris, J. (1986). Review of Damico 1984. Speculum, 61, 400–403.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haubrichs, W. (2004). Eine neue Wormser Inschrift aus der Zeit um 500 und die frühen Personennamen auf germ *-þewaz ‘Diener.’ In A. Greule, E. Meineke & C. Thim- Mabrey (Eds.) Entstehung des Deutschen: Festschrift für Heinrich Tiefenbach (pp. 153–172). Heidelberg: Winter.

  • Hill, T. D. (1990). ‘Wealhtheow’ as a foreign slave: Some continental analogues. Philological Quarterly, 69, 106–112.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hough, C. (2010). Toponymicon and lexicon in North-West Europe: ‘Ever-changing connection.’ E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lectures 12. University of Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic.

  • Insley, J. (2006). Early Germanic personal names and onomastic dialects. In A. J. Johnston, F. von Mengden, & S. Thim (Eds.), Language and text: Current perspectives on English and Germanic historical linguistics and philology (pp. 113–131). Heidelberg: Winter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnston, A. J. (2014). Postcolonial Beowulf. In H. Chickering, A. J. Frantzen, & R. F. Yeager (Eds.), Teaching Beowulf in the twenty-first century (pp. 231–240). Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jurasinski, S. (2007). The feminine name Wealhtheow and the problem of Beowulfian anthroponymy. Neophilologus, 91, 701–705.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaske, R. E. (1967). The Eotenas in Beowulf. In R. P. Creed (Ed.), Old English poetry: Fifteen essays (pp. 285–310). Providence: Brown University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kitson, P. R. (2002). How Anglo-Saxon personal names work. Nomina, 25, 91–131.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klaeber, F. (Ed.). (1950). Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg (3rd ed.). Boston: Heath.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lapidge, M. (1993). The edition, emendation, and reconstruction of Anglo-Saxon texts. In R. Frank (Ed.), The politics of editing medieval texts (pp. 131–157). New York: AMS Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lapidge, M. (1994). On the emendation of Old English texts. In D. G. Scragg & P. E. Szarmach (Eds.), The editing of Old English (pp. 53–67). Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lapidge, M. (2000). The archetype of Beowulf. Anglo-Saxon England, 29, 5–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malone, K. (1929). The daughter of Healfdene. In K. Malone & M. B. Ruud (Eds.), Studies in English philology: A miscellany in honor of Frederick Klaeber (pp. 135–158). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neidorf, L. (2013a). Beowulf before Beowulf: Anglo-Saxon anthroponymy and heroic legend. Review of English Studies, 64, 553–573.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neidorf, L. (2013b). Scribal errors of proper names in the Beowulf manuscript. Anglo-Saxon England, 42, 249–269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neidorf, L. (2014). Germanic legend, scribal errors, and cultural change. In L. Neidorf (Ed.), The dating of Beowulf: A reassessment (pp. 37–57). Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neidorf, L. (2015). Cain, Cam, Jutes, giants, and the textual criticism of Beowulf. Studies in Philology, 112, 599–632.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neidorf, L. (2016a). Metrical criteria for the emendation of Old English poetic texts. In L. Neidorf, R. J. Pascual, & T. Shippey (Eds.), Old English philology: Studies in honour of R. D. Fulk (pp. 52–68). Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neidorf, L. (2016b). Philology, allegory, and the dating of Beowulf. Studia Neophilologica, 88, 97–115.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neidorf, L. (2017a). The transmission of Beowulf: Language, culture, and scribal behavior. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neidorf, L. (2017b). Unferth’s ambiguity and the trivialization of Germanic legend. Neophilologus, 101, 439–454.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neidorf, L., & Pascual, R. J. (2014). The language of Beowulf and the conditioning of Kaluza’s law. Neophilologus, 98, 657–673.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Newton, S. (1993). The origins of Beowulf and the pre-Viking kingdom of East Anglia. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicolaisen, W. F. H. (1995). Is there a Northwest Germanic toponymy? Some thoughts and a proposal. In E. Marold & C. Zimmerman (Eds.), Nordwestgermanisch (pp. 103–114). Berlin: W. de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Brien O’Keeffe, K. (1990). Visible song: Transitional literacy in Old English verse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Loughlin, J. N. L. (1964). Sutton Hoo—The evidence of the documents. Medieval Archaeology, 8, 1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Okasha, E. (2011). Women’s names in Old English. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olsen, A. (1997). Gender roles. In R. E. Bjork & J. D. Niles (Eds.), A Beowulf handbook (pp. 311–324). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orchard, A. (2003). A critical companion to Beowulf. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orton, P. R. (2000). The transmission of Old English poetry. Turnhout: Brepols.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pascual, R. J. (2013–2014). Three-position verses and the metrical practice of the Beowulf poet. SELIM, 20, 49–79.

  • Pascual, R. J. (2015). On a crux in Beowulf: the alliteration of finite verbs and the scribal understanding of metre. Studia Neophilologica, 87, 171–185.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pascual, R. J. (2017). Manuscript evidence and metrical authenticity: A response to Seiichi Suzuki. Journal of Germanic Linguistics, 29, 85–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patterson, L. (1987). Negotiating the past: The historical understanding of medieval literature. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pelteret, D. A. E. (1995). Slavery in early mediaeval England: From the reign of Alfred until the twelfth century. Woodbridge: Boydell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, F. C. (1964). Is Wealhtheow a prince’s daughter? English Studies, 45, 36–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, F. C. (1968). The significance of names in Old English literature. Anglia, 86, 14–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russom, G. (2002). Dating criteria for Old English poems. In D. Minkova & R. Stockwell (Eds.), Studies in the history of the English language: A millennial perspective (pp. 245–266). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Schönfeld, M. (1911). Wörterbuch der altgermanischen Personen- und Völkernamen. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shippey, T. (2005). The Merov(ich)ingian again: damnatio memoriae and the usus scholarum. In K. O’Brien O’Keeffe & A. Orchard (Eds.), Latin learning and English lore: Studies in Anglo-Saxon literature for Michael Lapidge (Vol. 1, pp. 389–406). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shippey, T. (2007). Afterword. In J. D. Niles (Ed.), Beowulf and Lejre (pp. 469–480). Tempe: ACMRS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shippey, T. (2014). Names in Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon England. In L. Neidorf (Ed.), The dating of Beowulf: A reassessment (pp. 58–78). Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sievers, E. (1885). Zur Rhythmik des germanischen Alliterationsverses. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literature, 10(209–314), 451–545.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sisam, K. (1953). Studies in the history of Old English literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanley, E. G. (1981). The date of Beowulf: Some doubts and no conclusions. In C. Chase (Ed.), The dating of Beowulf (pp. 197–211). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanley, E. G. (1984). Unideal principles of editing Old English verse. Proceedings of British Academy, 70, 231–273.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tolkien, J. R. R. (2006). Finn and Hengest: The fragment and the episode. In Bliss, A. J. (Ed.) London: Harper Collins. First published 1982, London: G. Allen & Unwin.

  • Tolkien, J. R. R. (2014). Beowulf: A translation and commentary, together with Sellic Spell. In Tolkien, C. (Ed.) Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

  • Townend, M. (2015). Antiquity of diction in Old English and Old Norse poetry. E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lectures 17. University of Cambridge: Department of Anglo- Saxon, Norse, and Celtic.

  • Tupper, F., Jr. (1910). Textual criticism as a pseudo-science. PMLA, 25, 164–181.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vickrey, J. F. (2009). Beowulf and the illusion of history. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weisgerber, L. (1953). Deutsch als Volksname: Ursprung und Bedeutung. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wessén, Elias. (1927). Nordiska namnstudier. Uppsala: Lundequist.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I thank Paul Cavill, R. D. Fulk, and Carole Hough for reading this paper in draft and improving it with their insightful observations and suggestions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

    Leonard Neidorf

Authors
  1. Leonard Neidorf
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Leonard Neidorf.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Neidorf, L. Wealhtheow and Her Name: Etymology, Characterization, and Textual Criticism. Neophilologus 102, 75–89 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-017-9538-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-017-9538-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation