[Bordermarch] look closely at wilinhet!!!

[David Lathrop]

I'll make this real quick because I've got to use the bathroom;
Let's break the word down--
[Wil]---A declaration recorded on something stating who receives ones possession's should one die.
[in]--The location of a thing.
[het]--- A slang term used by the early Celts, predominately in the County Cork area of Ireland, that describes what we now call a HAND!
Thus the word wilinhet means--will-in-hand.

The Tinker is a smart fellow. He sort of got it right, but there was too much bloat in his missive, and Lord Nik is now fair game since he touched this Tar-Baby!

HE Santiago


 



________________________________
From: Thinker <tinker at bordermarch.org>
To: Barony Bordermarch <bordermarch at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 3:59:35 PM
Subject: Re: [Bordermarch] look closely at wilinhet!!!

-----Original Message-----
Now a test for the smarty pants in the barony: 
What is the meaning of the word [wilinhet]? You won't find it in the
dictionary, and I don't think it will come up if you Google it.
It is a very period and common word used primarily around County Cork,
Ireland.

CLUE:--It has something to do with the allocation and distribution of a
land lord's property should he die without any heirs.

Put on your thinking caps OHHH mighty seekers of anything that has
something to do with the medieval!

HE Santiago
_______________________________________________


Oh Your Excellency,

AS I find Google to be so limiting and often so commercialized, I do
have many resources that dig far deeper.  Which is good, because your
hint didn't throw me off for a minute.

Why back in the Celtic times there was a tribe in what is now known as
Cork, Ireland.  The ruler of the tribe was named Wilinhet. In Celtic
it's pronounced sorta like willy n'ay. 
Wilinhet believed strongly in keeping his subjects busy, even if it
meant making them do things that were totally useless, unproductive and
unedifying. His power over the people corrupted him, like power will
corrupt any autocratic leader. As he got older, it got worse, to the
point that he commanded his people to do meaningless things when there
was real work to be done.

When his subjects were commanded to do a meaningless task, they would
refer to it as a wilinhet. As the land's productiveness went to waist,
all of Wilinhey's heirs deserted him to go seek their own fortunes- for
they could plainly see that there was going to be nothing left
worthwhile for them to inherit.  So thus when Wilinhet died, his holding
were totally useless and no one wanted them!  So when the tribal elders
met to decided who would get what land and no one wanted any of it, it
was decreed that "We have a real Wilinhet on our hands".  As the people
all knew a "wilinhet" meant a totally meaningless task that had to be
done whether they wanted to or not.

You can read about this here:
http://www.slinger.nu/SlingerSteden/Utrecht/Documents/2008-12AD.pdf and
here:
http://www.celt.dias.ie/publications/celtica/c20/c20-11-27.pdf


By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the term Wilinhet had been
anglicized to Willy nilly.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-wil2.htm

Willy nilly From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Willy nilly (logic), actions which are considered to be done not by
means of any underlying principle or logic, but by whim or some
decidedly illogical formula 

So that about sums up Wilinhet.  This t-shirt sums it up in a very short
concise statement.

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/moredetails.aspx?showBleed=false&ProductNo=3
96577755&colorNo=6&pr=F


In honorable serves,
The Tinker
(whose had enough wilinhet's for one day)

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