[ANSTHRLD] AEgil for Sunnrifa

Richard Culver rbculver at hotmail.com
Fri Aug 17 07:21:06 PDT 2001


>But AEgeles- could refer to a bunch of things:
>
>(1) It could be a person's name, as Cyniric suggests.  If so, then I'd
>expect some confirmation in one of the wills, charters, or tax records.

Also see the Oxford Dictionary of Place names under places starting with
Ayles.  Most are ascribed to an *Aegel.  Though reconstructed, it shows
enough of a pattern otherwise.  Aylesby is attributed to the Norse Name
"A'li", Almarsbury to AE(th)elmaer, and one other attributed to
AE(th)elberht.  The others say AEgel.  Is that sufficient enough for SCA
standards?

   Also if the name is an early usage it may not show up in wills and
charters.  However grammatically the name is using the possessive.  If it
were something like "noble hill", AEgelhyll/ AE(th)elhyll, they most likely
would not bother declining the noun.  In this case it was meant to show
someone's possession or a geographic place associated with a person.
   Argh....but when it shows sunu Hussan that validates the misuse of
patronym, right? :P



>(3) It could be a nickname.  Somebody built a farm there whose nick-name
>was
>"aegel", and the farm became known by the nick-name.  Fellows-Jensen has a
>bunch of examples of placenames in the Danelaw area that follow this
>pattern.  Some of the nicknames did at some point come into usage as
>regular
>names as well, but not all and not always.  Again, I'd expect to see some
>further documentation of this a sa real name if this were the case from
>wills, charters, or tax records.

  Who do we know it does not precede the Danelaw or even the Vikings, to be
honest to the point we are going?  The Wuffinga royal house, which was
originated in Sweden, came to rule East Anglia in ca. 550.  It could very
well come from the time.
  As you also cited AEgli as a nickname, I gave that as the alternative
whose cognate in OE AEg(e)la which still is some places would have used the
-es genetive ending.


>(4) It could be an adjective, possibly derived from the "ae(dh)el" word,
>meaning "noble".  The place name then would be "Noble's Tharp".  Or it
>might
>have some entirely different derivation, but still be an adjective
>describing the place instead of the person, or commemorating the person
>using a word that is not a name.

   I would disagree.  Even in the Norse they were prone to giving names
associated with howes even if it was not the names of the person there.
Odin's, Thor's, and Freyr's howes are the besy known but even beyond these
mythological constructs, other kings and people of note has areas named for
them, each using the genetive case, not mere descriptives.  I was reading
this in Chaney's "Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England.  I will try to
puck up specifics when I get home.
   Also I have a problem with the equation aegel=ae(th)el.  I do believe
there is a runic inscription of the name Agilaz, but even past that, ther is
no philological basic for it.  I know the Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum cites
it as such, but my personal opinion, it, like Tengvik, is out of date.
While it is possible, they both lost the middle sounding( AEgel, was roughly
pronounce aeyel and aethel seems to in some cases drop the (th) as in the
transcription of AEthelweard's name in Latin as Aluuardus), but otherwise
how are they related?


Just my two cents,
Cyniric


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