ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3251 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3251 ************************************ 22 Jan 2007 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! Since the name isn't an authentic choice for a 12th-century Gaelic man [1], you wanted to know if would be for a man living around 900. Here is what we have found. Unfortunately, we cannot recommend the name for this period either, for a number of reasons. The Gaelic name was borrowed from Old Norse; the earliest reference to in Irish is from the 12th century. [2,5] The Irish Annals have a record of a man named who lived in 732. [2] However, we are not sure whether this man really lived, or whether he was in fact named . We've found no other record of this man (or his grandfather, who is also mentioned) in any other source. Additionally, we have evidence that the Old Irish name was confused with by later-period scribes. This confusion occurs in an annal entry for 972: [3] Orgain Inse Ca/thaigh do Mhaghnus, mac Arailt co l-Lagmannaibh na n-Innsedh imbi, & Iomar ticchearna Gall Luimnigh do brith esti, & sa/rughadh Sena/in imbi The plundering of Inis Cathaig [Scattery Island] by Magnus son of Aralt with the Lagmainn of the Isles and I/varr lord of the Vikings of Limerick was taken prisoner and Sena/n was outraged on his account. This is almost certainly the 'Maccus king of many islands' from John of Worcester's _Chronicon ex chronicis_, one of eight underkings who are said to have made submission to Edgar at Chester in 973. (In William of Malmesbury's _Gesta Regum_ he appears as 'Mascusius the pirate king'.) [4] These two entries therefore cannot be taken as pre-12th century evidence for the given name . Additionally, as we noted in our previous letter, we have found only one example of the byname 'wolf, hound', and it is in reference to a man who lived at the end of the 6th/beginning of the 7th century. [2] Barring other examples of , we can confirm its authenticity only for this narrow period. There are also a number of people named who lived in the 7th century [2], so a name combining these two elements would be suitable. (Here we're using the slash to represent an acute accent over the previous letter). However, while some form of both and were used in the early 7th century, they were not spelled and during this time. The earliest surviving written form of Irish dates from around the 4th century. It was written on stone in the alphabet called "Ogham". When this writing tradition developed, the Irish language was very different from the medieval form -- about as different as Latin is from French. This stage of the language is variously called "Primitive Irish", "Ogam Irish", or "Oghamic Irish". This writing system continued in active use into the 7th century, and while it was in active use, its users tended to write a conservative form of the language corresponding to what was spoken when the system was developed. The spoken language, however, was undergoing considerable change. When a new writing system using Roman letters was developed in the 6th century, its users broke with tradition and wrote a language much closer to what was actually being spoken. This stage of the language, as recorded from the late 7th century to the mid-10th century, is called Old Irish. The problem with reconstructing names used before the Old Irish period is that the only written forms that we know are the Oghamic forms in the Primitive Irish language, and yet we also know that by the 6th century this written Primitive Irish must have been quite different from the way the language was actually spoken. It takes a good deal of specialized knowledge to put the pieces together and come up with a likely reconstruction of both the written name and its pronunciation. We can try to reconstruct precursors to the names you chose which might have been used at the beginning of the 7th century, but it is a difficult and speculative task, and the precursors may look and sound very different. Please let us know if you are interested in this. We hope that this letter has been useful to you and that you won't hesitate to write us again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Talan Gwynek, Mari neyn Brian, and Eleyne de Comnocke. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 22 January 2007 -- References: [1] Academy of S. Gabriel Report #3239 http://www.panix.com/~gabriel/3239 [2] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001-2006). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/ [3] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh, & Mavis Cournane, "Annals of the Four Masters, vol. 2", six volumes (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1997-98), entry M 972.13 http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100005B/ [4] Thornton, David E., 'Edgar and the Eight Kings (AD 973): Textus et Dramatis Personae', Early Medieval Europe, 10/1 (2001), 49-79. [5] The name did not exist in Scandinavia before . [6] [6] Insley, John, _Scandinavian personal names in Norfolk: a survey based on medieval records and place-names_ (Uppsala: Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy; Stockholm: Distributor, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1994), s.n. Magnu/s.