Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 708

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 708

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/708

Some of the Academy's early reports contain errors that we haven't yet corrected. Please use it with caution.

You asked whether the name <Lassar Eqoduba> was an appropriate period Irish name and whether the Irish name <Midir> was used by real people as well as by the magical personage of that name.

The byname <Eqoduba> was constructed as a hypothetical 1st century (AD) form of the hypothetical Middle Irish <echdubh> 'having dark horses', so we need a 1st century form of <Lassar> to go with it. The name is from Old Irish <lassar> 'fire, flame'. This word belonged to the feminine a-stem declension, which means that its immediate ancestor had a final <-a>. [1] We found no evidence of any other changes between the 1st century AD and the Old Irish period, so we think it highly probable that the appropriate form of the given name is <Lassara>. Though both elements of <Lassara Eqoduba> are hypothetical reconstructions, they are fairly safe reconstructions in which we have a good deal of confidence. (The name would have been pronounced something like \lahs-sar-ah ekw-o-du-ba\.)

We have found no evidence that the name <Midir> was used by ordinary human beings; so far as we can tell, its use was confined to the legendary characters. (And although the Academy isn't primarily concerned with questions of SCA registerability, we note that Laurel returned a slight variant of the name in the 2/97 Letter of Acceptances and Returns, citing lack of evidence for real human use.)

Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn and Arval Benicoeur also contributed to this letter. We hope that it's helpful and that you'll write again if you've any further questions.

For the Academy,

Talan Gwynek


[1] Dictionary of the Irish Language. Compact edition (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1990).