Search

wolf
October 25, 2017 at 10:07 am

(adopted from a piece found long ago on a listserv)

The Anglo-Saxons, like many old European peoples, seemed to have a double perception of
wolves. On the one hand, wolves were feared and hated. Wolves had been driven from
farmlands for centuries. In "Deor's Lament" the evil king Eormanric has wylfenne geðohtas
("wolfish" -- perhaps "she-wolfish" -- "thoughts"). The enemy Danes in "The Battle of
Maldon" are waelwulfas ("slaughter-wolfs"). And Wulfstan names the devil a werewulf.

On the other hand, as the name Wulfstan shows, Wulf is one of the commonest compounds
in Anglo-Saxon names, appearing also in Beowulf (literally "bee-wolf," a kenning for "bear"),
Cynewulf, Ealdwulf and Ethelwulf.

Surnames like Lowell, Lovel, and Lovett are versions of diminutives of "wolf" in Old French
or Anglo-Norman, either from nicknames "wolf cub," or meaning "son of Wolf." They came
to England with the Normans. Richard Luvel (Ricardus lupellus in a c. 1118 charter from
Sussex) was descended from William, earl of Yvery, who was called Lupellus to distinguish
him from his father, Robert, who had acquired the nickname Lupus because of his violent
temper. The Italian equivalent, Lupino, was the name of a theatrical family who settled in
England by 1642.

Wulf by itself, however, was late and uncommon as a personal name in Old English. M.
Redin, "Studies on Uncompounded Personal Names in Old English" [Uppsala, 1919] doubts
if any of the examples are really native and not from viking. The modern frequency of the
surname in the U.S. is due to immigrants from Germany.

A like ambivalence seems to have characterized the attitude toward elves, who were
regarded by the ancient Germanic peoples as a race of powerful supernatural beings. On the
one hand, there are metrical charms against curses and injuries thought to be caused by the
malevolent work of elves. On the other hand, Ælf ranks with wulf among the most popular
component in Anglo-Saxon names, many of which survive as modern given names and
surnames: Ælfræd "Elf-counsel" (Alfred), Ælfwine "Elf-friend" (Alvin), Ælfric "Elf-ruler"
(Eldridge), also women's names such as Ælfflæd "Elf-beauty."

It's possible that these and other given names had become traditional and were bestowed
without a thought to their etymologies. Modern English-speaking people have and give
names simply because they like the sound of them or because they are the names of relatives
or close friends. But the play on the name of king Æðelræd II, in his epithet of Unræd,
seems to argue against this, at least in the case of the Anglo-Saxons. His subjects must have
known his name means "good-counsel" before they could convert it to "no-counsel."

The wolf, it seems, earned esteem for ferocity and courage. From ancient times people cross-
bred their dogs with wolves. The Louvre in Paris is said to be so named because its builder,
Philip Augustus, intended it as a wolf kennel.

Germanic folklore in general seemed to associate the bear with the solitary champion but the
wolf with young warriors. In Hrafnsmal (composed c. 900 C.E.), the warriors of Harald
Fairhair of Vestfold in Norway are called "wolf-coats" because of their fierce fighting quality.
But wolf as an outlaw who preys on society is also a force, in the person of the young warrior
hiding in the forest, waiting for vengeance. The hero Sigmund and his son Sinfjotli,
preparing to avenge their kinsmen on King Siggeir, hid in the forest, put on wolfskins, and
spoke with the voices of wolves [Volsunga saga].

Old English werewulf has two spellings: Werwulf, the name of a priest known to Alfred and
mentioned in Asser's "Life of Alfred," and werewulf, with its proleptic -e-, in Wulfstan's
"Homily" 16b. In the ninth century it's a proper name; in the eleventh it's a synonym for the
Devil, the wodfreca werewulf against whom all shepherds should guard their flock.

Those are the only two appearances in Old English, but there are many variants in other
Germanic languages -- Wargwolf, waragulph, etc. -- many of them, like Alfred's Werwulf,
used as proper and place names. The later Scandinavian versions have verulfr, "man/wolf."
Marie de France spells the word three different ways in her "Bisclavret": garwal, garwaf,
garwalf.

French loup-garou is a redundancy: "wolf-man-wolf." The garou (Old French garoul) is

cognate with the garulph, gerulphos in Norman versions of the word, which breaks down to
gar/war/wer "man" and ulph/wlf "wolf." It seems to have been an attempt to wrestle Old
High German *werawolf or its Frankish equivalent into the Gallic/Romanic sound system of
the French tongue. But the French now use garou to mean any kind of were-transformation:
chien-garou (changing into a dog) chat-garou, etc.

There are two ideas here:

1.) A man who behaves in a wolf-like predatory and destructive manner, cf. waelwulfas.
"Werwulf" as a name for a man also may have had the same kind of prestige that "Wolfgang"
still enjoys, back before identification with wolves and wolfpacks became associated with the
criminal and the demonic.

2.) A man who can change into a wolf and back. This condition is also called lycanthropy.
Lykos is Greek for "wolf," anthropos for "man." Old diagnoses of lycanthropy can often be
attributed to the inherited defect called porphyria. Greek lycanthropos is much earlier than
the Germanic words, and from the beginning seems to have been limited to madness. Later
medieval and early modern writers described lycanthropy using the terms dementia canina,
melancholia lupina or canina. This described a human being who thought he was a wolf, ate
raw flesh, dug up graves, howled at the moon, ran around on all fours. In the 15th and 16th
centuries, the term lycanthropy replaced these, and a distinction was made (sometimes
indistinctly) between the madman and the sorcerer.

There's been a lot of controversy over the Old English word wearg. Mary Gerstein's article,
which tries to reinstate the meaning of Germanic warg as "werwolf," has been largely
rejected. Wearg and German warg go back to a similar root that may have meant
"strangler"; some etymologists (T.A. Karston and others) see this as a "taboo word" for
"wolf," but this hasn't been universally accepted. Michael Jacoby and Joseph Weitenberg
remark that it is only late, and mostly in Norse, that vargr (cognate with warg) acquires the
meaning "wolf" along with "criminal." In Old English, wearg means almost exclusively
"criminal" or "accursed being."

The Lex Salica, the Lex Ripuaria (both in Latin and using the word wargus) and the
Scandinavian Gra'ga's (in Icelandic and using the word varg) all have legal language
wherein they declare a criminal a warg -- related to our Old English wearg. In the Lex Salica
and Ripuaria, as in some ancient Greek laws, this term refers to outcasts: "Let him be warg,"
or, "let him be as a wolf for X amount of time who has done X." -- said of men whose
behavior is so terrible that exile is the severest punishment. This isn't to say that the warg
wasn't seen as having a wolfish quality, or that warg/wearg/vargr wasn't a synonym for a
wolf in ancient times. It's just that we don't have proof.

This phrasing also turns up in some Hittite texts. Punishment by exile and "wargness" is
usually reserved for heinous crimes like digging up graves or oath-breaking. But Jaan Puhvel
shows that the Hittite word for "wolf" is not the one that relates to warg. It's the word
hurkel in the Hittite laws that has etymological relationship with warg. This word means a
sex-offender.

The Hittite says this:

 If anyone abducts a woman and if those who go after/behind, three persons or two
persons, are killed, there will be no compensation. You have become a wolf. UR-BAR-RA.

This word is not the hurkel word. So Weitenberg is fairly skeptical that there is any proof
that warg/hurkel definitely meant "wolf" rather than just "heinous person."

Nonetheless, the wolf has long been associated with certain anti-social human behaviors:
lack of decency, overwhelming sexual and other appetite, digging up graves (no sense of
propriety), turning on brother wolf (no ability to honor an oath). So it's no wonder that the
werewolf and the heinous criminal are bound in association. Perhaps there was a common
thread in Indo-European tribal law associating criminals with wolves and other things "out
there in the night."

The "wolf-man" is a pretty universal concept, appearing in cultures all over the world that
encounter wolves (Navajo, Sioux, etc.). The Scandinavian warriors had an established
mythology about wolf-warriors in the ulfhethennir and the berserkir, Loki and Fenris.

A Roman view of the wolf may be reflected in the Latin lupa, literally "she-wolf," which was
a term for "prostitute," and has yielded words for "whore" in some Romance languages (cf.
Spanish loba, Italian lupa, French louve).

Some ancient Greek associations between gods and wolves might have sprung from
confusion of lykos "wolf" and words derived from the disused Greek word lyke "light."

"Zeus Lykaios" was associated with wolves. The myth told of a man named Demetrius who
was turned to a wolf by the god, but, if he could refrain from eating human flesh, could
regain his human form. If he ate the flesh he was cursed to remain a wolf. It is possible (but
some scholars disagree) that the word Lykaios comes from the masculine form of the "wolf"
noun.

According to A.B. Cooke's "Zeus A Study In Ancient Religion," Zeus Lykaios was Zeus wolf-
god and also Zeus the light-god. But there was a definite cult of Zeus Lykaios at a temple on
Mt. Lykaion in Arkadia. According to Cooke, he-wolves were kept at Zeus Lykaios's
sanctuary there as sacred animals. [Volume I, Chapter 3 pages 63-99.] They offered human
sacrifices to him. Pliny and Augustine both mention the temple. Many of his images were
dressed in wolf skins. Zeus Lykaios also had a cult at Kyrene, and coins with this image were
found at Sparta. Lykaon the son of Pelasgos, built a town of Lykasoura on the slopes of Mt.
Lykaion and he was said to have given Zeus the name Zeus Lykaios. He also held a festival
called Lykaia.

Others Are Reading

name | Origin and book | Origin and nice | Origin and com- | Origin and
meaning of name by meaning of book by meaning of nice by meaning of prefix
Online Etymology… Online Etymology… Online Etymology… com- by Online…

Share

! "  $
Advertisement

Latest stories

JOHN MUIR and 'SAUNTER'

October 26, 2019 at 4:27 pm

JANUS WORDS
October 25, 2019 at 5:21 pm

NORTH, EAST, WEST, SOUTH, NOT

September 26, 2019 at 4:38 pm

OF GUNS and GUNSELS

September 26, 2019 at 4:33 pm

FAST COMPANY
September 14, 2019 at 4:45 pm

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

LINKS MOBILE ABOUT SUPPORT US

Sources Etymonline iOS App Who did this Donate with PayPal

Links Etymonline Android App Follow on Facebook Ye Olde Swag Shoppe

Explanation of Terms Chrome Extension Support on Patreon

Terms of Service | Privacy Policy © 2001-2020 Douglas Harper