SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Beowulf, Swedes and Geats
taken as a descriptive, witha meaning 'British servant' or
'foreign servant'. Gordon held that the wealh 'foreigner'
element was reserved for non-Germanic peoples, and that
since Wealhoeow is ides Helminga, she could not be wealh
in this sense. Gordon held that name-elements in -oeot»
are 'not Anglo-Saxon in type, and are presumably
Scandinavian in origin or formed under Scandinavian
influence'. 45 OE Ecgoeow and Ongenoeo» have ON
equivalents in Eggper and Angantyr,46 and though no
direct equivalent for Wealhoeow can be found, a corresponding
masculine form exists, Valhofr. Gordon provides
evidence, in numerous parallels in ON and other
Germanic languages, for taking the respective elements of
Wealhoeow as from Gmc *wala, 'chosen', 'beloved', and
OE oeow, as a word of restricted, semi-religious meaning,
'servant', 'devotee'. Accordingly, we may interpret
Valhofr and its cognate forms OHG Waladeo and OE
Wealhpeow, which means literally 'chosen servant', as
denoting a person devoted to some god or power which
was expected to show special favour .... OE Ongenoeow
(ON Angantyr, OHG Angandeo), seems to be a name of the
same kind, the first element being identical with ON
angan 'love', 'special favour'c-?
It has already been pointed out that Ecgrieow's name
alliterates with the Swedish line; it is also interesting to
note that the second element of the name works into series
with Ongenoeow, and WealhOeow, by front variation,
a practice which was frequently employed. 48 Of course,
.s ibid., 169. On the incidence of the rare names in -pewan in the North
see e.g, Kr. Hald, Personnaone i Danmark. 1. Oldtiden (1971), 29-30.
•• With -tyr explicable as a substitution for -per, because of false etymology.
'7 ibid., 171-2.
'S H. B. Woolf, The Principles of Germanic Name-Giving (1939), points out
in his Conclusion (p. 253): 'In both England and on the Continent front- and
end-variation were practised in equal proportions. The number of names
linked by common initial themes and those joined by identical final themes is
approximately the same for such important gronps as the Mercians, the
Bernicians, the Deirans, the West Saxons, and the Langobards. Yet there are
some deviations in one direction or the other. The East Anglians, the
Merovingians, and the Gothic Amalings, for example, made greater use of front
variation, and the Kentishmen preferred end-variations.' An East Anglian
association of course tempts one to summon up the splendours of Sutton Hoo,
but the temptation is best resisted; see below.