These names may be regarded as deriving from pre- or proto-historical dynastic legend, originally preserved in Old English genealogical poetry. Some of the names are alliteratively grouped, and may refer to different origin-myths. The possible meaning of some of the names is suggested.

  • 1. Woden – ancestral father-god of all the Old English royal families
  • 2. Caser – “Kaiser” or “Caesar”, symbolically filiated to Woden
  • 3. Tyttman
  • 4. Trygil – ‘Little Boat’?
  • 5. Hróðmund – identifiable as Hróðmund, prince of Denmark in Beowulf (See Chapter 4 of my book)
  • 6. Hryp
  • 7. Wilhelm – ‘Wolf-Helm’
  • 8. Wehha – “first to rule over the East Anglian folk in Britain” (Historia Brittonum, 59)
  • 9. Wuffa – ‘Little Wolf’; “from whom East Anglian kings were thenceforth named Wuffings” (Bede, HE, II, 15)

© Copyright Dr Sam Newton AD 2014

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