The Mysterious Wihtgar

[Cadwallon]

I have been writing a historical work about Hampshire and the Isle of Wight and looked up some of the Old English words on this site.
 
Here is draft extract. Can anyone tell me if my suggested origin of 'Wihtgarabyrg' seems reasonable, or have I got the possible derivation totally wrong?
 
Any help gratefully received.
 
"On Cerdic’s death, the Saxons say the island passed to a kinsman called Wihtgar. The usual explanation for the name Wihtgar (and Wight) is a back formation from the Latin Vectis ie it’s a garbled memory where the existing place name has been used to generate the person who conquered it. Some mistake has clearly been in this case, as the Annals mentioned Wihtgarabyrg before Wihtgar, the hero, arrived to take it.
 
Of course, our Merlin would probably laugh as such foolishness and tell you ‘Wihtga’ means 'wise man' or 'prophet' in Old English. The island was simply known as the Prophet’s Isle. But when that memory faded, the Saxons often shortened the name of the island to Wit, which means ‘white’ and would fit with the white cliffs marking its harbours. "



Cad

[steveandkate]

Hi. I wonder if an alternative explanation is:
Wiht(Man) Gara (promontory or cape/headland) Byrg (Fort or Defensive Mound)
The fact that Bede and the AS Chronicles refer to Isle of White as Wihtland suggests the derivation is 'man' rather than 'wise man'. Also, it's more likely (in terms of geography) to be defensive rather than a holy place of retreat.
Just guessing, of course!

Cadwallon wrote:

I have been writing a historical work about Hampshire and the Isle of Wight and looked up some of the Old English words on this site.
 
Here is draft extract. Can anyone tell me if my suggested origin of 'Wihtgarabyrg' seems reasonable, or have I got the possible derivation totally wrong?
 
Any help gratefully received.
 
"On Cerdic’s death, the Saxons say the island passed to a kinsman called Wihtgar. The usual explanation for the name Wihtgar (and Wight) is a back formation from the Latin Vectis ie it’s a garbled memory where the existing place name has been used to generate the person who conquered it. Some mistake has clearly been in this case, as the Annals mentioned Wihtgarabyrg before Wihtgar, the hero, arrived to take it.
 
Of course, our Merlin would probably laugh as such foolishness and tell you ‘Wihtga’ means 'wise man' or 'prophet' in Old English. The island was simply known as the Prophet’s Isle. But when that memory faded, the Saxons often shortened the name of the island to Wit, which means ‘white’ and would fit with the white cliffs marking its harbours. "



Cad

[Wodenhelm]

Eh, sounds a bit on the side of "personal ideas" (as in, "hey maybe this it how it is?") as opposed to historic research.

[Cadwallon]

steveandkate,

oops - Didn't spot your response - thanks for the analysis.

The dates and events in the AS Chronicle are regularly used as fact in histories of the Isle of Wight.
Yet, there are problems.

Archaeology suggests there were Britons in the east and Jutes in the west of the island before Cerdic, the alleged Saxon (with a British name) founder of Wessex (and thereby England) arrived to capture it for ever for the Germanic races. It is an important, if little known and confused, moment in British history.

According to the AS Chronicles:

In 514, Stuf and Wihtgar fought the Britons
In 530, Cerdic and Cynric seized 'Wihte ealond' and killed a few men at 'Wihtgarabyrg'
In 534, Cerdic passed away and the kinsmen 'Stuf' and 'Wihtgar' were given 'Wihte ealond'
In 544, Wihtgar died and he was buried at 'Wihtgarabyrg' (always assumed to be the later central island capital Carisbrook)

So, 'Wihtgarabyrg' appears to be named after someone called 'Wihtgar', although it already had his name by the time he arrived.

The most important ancient harbour in the British east of the island was Brading (derived from the Celtic for dwellers on a hill). So, yes, it could be that the chroniclers made a mistake and 'Wihtgar' and 'Stuf' were not people at all. Which rather leaves the British attacking themselves...

yep, I'm confused too. hehe

[Cadwallon]

Thanks Wodenhelm,

Excuse my whimsical extract. No, the point is a serious one (and various names were used through the ages).

Interpretations of what things mean seem to get stuck - particularly where the AS Chronicles are concerned, even if they don't make sense. And sometimes the only way to draw attention to them is to propose another solution.

The names of the Isle of Wight (Wihte ealond) and the alleged warrior 'Wihtgar' who took its (then) capital 'Wihtgaraburg' for the Saxons are intertwined.
If he was real, he arrived at a place already named after him.

The question is - on linguistic grounds - was he likely to have been real or a description of a place turned into a person by chroniclers that didn't understand the context? Perhaps it's impossible to say.

(We had already had the oddity of a man called Port capturing Portsmouth  - A.D. 501. This year Port came to Britain with his two sons, Bieda and Maegla, and two ships, to the place called Portsmouth (portesmutha), and killed a young British man, a very noble man. - Maegla could be the Briton Maglos)

This all could shed some light on the thorny problem of whether the war in Hampshire and Isle of Wight was a British civil war (Cerdic, the leader had a British name) absorbed into the history of the Saxons or the great Saxon invasion that drove the British leaders West and into Brittany and heralded the beginnings of Wessex and England - as the AS Chroniclers would have us believe.

Part of the solution hinges on the meanings of 'Wihtgar' and of 'Wihtgarabyrg'.

wiht [] 1. f (-e/-a), n (-es/-u) wight, person, creature, being; whit, thing, something,
wihtga see wítega
wítega [] m (-n/-n) wise man; lawyer; prophet, soothsayer; prophecy; [witan]

gár [] 1. m (-a/-a) spear, dart, javelin, shaft, arrow, weapon, arms; 2. tempest?, piercing cold?, sharp pain?; 3. see gára
gára [] m (-n/-n) spear-man
gára [] m (-n/-n) corner, point of land, cape, promontory; strip of cloth, saddle cloth [gár]

burg [] f (byrg/byrg) a dwelling or dwellings within a fortified enclosure, fort, castle; borough, walled town; [gen sing ~byrg, ~byrig, ~burge; dat sing ~byrg, ~byrig; nom/acc pl ~byrg, byrig; gen pl ~burga; dat pl ~burgum]

So was Wihtgar eg?
- the man with the spear
- the creature with the spear
- a wise man (with no spear)
- a person's promontory

And Wihtgarabyrg eg?
- the spearman's fort
- the creature with the spear's fort
- the wise man's town
- the person's promontory fort or town (as suggested previously)

Interpretation also helps us decide whether Carisbook in the centre of the island or Brading, the Roman port, was the capital of the island.

[Wodenhelm]

Ah, your explanation you've given now, sounds far better. When making my post, I was more concentrating on the way the information was presented, and only dismissing those possibilities because nothing else was there to back them up. This presentation certainly lends more credibility now.

See if you can add in more history, including some outside points of view from that time period, if any are known, in addition to the translation possibilities presented. Keep up the good work.

(And as a PS: might as well throw in some shameless advertising while I'm at it... feel free to join my new Eald Englisc Google Group. Its only purpose is to use OE in everyday speech, topics are open to anything on your mind.)