Re: man- (was: logic vocabulary)

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <jcowan@...>


> Steg Belsky scripsit:
>
>> Does that mean that in Old English they talked about not just
>> _werewolves_, but _wifewolves_ too?
Probably wifwulf.  The extra "e" is used mainly by Wulfstan.

> We don't know.  The word "werewulf" appears only once in the surviving OE
> corpus, in a figurative sense, and clearly referring to overlords who
> over-tax their people.
I'd be curious to know what source you are referring to.  If you mean
Wulfstan, why he uses it to refer to Satan in one of his famous homilies.
Se wodfreca werewulf.  If the good shepherd (the priest) does not watch over
his flock, the wodfreca werewulf will come and bite them. Werwulf was also a
name in Old English (one of Alfred's priests mention by Asser), so at one
time the word was honorific.  A man wolf.

> But it sounds good to me!
There are relatively few female werewolves in early European tradition
compared to the male ones, and no wifwulfas that I know of in Old English.
There is the female wolf in the Volsunga Saga; female werewolves, however,
are more common in Irish tradition, but I forget at the moment who has
published on this.

Sally

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