Chapter XXXVII: Section XI: Gefwulf, Prince of the Jutes

Conclusive external evidence in favour of the view just put forward we can hardly hope for: for this reason, amongst others, that the names of the actors in the Finn tragedy are corrupted and obscured in the different versions. Hnaef and Hengest are too well known to be altered: but most of the other names mentioned in the _Fragment_ do not agree with the forms given in other documents. Sigeferth is the Saeferth of _Widsith_: the Ordlaf (correct) of the _Fragment_ is the Oslaf of the _Episode_. The first Guthlaf is confirmed by the Guthlaf of the _Episode_: the other names, the second Guthlaf, Eaha and Guthere, we cannot control from other sources: but they have all, on various grounds, been suspected.

Tribal names are equally varied. Sigeferth's people, the Secgan, are called Sycgan in _Widsith_. And he would be a bold man who would deny (what almost all students of the subject hold) that _Eotena, Eotenum_ in the _Episode_ is yet another scribal error: the copyist had before him the Anglian form, _eotna, eotnum_, and miswrote _eotena, eotenum_, when he should have written the West-Saxon equivalent of the tribal name, _[=Y]tena, [=Y]tum_--the name we get in _Widsith_:

[=Y]tum [weold] Gefwulf
Fin Folcwalding Fr[=e]sna cynne.

But in _Widsith_ names of heroes and tribes are grouped together (often, but not invariably) according as they are related in story. Consequently Gefwulf is probably (not certainly) a hero of the Finn story. What part does he play? If, as I have been trying to show, the Jutes are the aggressors, then, as their chief, Gefwulf would probably be the leader of the attack upon the hall. {287}

This part, in the _Fragment_, is played by Garulf.

Now _G[=a]rulf_ is not _Gefwulf_, and I am not going to pretend that it is. But _G[=a]rulf_ is very near _Gefwulf_: and (what is important) more so in Old English script than in modern script[512]. It stands to _Gefwulf_ in exactly the same relation as _Hereg[=a]r_ to _Heorog[=a]r_ or _Sigeferdh_ to _S[=ae]ferdh_ or _Ordl[=a]f_ to _[=O]sl[=a]f_: that is to say the initial letter and the second element are identical. And no serious student, I think, doubts that _Hereg[=a]r_ and _Heorog[=a]r_, or _Sigeferdh_ and _S[=ae]ferdh_, or _Ordl[=a]f_ and _[=O]sl[=a]f_ are merely corruptions of one name. And if it be admitted to be probable that _Gefwulf_ is miswritten for _G[=a]rulf_, then the theory that Garulf was prince of the Jutes, and the original assailant of Hnaef, in addition to being the only theory which satisfactorily explains the internal evidence of the _Fragment_ and the _Episode_, has also powerful external support.

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