Antedating of "Viking"

[Dave Wilton]

I think it more likely a revival of the term OE/ON term by antiquarians rather than a loan from modern Scandinavian usage. And I wouldn't be terribly surprised if, as more old works become searchable online, that we'll find that it has been in use by antiquarians for much longer. (Although it appears to have fallen out of use during the Middle English period.)



On Mar 20, 2013, at 1:28 PM, "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:

> I e-mailed John Simpson, the chief editor of the OED, about the "Viking" entry.  His response was that he believed the logic of the OED first edition was that the modern word "Viking" is a loan from Scandinavian and distinct from the Old English "wiking."  He thought it likely that the same logic would be followed when the entry is revised.  This seems to square with Amy's comment about "vikingr."
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Amy West [medievalist at W-STS.COM]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2013 9:51 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Viking"
>
> Isn't that one of the problems with the term -- that it's actually
> recorded in OE before it's recorded in ON? We have it in BoM and the ASC
> (entry for 980 for example), but earliest runestone instance I know of
> is U 617 Bro, dated based on style to 990-1010, which is probably pretty
> contemporaneous with both the BoM and ASC texts (depending on how you
> date those).
>
> What's interesting about Fred's hit is that it's *clearly* modeled on
> the ON _vikingr_ rather than the OE _wicing_ (with that Vikinger variant
> being given). Fred's hit also is earlier (by only a smidge) of the 19th
> century antiquarian interest in things Norse than I expected. . .
>
> And Christine Fell refers to the 1807 instance as the term's
> "re-emergence" in English in her article. . .
>
> ---Amy West
>
> On 3/20/13 12:00 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
>> Date:    Tue, 19 Mar 2013 22:39:05 -0400
>> From:    Dave Wilton<dave at WILTON.NET>
>> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Viking"
>>
>> I think we can antedate that by about 800 years.
>>
>> From "The Battle of Maldon" in BL Cotton Otho A. xii, probably written not
>> long after the battle itself, which was in 991, lines 25–26a:
>>
>> "Þa stod on stæðe,     stiðlice clypode
>> wicinga ar."
>>
>> (Then there stood on the bank, and fiercely called out
>> a messenger of the vikings.)
>>
>> Ælfric, in his grammar, also glosses the Latin "pirata" as "wicing oððe
>> flotman" (viking or sailor).
>>
>> There are lots of other Old English examples of the word.
>>
>> Of course, it may not have been used much in the intervening centuries, but
>> I suspect that more searching will turn up interdatings.
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
>> Shapiro, Fred
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 8:07 PM
>> To:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Antedating of "Viking"
>>
>> Viking (OED 1807)
>>
>> 1795 Thomas Pownall_An Antiquarian Romance_  75 (Eighteenth Century
>> Collections Online)  These sea-rovers pursued their praedatory enterprizes,
>> each Vik, Vikin, or Vikinger, with one separate band, and in his own fleet.
>>
>> Fred Shapiro
>
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