Talk:werewulf

RFV discussion

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werwulf

Old English

The first-edition OED's entry for English werewolf (James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Werewolf, werwolf”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume X, Part 2 (V–Z), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 319) has the etymological incipit “OE. werewulf (once),…” and cites Felix Liebermann's 1903 edition of the Laws of Cnut as the earliest use (circa 1000). Liebermann reproduces three versions of that text, the relevant section of all of which I have added to Citations:werewulf. Other variae lectiones notwithstanding, all three versions use the spelling werewulf. I infer from this that the spelling *werwulf does not occur in Old English. There is a fourth manuscript of the Laws of Cnut, namely CCCC MS. 383, which has been digitised by Stanford Libraries, if anyone would like to see whether that manuscript uses that spelling. 0DF (talk) 02:57, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

@0DF: The manuscript you mentioned uses werewulf (folio 40, recto, line 15). J3133 (talk) 02:25, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@J3133: That is very impressive. Thank you. It's a shame it's not possible to link ad folium quadragesimum rectum directly. Re the text's normalised version, what made you decide to make the spacing conform to that of GB-Lbl Harley MS. 55? 0DF (talk) 15:17, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@0DF: I used this spacing because it is the same in all of the other versions. J3133 (talk) 15:24, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@J3133: That's perfectly reasonable. I'm sure the other manuscripts have similar variability in their spacing, and yet Liebermann saw fit to normalise them all the same way regardless. We (or rather you) do a little rather better than him by including a strict transcription as well. 0DF (talk) 15:41, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I call this RFV failed. I'll relemmatise at werewulf. 0DF (talk) 17:25, 5 June 2024 (UTC)