"Wulf and Eadwacer" and Vashmalaina: A Theory

Submitted by Morgaine2005 on Sun, 08/28/2011 - 14:40.

So, I've been reading this book that has been recommended at Plumb Bob Keep about women and medieval Europe. It's a collection of primary source texts with some scholarly commentary. The first text (or one of the first texts) is the Anglo-Saxon poem "Wulf and Eadwacer," one of my favorites from when I studied Old English. It's a famously controversial poem, and nobody's quite sure what it means, but I'll just post my own translation of it to better make my argument:

For my people, it is as if one gives them battle:
They wish to kill him if he comes in a troop.
It is different for us.
Wulf is on an island, I on the other;
The island is secure, surrounded with mud.
The men there on the island are slaughter-cruel:
They wish to kill him if he comes in a troop.
It is different for us.
I suffered for my Wulf’s far-wandering hopes:
When it was rainy weather and I sat, mournful,
Then the warrior encompassed me with his arms.
It was to an extent a pleasure for me – however, it was also hateful to me.
Wulf, my Wulf! Your hopes for me
Made me sick – your infrequent visits,
A mourning mind, not at all the food-shortages!
Do you hear, Eadwacer? Our poor whelp
Wulf carries into the wood.
That one easily severs that which was never joined –
Our song together.

Sound at all reminiscent of a certain love triangle?

In case it doesn't:

The speaker: Iylaine, tossed between Vash and Malcolm.
Wulf: Vash. All those wolf/dog and elf/men comparisons he makes, or rather used to make before he grew up a little. I'm too lazy to look them all up, so I hope you'll take my word for it.
Eadwacer/the warrior: Malcolm. (Eadwacer can also mean "watchman," which sounds pretty apt, considering how protective Malcolm was of Iylaine while they were children.)
"They wish to kill him if he comes in a troop. / It is different for us": I can't imagine that the other men of the valley, considering their oh-so-high opinion of elves in general, will be particularly pleased if and when it gets out that Vash is the father of Iylaine's new baby. As for "It is different for us," well, it is different. Vash and Iylaine are in uncharted territory for elves and equally uncharted territory for men.
"When it was rainy weather and I sat, mournful, / Then the warrior encompassed me with his arms": Sound familiar?
"Your hopes for me / Made me sick – your infrequent visits, / A mourning mind, not at all the food-shortages!": The famines in the valley have never seemed to bother Iylaine (and isn't another famine coming up in a year or two?), but being separated from Vash has nearly killed her at least once.
"Our poor whelp / Wulf carries into the wood": I'm sure you've figured that one out. It's certainly a possibility, once the Vashbaby is born.
"That one easily severs that which was never joined – / Our song together": Iylaine has been elven-divorced twice now, and who was more-or-less responsible for both divorces? Vash. At least, he was the one who made the decision both times and/or did the magic.

So, after all of this, my conclusion is simple. Reality notwithstanding (the poem probably dates from before 1000), if Alred got to write "The Wanderer," somebody in the valley (Gwynn? Hetty? Iylaine herself?) needs to write "Wulf and Eadwacer."

General Discussion

Wowwwww so they had

Submitted by Lothere on Sun, 08/28/2011 - 18:32.

Wowwwww so they had impossible love triangles in their literature back then, too, did they?

That is a very interesting analysis. I'll pretend I meant to do that. (Also, I see you are ahead of me in the reading of that excellent book. )

I am not above stealing a poem or bits of a poem from pre-1000, since I've already claimed "The Wanderer" for Alred. "Might as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb," as Egelric says.

I wonder who would write it though?

Iylaine is so prosaic.

Lasrua has a special interest in Vash's love story, but insists that she doesn't like poetry.

Hetty likes poetry but she is a bit shy about writing it, and anyway she's not especially close to Iylaine.

Gwynn does seem like the obvious choice, but I don't know. It's a little mature for Gwynn.

This may sound crazy, but what about Dunstan? (Or Alred, too, I suppose, but he's so cynical lately.) Dunstan is almost Iylaine's foster-brother, considering how much time she spent at Nothelm. And he is sensitive to ladies' feelings, and he is maturing now that he's married, yet not quite mature enough that he would have the delicacy to, y'know, not write poetry about his close friends' troubled love lives.

Heheh, he could write it for his private collection, and Gwynn could find it, think it SO ROMANTIC, and give a surprise reading at the next big holiday gathering. Leading to and

It would be even tragi-funnier if Gwynn totally misinterpreted it--it being so difficult to interpret after all. "What? I thought it was about wolves!"

Oh, I like Dunstan writing

Submitted by Morgaine2005 on Mon, 08/29/2011 - 16:14.

Oh, I like Dunstan writing it! Although a little part of me still holds out for Gwynn ... she's not mature enough to write it right now, but in a few years? And maybe if she's going through some Finn-angst at the time?

But Dunstan writing it, and then Gwynn reading it ... THAT has the potential for many LULZ. It would even make sense that she would so dramatically misinterpret it, because scholars often interpret "Wulf" as being an outlaw. (Apparently there's some tradition/convention of outlaws and wolves being connected in Anglo-Saxon lore? Forget what it was exactly.) Gwynn probably wouldn't put Vash and "outlaw" in the same book, let alone the same short poem.

Part of the problems with interpretation also comes from a couple of words in there that are very hard to translate. One, I think, only shows up once or twice in the whole corpus of Old English -- the other does show up, but makes no sense in context. (I translated it as a similar word that does make sense in context, and figured that maybe the original word was a misspelling or the handwritten equivalent of a typo.) Gwynn probably wouldn't have these kinds of troubles, but it might be funny if Dunstan gave the poem to Britamund to look over, and she says, "It's all great until the eagle shows up out of nowhere," and he has a moment of, "Whoopsie!"

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