By investigating the Norse evidence for álfr, it has been possible to reconstruct some of álfr's earliest meanings and relationships with the main semantic fields which it bordered or overlapped. We may turn now to álfr's Old English cognate. Reconstructing pre-conversion meanings of ælf is difficult, and attempts hitherto have been either too tentative or too speculative to be useful. But ælf had a prominent place in the Old English system of dithematic personal names, and was also involved in the Old English morphological reorganisation of etymological long-stemmed masculine i-stems around the seventh century. These sources provide evidence correlating almost exactly with the early Scandinavian evidence for the meanings of álfr, the correlation in turn suggesting that we may be able to adduce other conclusions from the Norse material to early Anglo-Saxon world-views. Thus, this chapter not only provides a basic picture of the early meanings of ælf against which to seek evidence for subsequent continuity and change, but considers a key aspect of the place of ælfe in Anglo-Saxon culture. Those desiring more contextualisation of the linguistic issues discussed here will find guidance in Appendix 1 below.

I contextualise my findings with reference to Beowulf. Beowulf explicitly situates ælfe in a vividly realised world of men and monsters. The poem provides remarkable insights into how supernatural beings could feature in Anglo-Saxon constructions of the world, in large part consolidating the arguments which I make on the basis of early Old English and Norse evidence. However, the early evidence for the meanings of ælf also makes it possible to argue that Beowulf was to some extent innovative: specifically, its alignment of ælfe with monsters and demons can be seen to reflect demonisation following Christianisation in Anglo-Saxon culture.

Etymology

Both cognate and internal Old English evidence demands a masculine Common Germanic nominative singular */AlBi-z/ (alongside a variant */AlBA-z/) denoting some kind of supernatural being (see Appendix 1). Grimm observed that its obvious Indo-European cognates, deriving from a base */Albh-/, are connected semantically by whiteness, and it must originally have meant ‘white one’. Close relatives are Latin albus (‘(matt) white’); Old Irish ailbhín (‘flock’); Albanian elb (‘barley’); and Germanic words for ‘swan’ such as Old English ylfetu. However, the etymology is not in itself very revealing: innumerable explanations could be hypothesised for the association of supernatural beings with whiteness.