HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE H01010 PRONOUNCING ELFRIDGE AND THE WORD HAGRID" =========================================================== From: "Patrick Roper" Subject: Pronouncing Elfride Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 13:30:43 -0000 I have always assumed that Elfride in _A Pair of Blue Eyes_ was pronounced like the German 'Isolde', but it occured to me today that many readers would not sound the final 'e' so that it comes out as 'elf reed' or 'elf ride'. Does anyone know how TH intended it to be pronounced? Also, why did the Swancourt's (or TH) choose a name from the north west European mainland for their (Cornish) daughter? 'Elfride' does not ever seem to have been a name used to any extent in Britain (even, I think, in Anglo-Saxon times), though it is still not uncommon in Scandinavia and Germany, and it is certainly not Cornish. I thought, perhaps, TH wanted it to sound like the heroine in Wagner's opera _Tristan und Isolde_ but in his writing elsewhere he seems to use 'Iseult', the Anglo-French version of the name, rather than the Germanic 'Isolde'. Patrick Roper ========== From: "Ahmad" Subject: Re: Pronouncing Elfride Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 23:23:36 +0200 As the vowel sound at the end of Elfride (Elfreda, Elfrida) is a schwa, Patrick's assumption is correct. According to * Collins Gem Dictionary of First Names *, the name comes "from the Old English compound meaning 'elfin' and 'strength'. It was the name of an Anglo-Saxon queen, wife of Edgar, the mother of Ethelred the Unready. After the Norman Conquest the name became obsolete, but it was revived in the 19th century." Suleiman M. Ahmad, Department of English, University of Damascus, Syria. ========== Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:21:07 -0500 (EST) From: Meg Cronin > Subject: Re: Pronouncing Elfride Patrick, Excuse me for not going back into my dissertation notes, but I must prepare a discussion for Tennyson's Ulysses by 11:30 and write more of the ceaseless series of letters of recommendations for my students. Here's what I know: In the history of legendary English kings there is a King Alfred and a Queen Elfrida that I remember having some relevance to Elfide's name. I believe Queen Elfrida was killed by or killed her son, was it Edward? Also--more along your lines--the name is connected to the place name Aelfric. More far-fetched, but, hey, why not, is the connection to Elf-ride, as in a ride on an elf. Elfride is sort of elfin. She's also like animals; she rides horses, etc. Doesn't she seem connected to the land in a faery sort of way? Remember Rochester of JANE EYRE calling Jane faery, changeling, elf, witch, etc. I see Elfride in a similar sort of way. She's always looking in mirrors and seeing objects in mirrors. She's connected to la belle dame sans merci in an early chapter when she's horseback. I realize you asked about pronunciation. I created a tangent on the subject of her name. I pronounce it El-freed. What about others? Sorry to be so scattered, Meg Cronin Meoghan Cronin St. Anselm College mgcronin@anselm.edu ========== From: RPKOAK@aol.com Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 11:55:31 EST Subject: Re: Pronouncing Elfride professor cronins delightful note to list member a delight to listen in as she speaks of 'elf ride' and horses and uses 'Maddonna'-- 'hey, why not, it could happen'... uhm, 'el-freed'--I pronounce it 'el-tyranos' ========== From: "Patrick Roper" Subject: Elfrida etc. Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 17:19:41 -0000 Elfrida (aka Elfthryth, Aelfthryth - I wonder how the Anglo-Saxons said those after a few glasses of mead!) was, I have now found out with help from subscribers, queen of England and, I think, came from Devonshire and might thus be regarded as a Wessex girl. There seems to be a link both with eyes (which might interest Meg Cronin) and Dorset since I found the following on the Encyclopaedia Britannica's web site: "In AD 979 Edith dreamt that she lost her right eye and knew the dream was sent to warn her of the death of her brother, who, in fact, was murdered at that very time, while visiting his step-mother, Queen Elfrida, at Corfe in Dorset." TH, of course, changed the final a to e for the heroine of PBE making it 'Elfride' (elf ride). As Suleiman M. Ahmad pointed out this means 'elfin strength' but, as Meg says, it might also be a reference to the way Elfride goes about on her pony. Interestingly the little people are said to elf-ride horses and ponies and this is a term still used in England when these animals appear to have been ridden during the night, or when nobody was about. My daughter says it is caused by the fact that they simply get excited or scared by something and then appear to be 'elf-ridden'. Sometimes their manes get tangled and the knots are called 'elf-locks'. TH would, I am sure, have been very well aware of these things. Another influence might have been Lydia Maria Child's book _Rose Marian and the Flower Fairies_ first published in 1850. Rose Marian's Mother was Queen Elfrida and I wonder if TH might have come across this story, though it may only have been published in America. If anyone is interested it is on-line at: http://courses.washington.edu/hum523/rose/rosetext.htm Patrick Roper ========== Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 12:32:14 -0500 (EST) From: Meg Cronin Subject: Re: Elfrida etc. Yes, another term for tired horses, especially if they are discovered so, oddly, in the morning, is that they have been "hag-rid" during the night. My mother found a leathern box of letters in our attic in an old (1711) Pa. house. About 30 letters in all, written to Robert from Sarah C. It seems that Robert (who lived in our house--his uncle's) would ride his uncle's horses to see Sarah in the night. The uncle, upon discovering the sweaty horses, was benignly suspicious. In a letter, Sarah writes laughingly that the uncle will think the horses have been hag-rid. The letters aren't dated with a year, but Sarah refers to her first auto ride and her first telephone call, and she was a travelling nurse during a local influenza epidemic, so I could figure out the dates. A project for another time, I guess. Meg Meoghan Cronin St. Anselm College mgcronin@anselm.edu ========== Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 18:38:32 +0000 (GMT) From: Michael Day Subject: Re: Pronouncing Elfride (From F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971, p. 373). The sources above (cited as R.S.) are both published in the Rolls Series (Rerum britannicarum medii aevi scriptores; or, Chronicles and memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the middle ages) produced by the Public Record Office throughout the 19th century. Corfe Castle's church is dedicated to Edward, King and Martyr and a short account of his life (and death) can be purchased there. This account is more inclined than Stenton to put the blame squarely on Elfrida and cites one source that reported that the queen herself struck him. Interestingly the booklet also recounts the legend that when Edward's body was due to be carried to Shaftesbury, Queen Elfrida first could not get her horse to move and then when she tried to walk, she could not do that either. Michael Day ***** * Research Officer, UKOLN The UK Office for Library and Information * * Networking, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY. * * Tel. +44 (0)1225 323923 Fax +44 (0)1225 826838 * ========== Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 13:55:04 -0500 From: jiw2@lehigh.edu Subject: Re: Elfrida etc. Hardy uses the term hag-rid in The Woodlanders. Jeremy Wheelock Lehigh University ========== Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 21:39:27 +0000 From: Birgit Plietzsch Subject: Re: Elfrida etc. To add to the list below Elizabeth-Jane had to learn "that when she had not slept she did not quaintly tell the servants next morning that she had been 'hag-rid,' but that she had 'suffered from indigestion.'" (_Mayor_, ch. 20) Birgit Plietzsch Bill Morgan wrote: > At 01:55 PM 1/22/2001 -0500, you wrote: > >Hardy uses the term hag-rid in The Woodlanders. > > > >Jeremy Wheelock > >Lehigh University > > And in "The Ruined Maid." > > Bill Morgan ========== From: "Patrick Roper" Subject: Harry Potter again Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 17:42:07 -0000 Recently it was noted that the name Dumbledore in the Harry Potter books had been used by the author because she had come across the word in TH's work. I gather there is also an HP character called 'Hagrid', another term used by TH that we have been discussing recently. It seems there might be quite a bit of Hardy in Potter. Patrick Roper ========== Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 13:50:44 -0800 From: Betty Cortus Subject: Re: Harry Potter again The "hag-ridden dream" that Bill Morgan referred to in "The Ruined Maid" is 'Melia's metaphor for her earlier nightmarish home-life in the country. As her face was "blue and bleak" before her fortuitous ruination I wonder whether the word "hagrid" might be related in some way to the word "haggard"? Of course that word has another connotation altogether in falconry. Betty Cortus ==========