Talk:Esla (Anglo-Saxon king)

I'll give the creator time to do what they can, but is Elsa (who was not an Anglo-Saxon king, by the way) notable enough to merit a page? He is just a name in a pedigree, one of dubious nature to begin with. Kenneth Sisam makes a strong argument that Elsa was simply invented to provide an alliterative couplet with Elesa, demanded when the intrusion of the heroic pair of Wig and Freawine into the borrowed Bernician pedigree set up a pattern of alliteratively-coupled names. Elsa is just a mythical, probably invented, name in a mythical pedigree, that doesn't even belong to the family that is supposedly supplying the notoriety (the original pedigree was hijacked from the Bernician kings). Even if the pedigree reported authentic information, Elsa would still be non-notable. That there is the further question of authenticity just makes it a hopeless case. As I said, give it your best shot, but it is a high hill to climb in order to justify this page. Agricolae (talk) 05:23, 21 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. Of course, myth and fiction can be important too (unless it's just alliterative license), but again there is too little of it pertaining to Elsa to merit an article solely devoted to him. I vaguely recall there has been some speculation which connects Esla to the Gothic name Ansila and in late Welsh sources, a figure with the (possibly Gothic) name Osla, nicknamed Cyllellfawr "Big-Knife" in Welsh. Other scholars may have argued that the name is Brythonic. How much these pet theories have going for these days I don't know, though I suspect that the clues are tantalising at best, and what they might possibly suggest is not exactly the stuff that articles are made off. As for the follow-up question, where to redirect, I suppose the best context for Esla would be something like "Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies and regnal lists", where the principal sources as well their problems are covered (Chronicle, Asser, Æthelweard, Anglian collection, etc.). There is no article available at the mo (there's only this), but one could create a stub based for instance on the Blackwell Encyclopedia for AS England entries and perhaps build a concordance. Names for which any independent existence is doubtful or non-existent could be accommodated here. Cavila (talk) 12:51, 19 April 2009 (UTC)