Talk:Hwicce

Tolkein
J.R.R. Tolkien once refered to himself as a Hwiccan of Witchwood. Should this be mentioned in the article? Eluchil404 12:00, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Why not mention it under Tolkien and link to this article. --Genie 19:06, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

pronunciation
How do you pronounce Hwicce? --128.176.233.18 21:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * In IPA, I would guess something like or maybe  But those are a guesses. Old English pronounciation is a far from simple subject. Angus McLellan  (Talk) 22:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

History
Small, but important point, Britannia did not secede from the Roman Empire it was abandoned by the Roman Empire ...The Fat Contractor 17:41, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I've changed 'seceded from' to 'left' - more accurate and doen't change the sense of the sentence. The Fat Contractor 11:35, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

For the hell of it I'll disagree: The Roman troops in Britania elected Constantine III as Emporer, who invaded Gaul in an unsuccesful attempt for the throne. While Constine was on the continent, there was a rebellion against his tax collectors. This conicided with a major barbarian invasion across the Rhine and the rampage of the Goths from the Balkins through Italy (sack of Rome), Gaul and Spain. After all that, the empire was not able to re-establish control over either Britian (or Spain). But technically Britannia was in rebelion. Jalipa (talk) 21:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Whether or not in rebellion, it was still part of the empire. We should remember that the Notitia Dignitatum (West) dates from around 420-425 and still shows imperial offices in Britain; though in practical terms these were no doubt long defunct, their listing is reminiscent of the Christian practice of appointing bishops to sees long overrun by the Moslems "in partibus infidelium". I would suggest that the Romans never entirely abandoned the idea of recovering Britain (even though in the 440s, of course, Aëtius told the Britons to look to their own defence against the Anglo-Saxons). It would be interesting to know whether there is any evidence of this having crossed the mind of Justinian or his councillors. Deipnosophista (talk) 19:18, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

tribal name
The Episcopus Hwicciorum was the "bishop of the Hwiccians", or "bishop of the people of Hwicce" in the late 7th century, but this does not mean that "the Hwicce" were ever an "Anglo-Saxon tribe". This is completely unsubstantiated. A "Hwiccian" is somebody from the kingdom of Hwicce, i.e. the toponym is primary, and the demonym at best secondary.

Whatever the origin of the name "Hwicce", it must be established on the basis of toponymy. The basis that hwicce "chest, box" could also mean witches'(!) cauldron seems to be pulled from thin air. The unspoken implication that the noun witch itself may also derive from this doesn't exactly lend credibility to the idea. I have no idea whether Stephen Yeates is to be considered a quotable source, but at least it should be made clear that he single-handedly pulled this suggestion from thin air in 2008. I must say that book titles that make "the Hwicce" a "tribe of the Witches" does not exactly suggest scholarly credibility to me. --dab (𒁳) 11:47, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

so, after looking up the relevant literature, it turns out that
 * the name's etymology is unknown, and "difficult". There are three main possibilities:
 * from a given name, but this is speculation, as no such name is attested
 * from a pejorative appellation "the quakers", i.e. cowards
 * from the shape of the valley, "the people living in the chest (-shaped valley)"

The Yeates suggestion appears to derive from this third suggestion, but turning this into an orgy of goddesses, cauldrons and witches is rather pie-in-the-sky to say the least. The suggestion that witch has anything to do with this is nonsense, as "witch" begins in w, not in hw. --dab (𒁳) 12:23, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem is that Yeates has managed to get an academic publisher to publish his work. I also do not like his views, but I am not a Saxonist and not qualified to argue.  Nevertheless I regard it as a lot of airy-fairy nonsense.
 * A H Smith is a good source. Duignan is now rather ancient and not well-regarded.  I have looked at Watts, Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-names (2004).  This is a recent work produced by members of the English Place Name Society to replace Ekwall.  I have pruned the list of names derived from Hwicce:


 * Unfortunately, it does not deal with Wychnor, but that is too far from the boundary of the Hwicce for the people to be a likely derivation.
 * Wychbold, is given a different derivation by the Cambridge Dictionary.
 * Wychavon is an invented name for a new District Council operating from 1974 and covering the area from Droitwich to the Avon. My guess is that the Wych is Wychbold.  Peterkingiron (talk) 15:48, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I think we're being too dogmatic about the names derived from Hwicce. Hooke (1985), citing Ekwall, notes that Wichnor / Wychnor in Staffs was Hwiccenofre in the 11th Century; and, Both Ekwall and Gelling (1984) reckon the first element of Wichenford relates to wych-elms not the Hwicce as Hooke has it (and one can't ignore Gelling on placenames - nor the fact that Worcestershire, of all English counties, was singularly awash with elm trees prior to Dutch Elm Disease). I'd favour therefore the following edit: 'The toponym Hwicce MAY survive[s] in Wychwood in Oxfordshire, WYCHNOR IN STAFFORDSHIRE, Whichford in Warwickshire, Wichenford and Wychbury Hill in Worcestershire.' Warferth (talk) 11:33, 14 April 2013 (UTC)Warferth

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1. There are a number of words from which "h" preceding "w" was dropped. Therefore, it is possible that "Hwicce" evolved into "wicce". As for "Hwicce" and/or "wicce" being a forerunner of "witch", there is no actual evidence to support it. Before the word was "witch", it used to be "wytche", but I've found no connection between "wytche" and "Hwicce" nor "wicce".

2. There is the possibility that "Hwicce" may be the Briton version of "Gewisse", with "Hwicce" being the first version of the word to be recorded, though "Gewisse" had existed first.

Thibeinn (talk) 22:06, 1 October 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't know of any sound change which could account for the fricative /s/ becoming 'British' /kk/ or /ʧ/ Oliver Strange (talk) 20:40, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

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Cotswolds
I'm slightly fascinated by the distinct similarity between the boundaries of the Hwicce and those of the Cotwolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty,,, Deipnosophista (talk) 19:22, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The purpose of the talk pages is to improve the relevant article. I fail to see how your contribution might add to the article, since the Cotswolds AONB is considerably smaller than the hypothetically reconstructed boundaries of the Hwicce which apparently include most of Worcestershire, half of Warwickshire and more as explained in the article. I suggest you curb your desire to treat talk pages as your personal Twitter feed or blog. MinorProphet (talk) 17:00, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Coates' Theory
I like Coates' theory that the name Hwicce comes from the same root as Welsh 'gwych' meaning 'excellent'. However, I think the hy- prefix he suggests is not necessary; the Brittonic word would have been something like *wicci, which could have been reanalysed as hwicce since this was an Old English word.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Please can we stop treating the A-S chronicle as if it recorded actual history? It was written far too late and with too much of a political agenda to be trustworthy, and the vast majority of modern scholarship rejects it as a reliable source. Oliver Strange (talk) 20:36, 15 September 2023 (UTC)