Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Godwulf


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies. Godwulf is clearly mentioned but not discussed independently by primary sources. There is simply not enough in-depth discussion of him as a person to have a stand-alone article. A redirect to the genealogies is a sensible solution as it preserves his name as a search term. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 20:17, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Godwulf

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This is just a name that appears in a pedigree, not a historical individual, and without any associated biographical detail other than being son of the previous person and father of the next. He does not appear in any of the other heroic sources, such as Beowulf or Widsith, so his entire historic tradition is that he was father of Finn and son of Geat, just a name between two other names.

As to scholarship, only one passing reference from the 19th century has been found that specifically addresses him as an individual, and all it says of him is ". . . and his son Godwulf too, confounded by some with Fulcwalda, looks mythical." All other discussion simply relates to the different versions of the pedigree in which he appears and attempts to explain the one pedigree in which his name has been replaced. This is not notability.

Effectively we have already had this discussion, as we previously had a duplicate page addressing the same subject. There were other issues involved there as well, but the decision made was that this individual was not notable, and the page was made into a redirect. Articles for deletion/Godulf Geoting I am not aware of any scholarship since that time that would make this name more notable now than 5 years ago. It should either be deleted or, as with that page, redirected to Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies, which discusses the genealogies in context, rather than as isolated individuals about which nothing can be said other than that they appear in the genealogies.

Taking to AfD because page history shows two different editors, one in 2012, one (me as an IP) in 2016, trying to convert this page to redirect, only to be reverted by the same editor. Agricolae (talk) 19:27, 8 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Agricolae (talk) 19:28, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Agricolae (talk) 19:28, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * we have lots of articles on given names, I see no reason to delete. If necessary merge. --dab (𒁳) 19:37, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It is not an article on a given name. It is an article on a supposed individual about whom nothing is known other than his given name and those of his supposed father and son in an entirely made-up pedigree.  Agricolae (talk) 19:39, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Mythology-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:08, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Redirect - to Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies or similar article.  ミーラー強斗武   (StG88ぬ会話) 20:11, 8 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Merge or redirect to an appropriate article on the genealogy in which he appears. This is a person about whom we know NOTHING apart from being stated to be son of another such person and father of a third.  As other versions of the genealogy do not name him at all.  Protect the redirect against being reverted.  Peterkingiron (talk) 16:52, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Do not delete, do not merge, do not redirect. Merging this artcile and those related to it creates unnecessary confusion and discourages additions. Secondary sources discuss this particular figure from time to time. I see no reason to haphazardly toss it into a general geneaology article. I see no reason why this would benefit anyone at all. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 18:24, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The lack of significant coverage in . . . secondary sources as required by Notability (people) was pointed out in November, and you replied, "You're welcome to go digging and see what you find beyond Grimm." When it was pointed out the one source given was insufficient, you responded, "Well, I'm not exactly making an evening of it. I'm sure there's plenty more out there to dig up. Why not see what you can find."  No source has been added to the article since, but now you say secondary sources discuss him from time to time. What are these sources, and exactly how much do they 'discuss' him - it would have to be much more than Grimm's passing mention to qualify as significant. Agricolae (talk) 21:05, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I stand by that comment. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 02:36, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Stand, sit, whatever, but that's three times a request for sources has been deflected rather than answered. A likely conclusion can be drawn from that. Agricolae (talk) 12:06, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I offer mine: do your own footwork. Thanks. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 15:48, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Except you don't offer anything but a completely unsupported claim. 'There is lots of evidence that he is notable but I am not going to tell you what it is' is rather unpersuasive, as arguments go. Agricolae (talk) 17:00, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It's more like 'I'm a busy guy and I'm not here to jump on command'. Now, I see you dug something up per my recommendation, so good for you. Unfortunately, the wording isn't neutral, so we'll need to take that on later. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 19:37, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Right. Still have no references.  Don't strain your busy self patting yourself on the back for getting me to dig something up - I didn't have to.  I actually know what the sources say (and what they don't), because I have read them multiple times.  The goal is to accurately represent the scholarly consensus, and when they agree the whole pedigree is a medieval invention, that is what we say.  Note though that all of the references on the entire page are talking about the pedigree as a whole and not about Godwulf in particular, except the dated Grimm's passing reference.  Agricolae (talk) 20:06, 11 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Do not delete, do not merge, do not redirect It is true that Godwulf is a minor character in Norse mythology. Agreed. He probably never existed. But minor Godwulf was, I see no reason to delete him, when a few unique things can be said about him dino (talk) 15:13, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Umm, you do realize that book you cited is just a printed mirror of selected Wikipedia pages, right? It is untrue that he is a character from Norse mythology, minor or otherwise.  The only reason he appears in this category is that you wrote this when you created the page.  Precisely two unique things can be said about him - first, that he is shown as son of Geat in the Anglo-Saxon pedigree tradition, and second, that he shown as father of Finn in most versions of the Anglo-Saxon pedigree tradition, but not in Anglo-Saxon heroic tradition.  But those Icelanders, they were good at spinning yarns, so what do they say about Godwulf when in the 13th century they copied the Anglo-Saxon pedigree and spliced it onto their royal line?  They said that he was son of Geat and father of Finn.  That is the sum total of everything that the primary record says about him.  However, this does not prove lack of notability, because there are names that appear in ancient sources only once that have killed many a tree to provide for all of the scholarly analysis.  What does the secondary record add about Godwulf?  sod all.  There are occasional passing reference to his name appearing in the pedigree, or to the name being replaced by a different name in Historia Brittonum, or like Grimm's long-superseded 19th-century analysis, including him in broader speculation that all the names in the pedigree being those of gods, and that's it.  Absolutely nothing about him as an individual.  How does this possibly fulfill WP:Notability (people)?  Agricolae (talk) 17:00, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Agricolae, what is your point? Clearly, the article is badly written. It's not the only one on Wikipedia, and you are welcome to fix it. But you did not suggest cleanup, you suggested deletion. The article cites perfectly fine references, it just manages to make a complete mess of them, apparently to the point where you are no longer able to figure out what is being said. I do not blame you. Please fix the article, but please do not use the deletion process for this kind of discussion. --dab (𒁳) 15:26, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * My point is that Godwulf fails the WP:GNG and WP:Notability (person), abysmally. A person, in this case really just a name in a pedigree, who is known only as father and son of two other names in the same pedigree, is not notable, and doesn't merit a page.  Not a single biographical fact about him has ever been written in the scholarly record, while the pedigree containing the name has, ever since Sisam, been dismissed as a fabrication - there never was a Godwulf to have biographical details.  The article has a lot of references, but they are about the pedigree, and in reproducing the pedigree they include the name Godwulf along with dozens of other names, usually as a simple list of the names: they are not about Godwulf and they do nothing but name him in this context, literally the only detail about him being that the name appears in this made up pedigree as son of Geat and father of Finn.  The article can't be fixed because there is nothing to say.  There is just no way this constitutes the significant detailed coverage that is supposed to underlie notability.  We already agreed that Godwulf was non-notable when a duplicate page using a different spelling was deleted for lack of notability, and no scholarly work detailing Godwulf has appeared since.  This is precisely the purpose of the deletion process.  Agricolae (talk) 16:40, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * In case it is not clear what I am saying about the references not really being about Godwulf and not establishing notability, here is the entirety of what our references say specifically about Godwulf on the cited pages:
 * Mommsen, p. 171: nothing at all (primary source)
 * Giles, p. 396, ". . . Frithuwulf [was son] of Finn, Finn of Godwulf, Godwulf of Geat, . . ." (primary source)
 * Chambers: p. 203, ". . . Frealaf Finn Godvlfi Eat Beaf . . ."
 * Bruce: p. 58, ". . . Eatus Godulf Finn Frealaf . . ."
 * Fawlkes 1995: p. 3, ". . . his son Biaf, whom we call Biar, his son Iat, his son Gudolf, his son Finn, . . . " (primary source)
 * Faulkes 2005: p. 117: ". . . Beaf Eat Godulf Finn Frealaf
 * Grimm: p. 368, ". . . and his son Godwulf too, confounded by some with Fulcwalda, looks mythical."
 * Sisam has several mentions in his paper that I will just summarize: in pedigree from ASC, in pedigree from AC, in pedigree from Asser, Historia Brittonum has Folcwald instead of Godwulf, "Friþuwald, Frealaf, Friþuwulf and Godwulf are known only from genealogies."
 * So, that is the sum total of the mentions of Godwulf on all of the cited pages. Except for Grimm, they are all being cited either as primary sources or for what they say about the pedigree, not what they say about Godwulf.  That is not notability, and as Srnec points out, if we want to talk about the pedigree, we already have a page for that. Agricolae (talk) 06:09, 13 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies, same solution as for Godulf Geoting. The key point Agricolae is making is that there is nothing to say about Godwulf. Only about the medieval genealogies that mention him. We have an article on those. Srnec (talk) 23:22, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:GNG I found several articles in JSTOR and from what I can understand he seems to play a significant enough role in scholarly analysis of those genealogies to merit his own page. That would be like saying, we should not have a page for Philippa Plantagenet because we already have a page for House of Plantagenet. Unwraveling these genealogies can be both rewarding and challenging for scholars, and I think we should have more pages, not fewer - to make the relationships and significance clearer to researchers. Reader attention span and information saturation are legitimate concerns here WP:AS - There are a lot of pages like this for members of notable families where we know little more then their role in a genealogy, like Margaret, Countess of Pembroke so I see no reason to delete. The "father of, son of" is what makes them notable in this area of study, isn't it? Seraphim System  ( talk ) 01:53, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Regarding the JSTOR matches, I get 21, but only 7 are relevant, six of which I can see at least snippets. I find more of the same repetition of the pedigree as a block, and not the detailed coverage of Godwulf as called for by GNG:
 * Van Hamel, p. 171: ". . . Frelaf, Fin, Godwulf, Geat. A Similar pedigree was furnished to Nenius . . . But here Godwulf is replaced by Folepald."
 * Henning, p. 168: ". . . Friþuwulf, Finn, Godwulf, Geat, Tætwa . . ."
 * Newell, p. 657, ". . . Frithiwulf, Fin, Godwulf (the last two names by textual error united in one), Geata,"
 * Poly, p. 390, (I am translating this) "The Anglo-Saxon genealogies have clumsily attached to the lineage of Alfred of Wessex the genealogical fragment preserved for the Jutes of Wight :Geata (the Jute/Géant), Godwulf (= ) Finn (understood as a name) Folcwalda, Frithuwulf, Frealaf"
 * Karkov, p. 68, ". . . Friþuwulf Finning, Fin Godwulfing, Godwulf Geating, Geat Tetwaing . . . "
 * McCarthy, "' ' ' which runs: Godwulf, the son of Geat, the son of Tetwa, the son of Beo . . . "
 * The father of, son of does not make them notable, because the whole genealogy is treated as a block, Godwulf is almost never treated independently, and then only in passing. Your comparison to Phillipa is misleading, because Phillipa existed as a real individual, a member of a noble family who was born, married, died, lived a life that can be described (and has by numerous historians). None of this is true of Godwulf.  He was only ever a name in a pedigree, with no biography.  While there are some names in these pedigrees that have independent existence in the heroic or mythological tradition and merit a page of their own (Finn, Wig and Ingvi are examples), there is no purpose to be served in having a bunch of articles about non-people about whom the only thing that can be said is 'the Anglo Saxon royal pedigrees include the name Y between the names X and Z'.  Agricolae (talk) 03:30, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Agricolae, don't you think your time might be better spent building articles? There are plenty of related articles needing work. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 04:32, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I really don't think my time management is relevant to the notability of the subject of this page. Agricolae (talk) 21:18, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   12:40, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep as he seems notable enough for a mythological figure. White Arabian Filly  Neigh 22:00, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * At the risk or flagellating a deceased equid, the Keep votes keep saying that he is notable, but the evidence does not bear that out. We now have 9 references that only include his name as part of a listing of names in the pedigree, one that includes his name among a list of names that are not known from outside the pedigree, two that indicate his name has been replaced in some other versions of the pedigree by a different name, and one (dated) source that says his name, like the others, may be that of a god mythical.  That may be significant detailed coverage of the pedigree but it is not significant detailed coverage of Godwulf, that is not notability. Agricolae (talk) 03:09, 20 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Redirect as per Agricolae's original proposal. Sources establishing independent notability do not seem to exist.  It is of course true that, as with any character mentioned in old myths and genealogies some desperate graduate student may at any moment discover sources to write a paper or two on him, or he may be dredged up by a novelist writing faux-medieval sagas, or even turn up in the deeply tanned flesh at a dig in a Danish bog.  If any of that happens, we can, of course, entertain an article about him.  But, alas, poor Godwulf remains insufficiently sourced and must suffer redirection.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:44, 24 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.