A thyle ( OE ''þyle'', ON ''þulr'') was a member of the court associated with

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and S ...

n and

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...

royalty and chieftains in the

Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...

, whose precise role is uncertain but probably had to do with the preservation of knowledge of the past and the judging of present statements against it. Most literary references are found in Icelandic and

Old English literature Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work '' Cædmo ...

like the ''

Hávamál ''Hávamál'' ( ; Old Norse: ,Unnormalised spelling in the :Title: Final stanza: ../ref> classical pron. , Modern Icelandic pron. , ‘Words of he High One��) is presented as a single poem in the Icelandic , a collection of Old Norse poems f ...

'', where the term ''Fimbulþulr'', "the great thyle", presumably refers to

Odin Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, victory, ...

himself, and ''

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. ...

''. In '' Gautreks saga'',

Starkad ''Starkad'' ( non, Starkaðr or ; Latin: ''Starcaterus''; in the Late Middle Ages also ''Starkodder''; modern Danish: ''Stærkodder'')The article ''Starkad'' in ''Nationalencyklopedin''. was either an eight-armed giant or the human grandson of ...

is referred to as a þulr after he sacrifices a king.Michael J. Enright, "The Warband Context of the Unferth Episode", ''Speculum'' 73.2 (1998) 297–337, , . The word also appears on the runic inscription of the Snoldelev Stone.

Frederiksberg Frederiksberg () is a part of the Capital Region of Denmark. It is formally an independent municipality, Frederiksberg Municipality, separate from Copenhagen Municipality, but both are a part of the City of Copenhagen. It occupies an area of ...

's original name was ''Tulehøj'' ("Thyle Hill"). The Old English term is glossed as Latin ''histrio'' "orator" and ''curra'' "jester"; ''þylcræft'' means "

elocution Elocution is the study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone as well as the idea and practice of effective speech and its forms. It stems from the idea that while communication is symbolic, sounds are final and compelli ...

". ''Zoëga's Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic'' defines ''þulr'' as "wise-man, sage," cognate to Old Norse ''þula'' (verb) "to speak" and ''þula'' (noun) "list in poetic form". The

Rundata The Scandinavian Runic-text Data Base ( sv, Samnordisk runtextdatabas) is a project involving the creation and maintenance of a database of runic inscriptions. The project's goal is to comprehensively catalog runestones in a machine-readable way ...

project translates ''þulr'' as "reciter". From this it appears that the office of thyle was connected to the keeping and reproducing of orally transmitted lore like the ''

Rígsþula ''Rígsþula'' or ''Rígsmál'' (Old Norse: 'The Lay of Ríg') is an Eddic poem, preserved in the manuscript (AM 242 fol, the Codex Wormianus), in which a Norse god named Ríg or Rígr, described as "old and wise, mighty and strong,", fathers ...

'', "Lay of Rígr". Unferð holds the role of thyle in the poem ''Beowulf''; it has been suggested that he was also the ''

scop A ( or ) was a poet as represented in Old English poetry. The scop is the Old English counterpart of the Old Norse ', with the important difference that "skald" was applied to historical persons, and scop is used, for the most part, to designa ...

'' who is mentioned reciting poetry at the feast. It might be seen as a legitimate function of a guardian of the knowledge of the past to challenge boasts, judging them against the heroic past.Paul C. Bauschatz, ''The Well and the Tree: World and Times in Early Germanic Culture'', Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1982, {{ISBN, 0-87023-352-1, note 22, pp. 215–16. This may have played a role in preserving the luck of the group. Alternatively the thyle's role, including Unferth's, has also been envisaged as part of the ''

comitatus ''Comitatus'' was in ancient times the Latin term for an armed escort or retinue. The term is used especially in the context of Germanic warrior culture for a warband tied to a leader by an oath of fealty and describes the relations between a lo ...

'' (war-band), channeling rage into concerted action. Some modern scholars view the role of the thyle as being usurped by

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedic ...

s after

Christianization Christianization ( or Christianisation) is to make Christian; to imbue with Christian principles; to become Christian. It can apply to the conversion of an individual, a practice, a place or a whole society. It began in the Roman Empire, conti ...

, and being reduced to the modern caricature of the

jester A jester, court jester, fool or joker was a member of the household of a nobleman or a monarch employed to entertain guests during the medieval and Renaissance eras. Jesters were also itinerant performers who entertained common folk at fairs ...

(hence the Latin gloss of ''curra'').

References

Anglo-Saxon paganism Medieval literature Germanic paganism

See also

References