Mael Suthain and a Charter of King Eadwig

Abstract

A LATIN grant of 956 by King Eadwig of land at ‘Moreton’ (perhaps Morton, south of Clay Cross) in Derbyshire names the beneficiary as Mæglsothen.1The Electronic Sawyer shows this is an English spelling (with unetymological g) of Irish Mael Suthain. But a note on meaning may still be of interest. 1 It is 628 in P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters (London, 1968). The first element is Middle Irish mael, which originally meant ‘crop-headed’ or ‘slave’ (the hair of slaves was kept cropped to make runaways easier to catch). In personal names it means ‘servant’; in religious ones ‘devotee’ (hence Mael Brigte ‘devotee of Bridget’ or Mael Maire ‘devotee of Mary’).2 The second element is the adjective suthain ‘long lived’. Mael Suthain thus means ‘long-lived servant’, a form appearing on Anglo-Saxon coins as well as in this charter, while Suthain on its own explains Greysouthen (NY 0729) ‘Suthain's rock’ near Cockermouth, Cumbria.3 2 Dictionary of the Irish Language (Dublin, 1913–76), s.v. mael. 3 The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, ed. V. E. Watts (Cambridge, 2004), 262.