Old English Attestations
The Old English wælcyrge and wælcyrie appear several times in Old English manuscripts, generally to translate foreign concepts into Old English. In the sermon Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, written by Wulfstan II, wælcyrie is used, and considered to appear as word for a human "sorceress". An early 11th-century manuscript of Aldhelm's De laudis virginitatis (Oxford, Bodleian library, Digby 146) glosses ueneris with wælcyrge (with gydene meaning "goddess"). Wælcyrge is used to translate the names of the classical furies in two manuscripts (Cotton Cleopatra A. iii, and the older Corpus Glossary). In the manuscript Cotton Cleopatra A. iii, wælcyrge is also used to gloss the Roman goddess Bellona. A description of a raven flying over the Egyptian army appears as wonn wælceaseg (meaning "dark one choosing the slain"). Scholarly theories debate whether these attestations point to an indigenous belief among the Anglo-Saxons shared with the Norse, or if they were a result of later Norse influence (see section below).
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