In the Name of the Wolven King

This book provides new historical and ethno-linguistic evidence powerfully confirming the author’s provocative thesis, first presented in Forgotten Wolves of Wilkinaland (Archway, 2020), about the etymology of his family surname. A long hidden story, it is now revealed in the medieval Baltic region’s tense history between the Angles, Danes, Frisians, and Saxons and their sometime allies, sometime foes— the Slavic Wends (aka Polabian Slavs). The origin of the Wilk-root personal and surnames resides in Germano-Norse borrowings of long-forgotten Slavic naming analogs for Germanic “Wulf” and Norse “Ulf.” Variants of this Slavic name were once popular in late medieval literature, memorialized in mytho-saga figures like King Hertnid’s adversary, King Wilkinus, in the Thidrekssaga; or Wilken the giant killer in the Langbeen Riser ballad. These Slavic naming conventions persisted among the Germanic and Norse tribes well after the Wends were assimilated. Indeed, continuing well past any conscious memory survived that the source of such names was the Slavic word “wilk” (and variants) meaning “wolf.” This research is essential to understand the origin of the Wilk-root surnames in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Families such as Wilkas, Wilkes, Wilkens, Wilkersons, Wilkies, and Wilkinsons; MacUilcins, McQuilkins, and McCoullichans, etc., are figuratively the distant heirs of a long-forgotten, semi-legendary monarch named – Wilkinus – The Wolven King.