Ongentheow (Old English: Ongenþeow, Ongenþio, Ongendþeow; Old Norse: Angantýr) (died ca. 515) was the name of a semi-legendary Swedish king of the house of Scylfings, who appears in Old English sources.
He is generally identified with the Swedish king Egil Vendelcrow mentioned in Ynglingatal, Historia Norwegiae and in Ynglinga saga.[1][2][3][4] The reason why they are thought to have been the same is that each has the same position in the line of Swedish kings and is described as the father of Ohthere and grandfather of Eadgils.[5]
The name Ongentheow contains as its second element þeōw "servant, slave". The first appears to be ongēan "against, opposite".[6]
- ^ Sune Lindqvist, the article Angantyr in Svenskt biografiskt lexikon
- ^ The article Beowulf in Åke Ohlmarks' Fornnordiskt lexikon (1994)
- ^ Nerman 1925:99ff
- ^ Bo Gräslund simply calls Ongentheow "Egil in Beowulf" in his article Gamla Uppsala during the Migration Period in Myth, Might and Man (2000) ISBN 91-7209-190-8
- ^ The identification is due to the sequence of succession only and not based in name, Ongenþeow and Egil being unrelated etymologically.
- ^ The composition of the two elements has been interpreted as meaning "the opposite of a slave" i.e. "king" by N. J. Higham, An English Empire: Bede and the Early Anglo-Saxon Kings, Manchester University Press (1995), p. 239.