A Provisional Starting Point

 

We first encountered Folkham at a round table research seminar, although the actual table is more of an oval shape, but let us not be drawn into questions of shape and geometry so soon. We were met to discuss various concerns when one of the more senior members of the group described a manuscript source that mentioned a lost settllement somewhere east of Offa's Dyke and north of the Thames. Given the relative lack of specificity about the location there was a suprisingly lively controversy about which of the seven Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms had been home to the settlement. The source described Folkham-on-the-Gytte as part of the patrimony of an Anglo-Saxon king who had faced incursions by Damnonian and Goddoddinian war bands but was also supported by alies in Meonmara. This suggested that Falkham-on-the-Gytte might lie in any of the kingdoms from Bernicia and Deira in the north to Mercia and Lindsey and the Anglian kingdoms in the midlands and east of England and even potentially either of the two saxon kingdoms bordering the north of the Thames.

Arguments of an etymological character had been advanced by several authorities focusing on the term Gytte. On the one hand there were those arguing that this was clearly an otherwise unattested cognate from of "Gyte". This is an Old Norse term relating to the spawning of fish (Lars; 2001). In this usage it perhaps referred to the mouth of a water course since the related Old High German "Guz" means pouring, shedding (as of blood or sweat), or inundation/flood (Jacobsen et al.; 2016). On the other hand there were proponents of an alternate reading who argued that it was more clearly related to the Danish term "Hytte" originating in the Old High German "Hutta" both of which are cognate with the modern English "Hut". Intrigingly, this etymology aluded to a sense of something protected for selfish ends, possibly related to the idea of hoarding.

From the House of Names website,

a commercial venture selling multiple

copies of the base image with minor

variations as the family crest and coat

of arms of many English family names

Less authoritative sources of a commercial nature (e.g., Swyrich; 2023) and other antiquated sources (e.g., Lewis; 1848) were cited in support of the suggestion that Folkham is a family name derived from the Linconshire village of Folkingham. The village is situated in the district of South Kestevan in the East Midlands 10 miles south of Sleaford on low-lying wetlands west of the Wash. Folkingham appears in Doomesday records from 1086

Excerpt from the Lincolnshire Folio of the Great
Doomesday Book (National Archive E 31/2/2/7107)

• Vikør, L. (2001). The Nordic Languages: Their Status and Interrelations. Norway: Novus Press, 
• Jacobsen, H., Hjorth, E., Jacobsen, B., Jorgensen, B. (eds). (2016). Dansk Sproghistorie: Dansk Tager Form:1. Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 
• Lewis, S. (1848). A Topographical Dictionary of England (7th edition). Creative Media Partners, LLC,
• Smith, M. (2016). Folkingham: The Reluctant Town. Folkingham Lincolnshire: Greyhound Press 
• Swyrich Corporation. (accessed 2023). Folkham History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms. House of Names. https://www.houseofnames.com/folkham-family-crest
• National Archives E 31/2/2/7107. (2023). Place name: Folkingham, Lincolnshire Folio: 345v Great Domesday Book. https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D7314074