Editing Wild man (section)

==Terminology==
[[File:Tugendreiche Dame zähmt Wildmann.png|thumb|left|Late 15th century tapestry from [[Basel]], showing a woodwose being tamed by a virtuous lady]]

The normal [[Middle English]] term, also used to the present day, was '''woodwose''' or '''wodewose''' (also spelled ''woodehouse'', ''wudwas'' etc.,{{Clarify|date=January 2025}} understood perhaps as variously singular or plural).<ref>[[OED]], "Woodwose"</ref><ref name="Bernheimer42"/>  ''Wodwos''<ref>perhaps understood as a plural in ''wodwos and other wylde bestes'', as singular in ''Wod wose that woned in the knarrez''</ref> occurs in  ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]'' (c. 1390).<ref>[http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/62.html Representative Poetry Online, ANONYMOUS (1100–1945)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070119030515/http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/62.html |date=2007-01-19 }}, ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'', line 720</ref>  The Middle English word is first attested for the 1340s, in references to the wild man popular at the time in decorative art, as in a Latin description of a [[tapestry]] of the [[Wardrobe (government)|Great Wardrobe]] of [[Edward III of England|Edward III]],<ref>''diasprez [perhaps: embroidered [https://archive.org/details/historyenglishp02wartgoog/page/n491 <!-- pg=177 --> per totam campedinem cum wodewoses]''</ref> but as a surname it is found as early as 1251, of one ''Robert de Wudewuse''. In reference to an actual legendary or mythological creature, the term is found during the 1380s, in [[Wycliffe's Bible]], translating  {{lang|he|שעיר }} ([[LXX]] [[δαιμόνια]], Latin ''pilosi'' meaning "hairy") in [[Isaiah]] 13:21.<ref>''ther shuln dwelle there ostricchis & wodewoosis''; [[KJV]] "owls shall dwell there, and [[satyr]]s shall dance there").</ref> The occurrences in ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]'' date to soon after Wycliffe's Bible, to c. 1390.<ref>Hans Kurath, Robert E. Lewis, Sherman McAllister Kuhn, ''Middle English Dictionary'', University of Michigan Press, 2001, {{ISBN|978-0-472-01233-6}}, p. 285</ref>

The [[Old English]] form of ''woodwose'' is unattested, but it would have been either {{lang|ang|*wudu-wāsa}} or {{lang|ang|*wude-wāsa}}. The first element is usually explained as from {{lang|ang|wudu}} "wood, forest".<ref name="Bernheimer42" /> The second element is less clear. It has been identified as a hypothetical noun ''*wāsa'' "being", from the verb ''wesan'', ''wosan'' "to be, to be alive".<ref>Robert Withington, ''English Pageantry: An Historical Outline'', vol. 1, Ayer Publishing, 1972, {{ISBN|978-0-405-09100-1}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=4BB-HjQbuX0C&pg=PA74 p. 74]</ref> It might alternatively mean a forlorn or abandoned person, cognate with German ''Waise'' and Dutch ''wees'' which both mean "orphan".

[[File:The Fight in the Forest (Hans Burgkmair d. Ä.).jpg|thumb|''The Fight in the Forest'', drawing by [[Hans Burgkmair]], possibly of a scene from the [[Middle High German]] poem ''[[Sigenot]]'', about [[Legends about Theoderic the Great|Dietrich von Bern]]]]

[[Old High German]] had the terms {{lang|goh|[[schrat]]}}, {{lang|goh|scrato}} or {{lang|goh|scrazo}}, which appear in glosses of Latin works as translations for {{lang|la|fauni}}, {{lang|la|silvestres}}, or {{lang|la|pilosi}}, identifying the creatures as hairy woodland beings.<ref name="Bernheimer42"/> Some of the local names suggest associations with characters from ancient mythology. Common in [[Lombardy]] and the Italian-speaking parts of the [[Alps]] are the terms ''salvan'' and ''salvang'',  which derive from the [[Latin]] ''[[Silvanus (mythology)|Silvanus]]'', the name of the Roman [[tutelary god]] of gardens and the countryside.<ref name="Bernheimer42"/> Similarly, folklore in [[History of Tyrol|Tyrol]] and German-speaking [[Switzerland]] into the 20th century included a wild woman known as ''Fange'' or ''Fanke'', which derives from the Latin ''[[Fauna (goddess)|fauna]]'', the feminine form of ''[[faun]]''.<ref name="Bernheimer42"/> Medieval German sources give as names for the wild woman ''[[lamia]]'' and ''holzmoia'' (or some variation);<ref>Bernheimer, p. 35.</ref> the former clearly refers to the Greek wilderness demon Lamia while the latter derives ultimately from [[Maia (mythology)|Maia]], a Greco-Roman earth and [[fertility goddess]] who is identified elsewhere with Fauna and who exerted a wide influence on medieval wild-man lore.<ref name="Bernheimer42"/>
Slavic has ''[[leshy]]'' "forest man".

Various languages and traditions include names suggesting affinities with [[Orcus]], a [[Roman mythology|Roman]] and Italic god of death.<ref name="Bernheimer42"/> For many years people in Tyrol called the wild man ''[[Ork (folklore)|Orke]]'', ''Lorke'', or ''Noerglein'', while in parts of Italy he was the {{lang|it|orco}} or {{lang|it|huorco}}.<ref name="Bernheimer4243">Berheimer, pp. 42–43.</ref> The French [[ogre]] has the same derivation,<ref name="Bernheimer4243"/> as do modern literary [[orc]]s.<ref>{{ME-ref|XI|p. 391}}</ref> Importantly, Orcus is associated with Maia in a dance celebrated late enough to be condemned in a 9th- or 10th-century Spanish [[penitential]].<ref name="Bernheimer43">Bernheimer, p. 43.</ref>

The term was usually replaced in literature of the [[Early Modern English]] period by classically derived equivalents, or "wild man", but it survives in the form of the surname ''Wodehouse'' or ''Woodhouse'' (see [[Wodehouse (surname)|Wodehouse family]]). "Wild man" and its cognates is the common term for the creature in most modern languages;<ref name="Bernheimer42">Bernheimer, p. 42.</ref><!-- ref for previous sentence --> it appears in German as {{lang|de|wilder Mann}}, in French as {{lang|fr|homme sauvage}} and in Italian as {{lang|it|uomo selvatico}} "forest man".<ref>Bernheimer, p. 20.</ref>