Old Frisian skalk: A ‘Servant’ or a ‘Rogue’?

Abstract

The Old Frisian word scalc, scalch, schalc is usually used in the sense of ‘servant, slave’. However, the word evidences a pejoration in meaning, being also attested in the Frisian written tradition in the sense of ‘ill-mannered person, villain, a bad guy’. The investigation of the occurrences of skalk–along with a comparison of its Germanic cognates– will allow us to draw a picture of the semantic development of this word from medieval times to the Modern stage of the Frisian language. In the author’s opinion, the negative connotation of skalk as an offensive epithet is the final result of a range of different causes, whose origin should be searched both in Frisian-Scandinavian contacts during the Viking Age and in the influence exerted by neighbouring Middle Low German and Middle Dutch.