Wonder-Smiths and Others: smið Compounds in Old English Poetry—With an Excursus on hleahtor

The Anglo-Saxons of course knew that a smith is a metalworker, any kind of metal, and in the recorded literature often a goldsmith. In verse especially, smið is often the second element of compounds, and the first element is quite frequently an abstract, gryn -, hleahtor -, lar -, teon -, wig -, wroht -, wundor - . The sense of such compounds is often subtle and disputed. This study has some new senses for these compounds, and others are traditional among scholars of Old English. I favour these: grynsmið ‘complotter of -grief and harm’; -larsmið ‘scholar of (holy) doctrine’, but also ‘hatcher of plots’; teonsmið ‘plotter of mischief’; wigsmið ‘war-maker’, but wih - means ‘idol’, therefore also ‘idol-maker’; wrohtsmið ‘artificer of crime, harm-contriver‘; wundorsmið perhaps ‘smith of wonderland’ rather than ‘wonderful craftsman’. The compound hleahtorsmið literally ‘laughter-maker‘, but laughter is often gloomy rather than joyous, and hleahtor and compounds, as well as the verb hliehhan , are discussed in an Excursus. We may learn from the literature of the Anglo-Saxons, much of it moral and religious, that it is a wicked world, where even laughter sounds hollow.