wel-þungen, adj: well-thriven, able, good, excellent, honourable. (“well-thoong-en”)

Today is the wel-þungen feast of St Bartholomew. Bartholomew was one of Jesus’s 12 apostles and has also been identified as Nathaniel (or Nathanael).

From A Clerk of Oxford: “Guthlac had a special devotion to St Bartholomew, who aided him in his struggle against the demons of his lonely hermitage. In the Guthlac Roll, a series of illustrations of Guthlac’s life produced at the end of the 12th century, and now in the British Library (Harley Roll Y.6), Bartholomew is shown appearing to Guthlac in company with an angel.”

From Kazutomo Karasawa, The Old English Metrical Calendar (Menologium) (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2015):

Karasawa says, “The feast [of St Bartholomew] is celebrated on 24 August, but in Anglo-Saxon England, the majority of people seem to have celebrated it on the 25th as the Menologium poet says.” (p. 115)

Þænne ealling byð / ymb tyn niht ϸæs   tiid geweorðad / Bartholomeus   in Brytene her, / wyrd welϸungen. (Menologium, lines 153b-56a)

Then always after ten nights, the feast of Bartholomew, the honourable event, is celebrated here in Britain. (trans. by K. Karasawa)