--- title: "Old English Hula ‘Sheds’ and Hull, Yorkshire — paper by Breeze" description: "The author argues against this on sound-change grounds. Among them: 0." authors: ["Andrew Breeze"] venue: "SELIM 24" source: "https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/SELIM/article/view/14178" doi: "10.17811/selim.24.2019.149-156" licence: "CC BY-NC-ND (journal licence per DOAJ; SELIM)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/breeze-2019-old-english-hula-sheds-hull/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/breeze-2019-old-english-hula-sheds-hull/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [undated](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/undated/) / Old English Hula ‘Sheds’ and Hull, Yorkshire # Old English Hula ‘Sheds’ and Hull, Yorkshire **Authors:** [Andrew Breeze](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/andrew-breeze/) · **Venue:** [SELIM 24](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/selim-journal-of-the-spanish-society-for-medieval-english-language-and/) · **Publisher:** [University of Oviedo](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/university-of-oviedo/) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-ND (journal licence per DOAJ; SELIM)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.24.2019.149-156) · [PDF](https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/SELIM/article/download/14178/12528) · [DOI 10.17811/selim.24.2019.149-156](https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.24.2019.149-156) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2973237695) **Citations:** 0 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) ## Summary Breeze reconsiders where the name of Hull (Kingston-upon-Hull) in Yorkshire comes from. Earlier reference works treated it as a river-name of British (Celtic) or Scandinavian origin, with proposed meanings such as 'muddy' or 'deep'. The author argues against this on sound-change grounds. British had no word-initial *h*, which developed from *s* only around the mid-to-late sixth century. The English had already settled the Hull area in the late fifth century, so a Celtic loan with initial *h* is chronologically impossible. He then reverses the usual assumption. The settlement came first and the river was named after it, so the early forms mean roughly 'the river at Hull'. The name derives from Old English *hula* 'sheds, huts'. Parallel names in Lancashire, Worcestershire, Cheshire and Gloucestershire, along with a Middle English use of *hulen* for makeshift shelters, support this reading. The result fits Leland's description of early Hull as a poor fishing village. The paper also identifies genuinely Celtic names nearby: Deira, Leven, Roos and Wawne. One of these points to a previously unlocated monastery mentioned by Bede. ## Key points - Early records name the river as *ea Hull* (c. 1000) and *amnen Hul(l)* (c. 1080). Breeze reads both as "river of/at Hull" rather than as independent hydronyms. - Jackson dates the British shift from *s* to *h* to the sixth century, which is after English settlement of the area. Breeze argues this rules out all Celtic etymologies for Hull, and he notes that no Celtic root *hul-* 'muddy' exists anyway. - The comparison names are: - Much/Little Hoole, Lancashire (recorded as *Hull* in 1204) - Holberrow Green, Worcestershire (*Holbarewe*, 1275) - a lost Cheshire hamlet *Hulle* (1283) - the field-name Hull Piece, Gloucestershire. - Breeze proposes that the river's older British name was probably Leven, from a Welsh cognate of *llyfn* 'smooth', which survives as a village name near the source. - Bede's *Paegnalaech* should be read *Uaegnalaech*, because the runic letter wynn was misread as *p*. This identifies the site as Wawne, from British 'meadow' plus English 'stream'. ## Interesting ideas - An etymology can be refuted by dating it: if the sound change must come after the contact period, the proposed borrowing cannot have happened. This is a cheap and decisive consistency test. - The paper reverses the direction of a naming relation, reading "river Hull" as a location relation ("the river at Hull") rather than as a name. This removes the need for an obscure source word. - The new reading is supported by several independent attestations from different regions, not by a single parallel, which makes the conclusion much more robust. - A known scribal confusion between similar-looking letters (runic wynn versus *p*) fixes a long-standing unidentified place-name. - A standard translation ("tents of boughs and leaves") is corrected using material knowledge, since tents are cloth-made, and the word is reread as 'shelters'. ## For Mova How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests: - **I1** (world): Proposed event orders could be checked against known dated constraints, and any reading that would require an effect to come before its cause would be rejected, with that check written into the explanation trace. - **I2** (frames): Phrases like "N Name" or "N of Name" could be given both an identity reading and a location/association reading, with the world model choosing between them. - **I3** (learn): Silver labels could likewise require agreement from independent witness sources rather than one, and the sources would be logged so disagreements remain visible. - **I4** (tokens): A small table of visually confusable characters could be used to propose candidate normalizations for unknown tokens from OCR or PDF text, keeping only those that match a known lexicon entry. - **I5** (world): Material and selectional constraints from the ontology could flag word-sense choices that create impossible objects, prompting a broader sense. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* ## Institutions Also on the byline: [Universidad de Navarra](https://ror.org/02rxc7m23). - [← previous Letter 57, to Pammachius, On the Best Method of Translating](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/jerome-1893-letter-57-pammachius-best/) - [next → Prefixes, Root Determinatives and the Problem of Biconsonantal Roots in Semitic](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/zaborski-2026-prefixes-root-determinatives-problem-biconsonantal/) - [↑ back to undated papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/undated/)📚 Shelves (3): [🎭 Arts and Humanities](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · 9,296 works · [🗣️ Language and Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · 9,206 works · [🎭 Classics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/classics/) · 67 works 🧭 Topics (2): [English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/english/) · 1,373 works · [⏳ Historical linguistics & language change](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-change/) · 159 works *Updated 24 October 2026*