Note 49 — Chapter III
Reading edition
The second part of this compound repeats the idea of the first, namely, choice: it is from the verb to choose, for in certain tenses this verb changed s to r, just as from the verb to freeze we have frore (Milton), and from lose we have a participle lorn. The Anglo-Saxon form is wælcyrige. Grimm’s “Teutonic Mythol.” tr. Stallybrass, p. 418. Kemble, “Saxons,” i., 402.