Athelstane

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The Anglo-Saxon king of England who reigned from 924 to 939 and was the grandson of Alfred the Great ; a fictional Saxon nobleman appearing in Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe
2. Early medieval English monarch, Alfred the Great's grandson, who ruled in the tenth century ; a Saxon figure portrayed in Sir Walter Scott's historical novel Ivanhoe
3. A tenth-century Anglo-Saxon ruler known as the grandson of Alfred the Great ; a character from Walter Scott's 1819 romance about Saxons and Normans

Etymology: Athelstan was the name of the first king of all England, who ruled from 924 to 939, and the name was built from two Old English words: "æþele", meaning "noble", and "stān", meaning "stone". Taken together, it means something like "noble stone" or "gem," a fitting name for a king. The same pattern shows up across the Germanic languages, where the Dutch "edelsteen" and German "Edelstein" both mean "gemstone" and carry the same two elements. The spelling "Athelstane" is one of several English variants that survived mostly as surnames and place names rather than as given names. Other forms include Addleston, Athelston, Athelstone and Ethelstone, and the name appears in Icelandic as "Aðalsteinn," showing how far the name travelled across the North Sea world.