• General Notes

  [large-G675.FTW]
  
  "Oslac, the famous butler of King Ethelwulf [=AETHELWULF], which Oslac was a Goth by nation, descended from the Goths and Jutes, of the seed, namely, of Stuf and Whitgar [= WIHTGAR in trans. by K & L], two brothers and countes; who, having received possession of the Isle of Wight from their uncle, king Cerdic, and his son Cynric their cousin, slew the few British inhabitants whom they could find in that island, at a place called Gwihtgaraburgh [FOOTNOTE:
  Carisbrooke, as may be conjectured from the name, which is a combination of
  Weight and Caraburgh.]; for the other inhabitants of the island had either been slain or escaped into exile." [NOTE:  In the translation by Keynes and Lapidge, the place is called Wihtgarabyrig. A footnote states that this is the name given in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, although (they say) the text of Asser has
  Guuihtgaraburhg which "has been identified in the past as Carisbrooke, but
  strong objections to this were raised by Stevenson, *Asser*, pp. 172-5; the
  place must remain unidentified."]
  
  SRCE:   Asser of Saint David, *Annals of the Reign of Alfred the Great, from
  A.D. 849 to A.D. 887* (or *Life of Alfred*), translated by J A Giles, 1848,
  p 43-44. Giles says in the preface, p vi:
  
  " Oslac, famed cup-bearer of King Ethelwulf.  Not this Oslac was by birth a Goth, sprung both from Goths and Jutes, and of the stock of Stuf and Wihtgar, brethren alike and earls.  From their uncle, King Cerdic, and his son, Cynric, their cousin, had they sway over the Isle of Wight. And there, at a place hight
  Gwihtgara-burhg [Carisbrooke], slew they the few British indwellers whom
  they found in that island; for the other fold thereof had been slain before,
  or had fled into exile."
     --- Asser, *de Aelfredi rebus gestis* (*Of the Deeds of Alfred*), as
  presented by Edward Conybeare in *Alfred in the Chroniclers*, London, 1900, p 8

Details of Oslac's family