Dolphin

Our English word dolphin comes from the Latin delphinus. This in turn comes from Greek delphis (genitive delphinos) and ultimately from delphus, "womb," presumably because the dolphin was thought of as the "fish with a womb." Delphus, "womb," is also the source of adelphos, "brother or sister" (literally "from one womb"), whence for example Philadelphia, "city of brotherly love."

"Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn," writes Isaiah, "and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged." Then, explaining his metaphor, he adds, "Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you" (Isa. 51:1-2). Thus is the womb from which one is born assimilated to a pit from which one is dug. The Old English word for "to dig" was delfan (whence our modern delve), and the past participle (as would be used to translate Isaiah) was dolfen.

Less than a century after his time, Adolf Hitler is already well on his way to becoming a mythical or legendary figure. In the future, when the details of 20th-century history have been lost in the mists of time, philologists will assume that his name has a similar derivation to that of dolphin, with Adolphus coming from Adelphos, and they will consider him to be essentially the same figure as his English counterpart, Big Brother.

In fact, though, the true etymology of Adolf is not a-dolf but ad-olf -- from Athalwolf, "noble wolf." Isn't it a curious coincidence, though, that Germanic names ending in -olf always seem to end in -dolf, even though dolf is not a morpheme? Besides Adolph, there are also Rudolph ("fame wolf," but sure to be misinterpreted by future etymologists as Rudelaph, "red deer"), Bardolph ("axe wolf"), and Randolph ("shield wolf"). Randolph is especially noteworthy, as it derives from Old Norse Rannulfr, with the d added later for no apparent reason other than some sort of magnetic attraction between the wolf and the dolphin.

Apollo was closely associated with the wolf and was given the epithet Lyceus, "wolf-like." He also had a close connection with the dolphin, though, and it is from this animal that Delphi presumably takes its name. Apollo himself once took dolphin form to guide Cretan sailors to Delphi, and it was after singing a hymn to Apollo that Arion was rescued by dolphins.

René Guénon, in his essay on the meaning of the Arabic letter nun, writes that the whale plays a womb-like role in the story of Jonah and notes the relevance of the etymological link between dolphin and the womb. I have alredy mentioned (here) that the "big bad wolf" plays a similar role in the story of Little Red Riding Hood. And just as Jonah must have been swallowed by a whale, a dolphin being much too small, so I have conjectured that the "big bad wolf" of the fairy tale was actually a bear. (Bear, by coincidence, is also the verb associated with the womb.)

Coming back to -dolf names, there is also the Italian Gandolfo -- of Germanic origin and meaning "spell wolf," but suggesting Tolkien's Gandalf, in which the latter element means not "wolf" but "elf." Do elves, like wolves, have a dolphin connection? It is interesting to note that Tolkien's orcs came from elves and represented a monstrous distortion of elf-nature. And what do we call the most "monstrous" member of the dolphin family, scarcely recognizable as a dolphin at all? Orca.