Irish spelling has been stumbling outsiders for centuries. Thus Hamlet, an improbable name as most would agree for any Dane, let alone a Prince of Denmark, becomes intelligible when we learn that it is the French form of Amelthus, which was what Saxo Grammaticus in his Historica Danica inherited from someone who had copied it out of the Latin with his eye on Amhlaoibh, the Irish spelling of a decent Scandinavian name, Olaf. (In Ireland, Olafson, Mac Amhlaoibh, lingered as a surname: thus MacCauliffe and Macauley and even Cowley.) Since Ireland’s was a literate culture when the Olafs and their crews first impinged on it yelling, it was natural for Viking names to enter Latin through an Irish door. And the Irish scribes had heard “Olaf” and said “owlayv”, and then written by their usual system Amhl = owl, ao = ay, (i)bh = v. So Amhlaoibh and, ultimately, Hamlet.
- Hugh Kenner, A Colder Eye. That “yelling” is the winking mark of critical genius.