Hrethel

Hrethel (; ) is a king of the Geats.

== Name == Hrethel's name appears with both the root vowel and and with both the consonant (i.e. the phoneme , pronounced in Old English) and (which would ordinarily represent the phoneme ). This is thought to be due to an early manuscript of Beowulf writing the root vowel using the early graphs (for the vowel resulting from the i-mutation of Common Germanic ) and (for the phoneme , pronounced ). Later scribes misread the former as and failed to recognise that the latter represented the sound rather than .