If one consults the OED entry for ‘olden’, one learns that ‘olden’ dates all the way back to Cursor Mundi itself, hardly a Victorian tome. It’s also in Piers Ploughman and Shakespeare.
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈəʊld(ə)n/, U.S. /ˈoʊld(ə)n/
Forms: ME holden, ME holdon, ME oldyn, ME– olden, 18 aulden (Sc.).
Etymology: Probably originally an inflected form of old adj., although subsequently perhaps understood as showing old n.2 + -en suffix4.
Phrases similar to olden days were common in both Old and Middle English. Old English had the phrase (on) ealdum dagum (compare old adj. 9a), with dative plural ending -um . In Middle English, such phrases often preserved archaic forms. For example, from early Middle English onwards the phrase (bi) olde dawe is attested, where the noun has an archaic plural form (compare γ forms at day n.), but the adjective has the regular marked -e form. In late Middle English (bi) olden dawes, (in) holdon daw (see quots. a1400 and c1426), archaic forms of the plural noun persist (day usually having a regular plural form elsewhere in both texts), suggesting that the phrase had become a fixed formula. Their -en element could conceivably be the reflex of the Old English dative plural ending -um, accidentally not attested during the intervening period (although -en is very occasionally found as a plural inflection of this word in other senses in early Middle English); but an alternative explanation, possibly more consistent with the non-attestation of -en forms earlier, would be that the trisyllabic structure of the fixed phrasal unit was preserved by means of the replacement of unstressed -e (normally lost in this position) by -en (protected in medial position before a homorganic consonant). From fixed phrases like in olden days the word was perhaps generalized in early modern English to other contexts.
Now chiefly literary.
orig. and chiefly in olden days, olden time(s). Belonging to a past age or time; ancient, old; (also) aged.
- a1400 (1325) Cursor Mundi (Trin. Cambr.) 18100 Now com my sawes Þat I seide bi olden dawes.
- 1401 Inquisition Misc. (P.R.O.: C 145/279/1) m. 1, Mesuagium vocatum the Oldyn.
- c1426 J. Audelay Poems (1931) 20 Þe goodys of hole cherche‥Þat oþer han ȝeuen in holdon daw.
- a1500 (1376) Langland Piers Plowman (Eaton) A. xɪ. 303 Holden [c1400 Trin. Cambr. austyn þe olde].
- 1576 G. Gascoigne Steele Glas (Arb.) 58 In olden dayes, good kings‥Contented were, with pompes of little pryce.
- a1616 Shakespeare Macbeth (1623) ɪɪɪ. iv. 74 Blood hath bene shed ere now, i' th' olden time.
- 1682 S. Speed Gigantomaxia 5 A Town it has, which Fiends Inchant, Where Brideled Furies Roar and Rant, In olden times, hight Troynovant, But now 'tis London Stiled.
- 1768 D. Garrick in False Delicacy Epil., In olden times your grannams unrefin'd, Ty'd up the tongue, put padlocks on the mind.
- 1791–2 Wordsworth Descr. Sketches 147 There an old man an olden measure scanned On a rude viol.
- 1816 Scott Tales my Landlord 1st Ser. Introd., A young person‥who delighted in the collection of olden tales and legends.
- 1823 Byron Don Juan: Canto XII xliii, Olden she was—but had been very young.
- 1866 J. Smith Poems 205 Wi' pith o' aulden days, Sing loudly [etc.].
- 1904 J. Conrad Nostromo i. i. 2 Many adventurers of olden time had perished.
- 1970 M. McLuhan Let. 30 Apr. (1987) 405 The elderly love to recall and the children love to hear about the ‘olden times’.
- 1995 M. Amis Information (1996) 434 All he could see was a single sandy suede shoe‥: the olden hushpuppy of R.C. Squires.
The proper citation for that entry is:
Third edition, March 2004; online version December 2011. < http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/130964 >; accessed 14 February 2012. An entry for this word was first included in New English Dictionary, 1902.