Scytel: A New Old English Word for ‘Penis’
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Bethany Christiansen
Abstract
In this paper, I examine the Old English word scytel, which appears in the Old English Medicina de quadrupedibus. I argue that, contrary to definitions offered in current Old English lexical aids, scytel does not mean ‘dung’, but rather ‘penis’. In the Medicina de quadrupedibus, OE scytel translates Lat. moium (from Greek μοιóν) ‘penis’. I begin by tracing the development of the definition/s of scytel in the lexicographic tradition (Sections 1.1 and 1.2) and in editions of the Medicina de quadrupedibus (Section 1.3). Starting with Bosworth-Toller (1882–1898), scytel (1) was defined as ‘dung’, apparently on the misperception of an etymological relationship between scytel (1) and Old English scitta, n. ‘shit’. Section 2 offers a discussion of the manuscripts containing the Old English Medicina de quadrupedibus and its Latin source text, and Section 3 contains a discussion of the two relevant recipes that contain OE scytel (1). In Section 4.1 I show that, in fact, scytel (1) cannot be etymologically related to any scit‑/scīt‑ ‘shit’ words in Old English, as the two derive from separate Germanic (Gmc.) and Proto-Indo-European (PIE) roots. In Section 4.2, I argue that the scribe of the manuscripts containing scytel could not have written a non-etymological <y> for /i/, which eliminates the possibility that scytel is connected to scit‑/scīt‑ ‘shit’. It becomes clear, as demonstrated in Section 4.3, that scytel (1) ‘penis’ and scytel (2) ‘dart’ can be reconciled as a single dictionary entry, with ‘penis’ as a metaphorical extension of ‘dart’. I demonstrate in Section 4.4 that, from a cross-linguistic perspective, ‘dart’ > ‘penis’ is a well-attested semantic shift. Ultimately, it is clear that the Old English translator/s of the Medicina de quadrupedibus correctly translated the rare Latin word for ‘penis’ they encountered in the source text.
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- Scytel: A New Old English Word for ‘Penis’
- Zelotes and elnvnges: The Extension of Genitive Singular ‑es in the Gloss to the Durham Collectar
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- Framing the Romantic Artist: Goethe’s Torquato Tasso and James’s Roderick Hudson
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Scytel: A New Old English Word for ‘Penis’
- Zelotes and elnvnges: The Extension of Genitive Singular ‑es in the Gloss to the Durham Collectar
- The Cambridge and the Exeter Book Physiologi: Associative Imagery, Allegorical Circularity, and Isidorean Organization
- Framing the Romantic Artist: Goethe’s Torquato Tasso and James’s Roderick Hudson
- “The sad, proud old man stared eternally out of his canvas...”: Media Criticism, Scopic Regimes and the Function of Rembrandt’s “Self-Portrait with Two Circles” in John Fowles’s Novel Daniel Martin
- Reviews
- Judith Huber. Motion and the English Verb: A Diachronic Study. Oxford Studies in the History of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, xvi + 363 pp., £ 64.00.
- Review
- Rebecca Shapiro (ed.). Foreword by Jack Lynch. Fixing Babel: An Historical Anthology of Applied English Lexicography. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2017, xl + 608 pp., $ 150.00/£ 100.00.
- Tristan Major. Undoing Babel: The Tower of Babel in Anglo-Saxon Literature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018, xiv + 292 pp., $ 70.00.
- Elise Louviot. Direct Speech in Beowulf and Other Old English Narrative Poems. Anglo-Saxon Studies 30. Cambridge: Brewer, 2016, vii + 285 pp., 5 figures, £ 65.00.
- Joshua Byron Smith. Walter Map and the Matter of Britain. The Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017, xi + 254 pp., $ 69.95/£ 58.00.
- Ian Cornelius. Reconstructing Alliterative Verse: The Pursuit of a Medieval Meter. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017, x + 219 pp., 6 tables, £ 75.00.
- Frank Wilker. Cultural Memories of Origin: Trauma, Memory and Imagery in African American Narratives of the Middle Passage. American Studies: A Monograph Series 241. Heidelberg: Winter, 2017, 302 pp., 12 illustr., € 42.00.
- Carsten Junker. Patterns of Positioning: On the Poetics of Early Abolition. American Studies – A Monograph Series 271. Heidelberg: Winter, 2016, 515 pp., 9 illustr., € 48.00.
- Gero Guttzeit. The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe: Authorship, Antebellum Literature, and Transatlantic Rhetoric. Anglia Book Series 56. Berlin/Boston: DeGruyter, 2017, 256 pp., 99.95 €.
- Andrew S. Gross. The Pound Reaction: Liberalism and Lyricism in Midcentury American Literature. Heidelberg: Winter, 2015, 262 pp., € 36.00.
- John Parham and Louise Westling (eds.). A Global History of Literature and Environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017, 459 pp., £ 78.99.
- Books Received
