The pig’s doom: Animal butchery, gender relations, and a new solution for Durham Proverb 10
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Keywords

Durham Proverbs
gender
Old English
pigs

How to Cite

Wade, E. (2020). The pig’s doom: Animal butchery, gender relations, and a new solution for Durham Proverb 10. SELIM. Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature., 25(1), 187–192. https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.25.2020.187-192

Abstract

The Old English and Latin Durham Proverbs are famously obscure. Durham Proverb 10 describes a man sitting on a pig; the man jokes that what happens next is up to the pig. Scholars have read this as a possible marital joke, since the man is called a ceorl or maritus ‘husband’, yet this article suggests that the context is that of pig butchery. Medieval art frequently shows pigs being butchered by a man sitting on top of them to hold them down. Moreover, they often show the butchery performed by a man and a woman, suggesting that this proverb was a reference to an activity that a couple performed together, rather than a sexist commentary on marriage.
https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.25.2020.187-192
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References

Arnart, O. 1956: The Durham Proverbs. Lund, C. W. K. Leerup.

Arnggart, O. 1981: The Durham Proverbs. Speculum 56.2: 288–300.

Bosworth, J. 1898: DÓM. In T. N. Toller ed. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth. Oxford, Clarendon Press: 207.

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Marsden, R. 2004: The Cambridge Old English Reader. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Steel, K. 2011: How to Make a Human: Animals & Violence in the Middle Ages. Columbus (OH), Ohio State University Press.

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