Word, Breath, and Vomit: Oral Competition in Old English and Old Norse Literature

Abstract

Abstract Study of orality has been fixed on the ephemeral instead of on the physical, on will-o'-the-wisps like the "theme" instead of on the mouth and the ear.1 Walter Ong notices that "when all verbal communication must be by direct word of mouth, ... interpersonal relations are kept high--both attractions and, even more, antagonisms" (1982:45). Certainly in traditional works the causes of misfortune are usually centered in another person, so that rage is more easily directed and "solutions" to trials more easily found by acting upon the body of someone else.2 The mouth figures in such acts: "reciprocal name-calling" sessions are "standard in oral societies across the world" (Ong 1982:44), and, if one looks at the anatomy of orality more particularly, one finds that the word connects with the body directly.

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