freten by sowe

William Salmon william.salmon at YALE.EDU
Sun Mar 2 19:28:36 UTC 2008


>>> There's a horrifying line in The Knight's Tale about a pig eating a
>>> child.
>>>
>>> The sowe freten the child right in the cradel...
>>>
>>
>> I assume "freten" (fressen) rather than (?) "eten" (essen) to make
>> it more horrifying?

I think with 'fressen' that line might mean 'The sow refreshed the child
right in the cradle', at least in middle English :-)

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