Reflecting (after publication) on Saturday’s post about breeding kink in Greek mythology, I realized that my casual use of the word “swiving” might be a too-obscure English usage for the Erosblog audience, even if it ought to be clear enough in context. The most charitable thing that can be said for the word “swive” is that it’s a deeply obsolete English synonym for the word “fuck”, sharing an etymological basis from Old English with the word “swivel” (as you might well swivel your hips when you swive, at least if you’re doing it correctly).
But why do I know this word?
I spent some time worrying about that. The question niggled away for awhile in the back of my brain. I finally remembered learning the word in a salacious book I bought off a remainder table at a B. Dalton’s when I was in high school. The book was a bawdy retelling of the Arthurian tales from which (once I finally managed to soften the petrified wax of memory) I now recall learning two new vocabulary words: not only swive, but also fewmets (droppings of animal dung). The book was Rude Tales and Glorious: being the only true account of diverse feats of brawn and bawd performed by King Arthur and his Knights of the Table Round, by Nicolas Seare with spurious prefatory attribution to his equally-spurious ancestor Davydd ap Seare (New York, 1983).
In hindsight I’d call Rude Tales a fairly shallow dirtying-up of the famous Arthurian retellings in The Once And Future King by T. H. White. The Tales certainly are rude enough, with the words “swive” and “swiving” making at least a dozen appearances in fairly explicit contexts, thusly:
A right lusty young knight suggested that they settle the matter with a contest of the swiving of peasant girls. And with such good will was this offer accepted that several did grasp up serving wenches and begin to practise for the tournament…”
So now we all know together. Go forth and swive lustily!
PS: The word “swive” was seen once before here on ErosBlog, back in 2008, where it appeared in the poem A Satyre on Charles II by the scandalous poet John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, in the line “the sauciest prick that e’er did swive….”
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