@article{jbp:/content/journals/10.1075/jhp.4.2.08tol, author = "Tolmie, Jane", title = "Goading, ritual discord and the deflection of blame", journal= "Journal of Historical Pragmatics", year = "2003", volume = "4", number = "2", pages = "287-301", doi = "https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.4.2.08tol", url = "https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/jhp.4.2.08tol", publisher = "John Benjamins", issn = "1566-5852", type = "Journal Article", abstract = "This article brings some of the discourses of contemporary frame analysis to bear on female incitement — often called goading or whetting (from hvetja ‘to whet’) — in feud structures within several well-known medieval Icelandic family sagas. Broadly speaking, female goading in saga literature is a form of dialogic exchange in which women urge men to perform particular tasks, often seemingly against their will. These tasks mainly revolve around blood-vengeance and legal action, the twin obsessions of saga literature; in neither area is it simple for saga women to participate officially or directly. The article’s approach is similar to Marcel Bax’s (2000) approach to moments of ritual discord in sixteenth-century Dutch plays in that it considers specific historical framing practices as forms of ritual language.", }