Chaucer's 'Miller's Tale', 3770: 'Viritoot'
- Author / Editor
- Breeze, Andrew
Chaucer's 'Miller's Tale', 3770: 'Viritoot'
- Published
- Chaucer Review 29 (1994): 204-206.
- Description
- Proposes that "upon the viritoot," often glossed as "to be astir," actually means "fairy toot," a common topological expression from England. This second meaning suggests that Gervase the smith, speculating on why the angry Absolon has appeared to him in the middle of the night, is comparing the latter to a "nocturnal sentinel, on the lookout."
- Chaucer Subjects
- Miller and His Tale.
- Language and Word Studies.