Banter, Flyting and the Patter

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

The court flytings survive as texts and are well studied, though their exact dates are uncertain. The weaker claims concern continuity: the idea that Scottish banter, the Glasgow patter or modern rap battles descend directly from medieval flyting is attractive but hard to prove.

What flyting was

established Flyting is a ritual exchange of insults between two parties, often in verse. Versions appear in many early literatures: in Norse myth Loki abuses the gods in Lokasenna, and in Beowulf insults are traded before combat. The word comes from the Old English verb flītan, "to quarrel", and was in use for a verbal quarrel by about 1200. It became a technical name for a literary contest in Scotland in the 16th century.

Dunbar against Kennedy

established The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie is the earliest surviving Scottish flyting. It records a contest between two court poets, William Dunbar and Walter Kennedy, thought to have been performed before James IV around 1500. Dunbar's attack runs to 25 stanzas and Kennedy's reply to 38. Dunbar mocks Kennedy's Gaelic background and Highland speech, calling him an "Irische brybour baird" (Irish beggar bard) and an "Ersch Katherane" (Gaelic cateran, or bandit); Kennedy calls Dunbar a dwarf descended from Beelzebub and claims his coat of arms shows a noose with "Hang Dunbar" beneath it. Each accuses the other of theft, treason, heresy and terrible verse. The poem contains the earliest recorded use of "shit" as a personal insult.

shared The poem was one of the first works printed in Scotland by Chepman and Myllar; sources date the printing to 1507 or 1508.

Flyting at court

established In the 15th and 16th centuries flyting became public entertainment at the Scottish court, full of sexual and scatological abuse, and was tolerated even though public swearing could be punished. James IV and James V encouraged it and sometimes took part. Around 1536 Sir David Lyndsay wrote a ribald 60-line answer to a flyting by James V. Later, around 1598, Alexander Montgomerie and Patrick Hume of Polwarth exchanged a flyting in the same tradition. For about two centuries Dunbar and Kennedy's flyting was a near-obligatory item in Scottish verse collections.

A 20th-century flyting

established The form returned in print in 1964, when the folklorist Hamish Henderson and the poet Hugh MacDiarmid exchanged a long and celebrated flyting in the letters pages of The Scotsman. MacDiarmid was hostile to folk song; Henderson, of the School of Scottish Studies at Edinburgh University, defended it. Their argument, about high art against folk song and about Scotland's sense of itself, became known as the Folksong Flyting and has since been re-enacted on stage.

The patter

established "The patter" is the name for Glasgow's speech and its quick, irreverent humour. The Glasgow dialect is based on West Central Scots, with strong influences from the Irish and Highland migrants who arrived in the city in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the 1970s the comedian Stanley Baxter parodied it in his "Parliamo Glasgow" sketches. In 1985 Michael Munro published The Patter, an illustrated guide to Glaswegian, followed by The Patter – Another Blast in 1988 and The Complete Patter in 1996. Television comedies such as Rab C. Nesbitt, Chewin' the Fat and Still Game have carried the patter to wider audiences.

From flyting to banter?

traditional Scots are often said to show affection through insult, and modern banter is often presented as the heir of medieval flyting. It is a popular idea, but there is no documented line of descent from the court poets to everyday Scottish humour.

shared Flyting is often compared to modern rap battles and to the African American game of the dozens, which work in a similar way. The historian Ferenc Szasz argued that rap battles derive from Scottish flyting, but this remains a theory.

A quarrel about Gaelic

established The flyting is also an early record of how Gaelic was losing status in Lowland Scotland. The historical geographer Charles Withers, in Gaelic in Scotland 1698–1981 (1984), notes that the Lothian-born Dunbar treated Kennedy's Gaelic as a joke, while Kennedy, from the south-west, answered that Gaelic "was the gud language of this land" and should not be decried, since it was the true tongue of the Scots: "Thow lufis nane Irische, elf, I understand, Bot it suld be all trew Scottis mennis lede." Kennedy's reply fits other evidence that Gaelic was still spoken in parts of the south-west in the sixteenth century.

• The word "flyting" comes from an Old English verb meaning "to quarrel".
• Dunbar and Kennedy's flyting is the earliest surviving Scottish example.
• Kennedy claimed Dunbar's coat of arms showed a noose and the words "Hang Dunbar".
• The poem contains the earliest recorded use of "shit" as a personal insult.
• It was among the first works printed in Scotland.
• King James V took part in a flyting with Sir David Lyndsay.
• Two leading Scottish writers fought a flyting in The Scotsman's letters pages in 1964.
• Michael Munro's guide to Glaswegian, The Patter, was published in 1985.

• Disputed: the date of Dunbar and Kennedy's flyting. There is no single firm date; it is dated around 1500.
• Myth: flyting was invented in Scotland. Insult contests appear in Norse and Old English literature.
• Unproven: a direct line from flyting to modern banter or rap battles.
• Two sides to the contest. Dunbar's side is not the whole contest; Kennedy's reply is longer.