This is funny. Coincidentally, a round of wiki-ing led me to a grand old Germanic tradition I didn’t know about, the flyting. It was a sort of ancient freestyle match, in which the protagonists took turns insulting each other in creative ways, usually in complex meter. In Lokesenna, for instance, we find the Norse trickster god Loki insulting each of the gods in turn, accusing them of unmanliness, incest, adultery, and so on.
Maybe the best example of flyting is The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie, which was performed before the court of the king of Scottland, ca. 1500. This article mentions some of the insults that are thrown around: “wan fukkit funling” (the article’s somewhat euphemistic translation: ill-conceived foundling), “Cuntbitten crawdon” (the article explains that “crawdon” means coward and is derived from a word for a cock that won’t fight), “a shit but wit”, “deuill dampnit dog, sodomyte insatiable”, and “thy commissar Quintine biddis the cum kis his ers” (your associate Quintin (a Scottish poet) bids you come kiss his ass).
Here’s the whole thing. I can only make out a very small fraction of it; my knowledge of Middle English Scottish is nonexistent. I’d love for someone to modernize this, but as far as Google is concerned no one’s done it.
I checked the blog of Tumblr’s resident mediævalist, the wonderful ragbag, but unfortunately, a search for “flyting” brings up nothing. If you’re reading this, ragbag, consider that a challenge. Or a request. Or, in the spirit of the flyting: I doubt thy skill with the mediæval meter/ yes, I dare call thee a mediocre cheater; / thine impressive vocabulary of f-words notwithstanding; / I don’t see thee the form of the flyting well commanding.
(It should be noted that flytings are entertainment; the verbal combatants respect each other, they don’t go slaying each other afterwards because of what was said in jest.)
Insult-fighting in Monkey Island games had a historical background? Well, who knew?