Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum: Micro-Research for Giant Rhymes

Quick question, my readers: Why doesn't Fee-Fi-fo-fum rhyme with Englishman? Dead and bread on the next two lines do rhyme; why a partial rhyming scheme?

So, before I answer my question, let us look at the phrase. We mostly know of this phrase from "Jack and the Beanstalk" which was originally published as "Jack the Giant Killer", a Cornish book first printed in 1760, which was a longer version of a 1711 chapbook entitled "The History of Jack and the Giants". "Jack the Giant Killer" recounts the story of how a Cornish young man, Jack, hunts down and kills multiple giants, attracts the attention of King Arthur, is invited to join the Round Table, fights Lucifer, [1] rescues a duke's daughter from a sorcerer, marries, and lives happily ever after. But, most of us only know of the "fee-fi-fo-fum" bellowed by the giant Thunderdell. But, what does "fee-fi-fo-fum" mean?

The earliest written reference to the phrase dates back to 1595 in George Peele's play "The Old Wives' Tale":

"Fee, fa, fum, here is the Englishman,
Conquer him that can, came for his lady bright,
To prooue himselfe a knight,
And win her loue in fight."

In 1596, Thomas Nashe uses a similar phrase in his "Have With You to Saffron-walden":

"O, tis a precious apothegmatical Pedant, who will find matter enough to dilate a whole day of the first invention of Fy, fa, fum, I smell the blood of an English-man".

Shakespeare, yes that Shakespeare, uses it in "King Lear" in 1605:

"Child Roland to the dark tower came,
His word was still, Fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man."

And in the 1621 "Tom Thumb" we have the familiar phrase and setting:

"Now fi, fee, fau, fan,
I feele smell of a dangerous man,
Be he alive, or be he dead,
He grind his bones to make me bread."

In Shakespeare's time, "fi", or "fie", was a word used to express disapproval, like "bah" or "meh". Shakespeare uses "fie" a lot in his plays. King Lear shouts "Fie, fie, fie! pah, pah!" when confronted with the betrayal of his daughters. Mark Antony shouts "O fie, fie, fie!" in "Antony and Cleopatra". "Fo" and "fum" were used as we would use "pooh" or "crap". "Fee" might have been used to complete the alliterative quartet and to rhyme with "Be" in the third line.

Charles Mackay, in his 1877 "The Gaelic Etymology of the Languages of Western Europe", postulates that this is a complete sentence in Gaelic

(ffiafliC.— Faich (fa!), behold! see! fiadh (fee-a), food; fiu, good to eat, worthy; fogh (fo), sufficient; foghair, to suffice ; feum (French /aim), hunger ; whence faich, fiadh, Jiu, fogh, feum, or " fa, fe, fi, fo, fum ! " " Behold food, good to eat, sufficient for my hunger;" the exclamation of the Keltic giant, who, without being a cannibal, would have been glad to devour the Saxon.

Other sources state that this is a Scottish charm or spell used by Ettins. The spell was sung to find the thing mentioned in the charm. "I am looking for.... an Englishman." Other sources credit this to the Norse and their mythology of giants and dwarves using similar rhyming phrases to cast spells. I did find similar phrases in Russian folk stories. A phrase that crops up a lot with Baba Yaga is “Foo! Foo! Foo! I smell a Russian spirit!” The Russian word "dookh" is used which could mean spirit, soul, or odor. "Foo" can be used as in "Foo! What is that smell." I think the implication is that monstrous creatures have poor vision and require their sense of smell and, perhaps, the assistance of magic in order to hunt humans.

In practical terms, i.e.: children's stories, the phrase can not only be used to hint at the un-worldly, but if the reader stamps their feet in tempo, to convey a size of the giant. The second line hints at the animal nature of the giant, it doesn't see Jack, but can smell him. The next line hints what a monster the giant is, it doesn't care if Jack is dead or alive, the giant will eat him one way or another. And while most little children might never hear the sound of bones being ground up, they might have, back in the day, have heard grain being ground in a mill or a quern.

"Fee-fi-fo-fum
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he alive or be he dead
​I'll grind his bones to make my bread."

With the stamping of the feet, and a deep voice, any parent can scare the bejeebers out of the little tykes right before bedtime.

But, why is "fum" rhymed with "man"? Because, it is actually rhymed with "mun". It is an accent affliction, a way to show ignorance and uncultured behavior based on the method of speech. In England's West countries, particularly in modern Cornwall, the regional accent pronounces "man" as "mun". Jon Mills and Alistair McGowan did a documentary on British accents and explained that English, the language, took a few hundred years to move from the East to the West; Cornwall resisted fully adopting English well into the 18th century. Even today, TV shows and movies use rural accents to subtly hint at the intellect of characters: the more rural a character sounds, the more stupid they must be. Fluellen, in "Henry V", is a good guy, but Shakespeare wrote his dialog to clearly show that, while he was brave, loyal, and a leader of a company, he was without a doubt a pig-ignorant Welshman.[2]

"I tell you, captain, if you look in the maps of the
'orld, I warrant you sall find, in the comparisons
between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations,
look you, is both alike. There is a river in
Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at
Monmouth: it is called Wye at Monmouth; but it is
out of my prains what is the name of the other
river; but 'tis all one, 'tis alike as my fingers is
to my fingers, and there is salmons in both." [3]

While writers and producers have been trying to dispel this causal racism by casting actors and actresses with regional dialects into more positive roles, the practice was firmly entrenched in English culture for centuries. Dumb characters in Shakespeare have mumbling, rural accents, and the heroes have crisp and clear London accents. Much as today we would have a character use "ain't", "expresso", "irregardless", or "like totally" to show their lack of education, having a fool or a giant say, "Englishmun" indicated that they were stupid and could easily be tricked. [4]


[1] Yes, that Lucifer. 
[2] Not my opinion, and I apologize for repeating derogatory insults. The English have a long history of treating the Welsh people like second-class citizens. 

[3] Act 4 Scene 7

[4] Thunderdell was indeed tricked by Jack into charging onto a weakened drawbridge, where he fell into a deep moat and almost drowned. 

Partial bibilography:

Boening, John. The Reception of Classical German Literature in England, 1760-1860, Volume 2: A Documentary History from Contemporary Periodicals. Routledge, Feb 11, 2020

Green, Caitlin R. Jack & Arthur: An Introduction to Jack the Giant-Killer, A resource book intended to accompany my article 'Tom Thumb and Jack the Giant Killer: Two Arthurian Fairytales', in Folklore, 118.2 (2007), pp. 123-40.

Green, Thomas. “Tom Thumb and Jack the Giant-Killer: Two Arthurian Fairytales?” Folklore 118, no. 2 (2007): 123–40.

Mackay, Charles. The Gaelic etymology of the languages of western Europe : and more especially of the English and Lowland Scotch and of their slang, cant, and colloquial dialects. London : Published for the author by N. Trübner, 1877?

Murray, Christopher John. Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760–1850. Routledge, May 13, 2013.

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Oxford University Press, 1999

Ratcliffe, Susan. Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. OUP Oxford, Mar 17, 2011.

Steel, Flora Annie. English Fairy Tales. Macmillan And Co., Limited, London. 1918

The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1. The University Society, Inc. 1909.

 This is a project I did for the 2022 College of Three Ravens A&S competition. I submitted this under the category of The Journey: " Show us your project, from the earliest learning of the art to as complete as you want to consider it. You don’t need to have a “complete” project for this one, just show your work! "

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Scroll - A Journey

Description:

This documentation will describe my journey, over the years, towards scribal excellence. I have made several scrolls based on an image from the 12th century manuscript Charleville-Mézières BM212. This paper will document what I have learned while making each scroll.

Details of the original image:

Unfortunately, I was unable to find any details about this manuscript, other than it is owned by a French university and that it dates to the 12th century. I will assume that it was made on vellum and used gold leaf.

First attempt - Technique:

The first time I attempted this image was in late 2009 or early 2010: the start of my journey of scribal work. I made it for a Golden Bee.[1] Looking at this image, now, I can clearly see that I did not know what I was doing.[2] The image was painted on Bristol cellulose paper. Probably 200# weight. 8x10” in size. The paint I was using was water-based acrylic: not gauche or water color. I used the same paint I used to paint RPG miniatures. Working from a high resolution image of the manuscript,[3] I removed the background colors and printed out the image. The design was transferred to the paper by tracing over a light box. I feel that there is no shame in using a light box, as I am better at tracing than I am at drawing free-hand.

Not knowing what I was doing, I slapped the paint onto the paper with no thought towards shading or even detail. Not used to working on paper, it is clear[4] that I was putting one wet layer of paint on top of another. If you look at the background, you can see how blotchy and uneven it is. I believe that my “plan” was to apply enough paint so that it was one, even coat. Unfortunately, too much water soaked into the paper.[5]

The only details that I had managed to do was with the addition of a black pen (Micron). While the majority of the design was traced from the source, I had free-handed the bee of the award. Not too terrible. Certainly looks more bee-like when viewed normal size.

Second attempt - Technique:

The second time I attempted this image was in 2013. It was for a backlog AOA scroll for someone in CAID. This was scroll number 117 for me [6] and I had taken some lessons on painting, and it shows. Like the first attempt, I had traced the image on a lightbox, but this time I used Arches 100% cotton paper: 9x12” in size, 140# hot press.

I used gouache, this time: Reeves for the color and Holbein for the gold. I went heavy on the gold to give it some texture. For the figures and background, I used a very watered down base coat all over, with three or four layers over each area; each layer thicker and thus, darker, than the previous one. Once the paint was dry, I added the white work. I have found that with the gouache, the added white really makes the paint pop, especially the dark paints. I applied the paint so that if the virtual light source came from the upper, left-hand corner of the page, the darkest shades would fall into the right-most corners, producing shadows.

Instead of a solid color background, I had decided to use a diaper pattern, as I had taken a class on diapering shortly before I started on this scroll. The coloration was based on the recipient’s device. Unlike the first attempt, this time was using less paint, and taking steps to attempt to do shading. Finishing with white gouache lines to simulate areas in bright light. I had also replaced my light box; the new one had a brighter, more even bulb which allowed me to see more detail of the source material.

Classes, practice, as well as 117 completed scrolls had taught me some valuable lessons. The most important of which was to see that what I was doing was wrong. That even coats was not achieved by thicker layers of paint, but by thin layers that I allowed to dry before moving on the to next layer. Better paint helped, as well. I use the cartoon method of painting: trace/draw with pencil; ink over the pencil lines; erase the graphite; paint; then ink over the lines. This gives a clear boundary between elements and allows the colors to stand out..

Third attempt - Technique:

The third time I attempted this image was in 2015. It was for a Millrind scroll. This was scroll number 240. Like the second attempt, I had traced the image on a lightbox onto Arches 100% cotton paper: 9x12” in size, 140# hot press.

This was also done with gouache: Reeves for colors and Winsor & Newton for the gold. I liked the diapering on the 2nd attempt, but I used a different style for this scroll. I used a three color square pattern: red, blue, and gold, with white, diagonal lines running through the red and blue squares. Then finished with a dot of black ink at the vertices.

I was learning to use less paint, yet make what was present do more work. I was learning to use more layers of paint in areas that I wished to be in shadow and less paint where I wanted to portray bright light. I was learning about how gouache works: by using thin layers of paint, light has to pass through more pigment before reaching the white of the paper and bouncing back towards our eyes. The layers scatter and diffuse the light, making the paint appear to be deeper, and the colors richer.

Like the second attempt, I used white lines to showcase highlights, but I was also learning to smear[7] the white ink across the paint to create areas of higher contrast. I would apply the ink with a pen, either a JellyRoll or UniBall ball point pen, or with a fountain pen loaded with blueprint ink. Then I would drag the ink with a damp brush from the spot where I wanted maximum brightness into darker areas. This smearing provided a diffusion of contrast from very white to barely detectable against the background color.

If you would compare the green in the ‘T’ on this image with the blue background on the first attempt, you can clearly see that I was much better at applying an even coat. I believe that the ‘T’ required 4 separate layers, each of gouache watered down to the consistency of Cool-Aid. The end result is visually more appealing than the thick layers of paint I used to use. I was still working on shading, but it is clear that I was making improvements.

Fourth attempt - Technique:

I had decided to use this image for a fourth time for this project.[8] There was no assignment, and no rush to make it. This blank will be used at some point: the “paper” was left blank and might have an award badge painted on it, with the tip of the brush painted in whatever color would match the badge.

This is scroll number 489 and I had made some changes to my kit and techniques. I had replaced my lightbox with a slim-line LED model in 2018. I had also added Winsor & Newton red and blue gouache.[9] Also, I had used up all of the blueprint ink that I had purchased for a drafting class I took in high school. The label had fallen off and I could not remember the brand of the ink. I had acquired a bottle of Winsor & Newton white ink and a dip pen to apply the ink.[10] I also was using a new brand of paper, new for me: Fabriano brand paper: 140#, 100% cotton paper

My technique was the same as the third attempt, only more refined. For the scribe’s garb, I first applied an extremely thin wash of paint, blue or red, then, once the wash was dry, I applied a 2nd coat starting from the right-hand edges (where I wanted shadows) and dragged the paint towards the left and lifting the brush up before reaching the left-hand edge. A third coat was applied in the same way, only I lifted the brush up further away from the left-hand edge. Then a fourth coat. Finally, a fifth coat was applied only on the right-hand edge. The method gives a feathering effect in the areas where the paint is transitioning from light to dark and prevents a solid boundary between the layers.

The white ink was applied to the left-hand edge, and where I wanted to simulate the top layers of the folded fabric, and smeared, with a damp brush, towards the right-hand edge. This gives the effect of a 3D surface, with some areas in light, and others in shadow.

I had left the skin unpainted: it’s winter. It’s okay to be pale.

I did make a mistake while doing the diapering. I had traced the image, inked it, then erased the pencil marks. Then I put a grid pattern under the paper, taped in place, and traced the grid pattern using a straight edge.[11] Then I inked the grid pattern. But, if you look at the scribe’s hands, I had inked lines running through the wrists, without noticing. Once I had started painting, I decided not to scrape the wayward ink, but to apply a light gray to the areas and pretend that I had intended on the scribe to have an under tunic.

I kept the same horizontal grid pattern as the third attempt, but I attempted a different motif, one based on an image I saw on Facebook. I was unable, on my practice sheets, to get a consistent red on the blue squares, so I compromised. I put a white box on the blue squares, with a white dot in the center, and a white cross on the red squares. I did apply too much white ink to a couple of the squares, but, overall, I like how they look, and that is the important thing.



The most important lesson I’ve had to learn over the past eleven years, and 489 scrolls, was to not stress over the mistakes, but to learn from them and learn not to “fix” your mistakes if they are too bad. I could scrape away the blob of thick, white ink, and redo that square. But I would at risk of removing too much paper and leaving a spot where the paint soaked into the paper, at that point, and left a greater eye sore.

After 489 scrolls, done for multiple Baronies, Shires, Cantons, and Kingdoms, I have surmounted Mount Stupid, fallen into the Valley of Despair,[12] and I am climbing the Slope of Enlightenment towards the Plateau of Sustainability.[13] I can clearly see the flaws in my work and now know enough see what I had done wrong. Perhaps in another few hundred scrolls, I will start to consider myself an expert on early period illumination reproduction, at least with modern paints. Being able to see one’s mistakes, and know what caused them, is the sign that one has truly started to learn. Knowing how to fix your mistakes, and equally important, how to leave them alone, is the sign that one has started understand the lessons.


[1] A&S award for the Barony of the Rhydderich Hael
[2] At the time, I thought it was great.
[3] From a Pinterest post.
[4] From the 20/20 hindsight of 2022.
[5] Have a joke about paint drying, but it is a bit boring and takes too long to tell.
[6] I had started numbering my scrolls when I started on an A&S50 challenge in 2010: 50 scroll blanks to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the SCA.
[7] Smear in a good way.
[8] 2022
[9] I had to replace a tube of paint: out of the blue.
[10] The ink is too thick to flow through a fountain pen or from my glass dip pen. I acquired a set of nibs that worked with this ink, based on recommendations from anime artists.
[11] I had also marked the boxes I intended to paint blue.
[12] Not to be confused with the Pit of Despair, the Glade of Despair, the Bog of Despair, or the Subshop of Despair.
[13] Dunning-Kruger.