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.