Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/343

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Manx Folk-lore and Superstitions.
287

some miles to the south of Peel. It is to Glen Rushen, then, that the Fenodyree is supposed to be gone; but on visiting that valley last year in quest of Manx-speaking peasants, I could find nobody there who knew anything of him. I suspect that the spread of the English language even there has forced him to leave the island altogether. Lastly, with regard to the term Fenodyree, I may mention that it is the word used in the Manx Bible of 1819 for satyr in Is. xxxiv, 14,[1] where we read in the English Bible as follows: "The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow." In the Vulgate the latter clause reads: "et pilosus clamabit alter ad alterum." The term Fenodyree has been explained by Cregeen in his Manx Dictionary to mean one who has hair for stockings or hose. That answers to the description of the hairy satyr, and seems fairly well to satisfy the phonetics of the case, the words from which he derives the compound being fynney,[2] 'hair', and oashyr, 'a stocking'; but as oashyr seems to come from the old Norse hosur, the plural of hosa, 'hose or stocking', the term Fenodyree cannot date before the coming of the Norsemen; and I am inclined to think the idea more Teutonic than Celtic; at any rate I need not point out to you the English counterparts of this hairy satyr in the hobgoblin, 'Lob lie by the Fire', and Milton's Lubber Fiend, whom he describes as one that

"Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings."

  1. The spelling there used is phynnodderee, to the perversity of which Cregeen calls attention in his Dictionary.
  2. I am inclined to think that the first part of the word fenodyree is not fynney, the Manx word for 'hair', but the Scandinavian word which survives in the Swedish fjun, 'down'. Thus fjun-hosur (for the fjun-hosur suggested by analogy) would explain the word fenodyree, except its final ee, which is obscure. Compare also the magic breeks called finn-brækr (see Vigfusson's Dic. s. v. finnr), to which Mr. Plummer kindly calls my attention.