Something Rhymes with Purple - Folklore

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

This week Susie and Gyles delve into the spellbinding world of folklore and unravel the intricate tapestry of its etymology. Together, they cover mystical creatures, elements and charms of this fictional realm. We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our NEW email address here: [e-mail] Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or head to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms' Don’t forget that you can join us in person at our upcoming tour, tap the link to find tickets: www.somethingrhymeswithpurple.com  Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:  Bywhopen (now obsolete): Made senseless; stupefied. Heartspoon: A part of the breastbone. Coccyx: a triangular arrangement of bone that makes up the very bottom portion of the spine below the sacrum. Gyles' poem this week was ‘The ‘Fairies by William Allingham Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren’t go a-hunting For fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap, And white owl’s feather! Down along the rocky shore Some make their home, They live on crispy pancakes Of yellow tide-foam; Some in the reeds Of the black mountain-lake, With frogs for their watchdogs, All night awake. High on the hill-top The old King sits; He is now so old and grey He’s nigh lost his wits. With a bridge of white mist Columbkill he crosses, On his stately journeys From Slieveleague to Rosses; Or going up with music On cold starry nights, To sup with the Queen Of the gay Northern Lights. They stole little Bridget For seven years long; When she came down again Her friends were all gone. They took her lightly back, Between the night and morrow, They thought that she was fast asleep, But she was dead with sorrow. They have kept her ever since Deep within the lake, On a bed of flag-leaves, Watching till she wake. By the craggy hillside, Through the mosses bare, They have planted thorn trees For pleasure, here and there. Is any man so daring As dig them up in spite, He shall find their sharpest thorns In his bed at night. Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren’t go a-hunting For fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap, And white owl’s feather! A Sony Music Entertainment production.   Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts     To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up y'all it's your man Mark Strong Strizzy and your girl Jem the Jem of all Jems and we're hosting Olympic FOMO your essential recap podcast of the 2024 Olympic Games in 20 minutes or less every day we'll be going behind the scenes for all the wins

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amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Hello, Giles here. And knowing that we have a family audience and the Purple people often include some very young people, just to say that today's episode does include some language that some people may find uncomfortable or offensive. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. The sun is shining, at least it is in Oxford, and it's a joy as always to see my fellow, well my podpanion really as I call him, Giles Brandreth, hello. I'm feeling a bit guilty about you Susie because I was in Oxford yesterday and I didn't drop by. No, you didn't tell me.

I didn't tell you and I didn't drop by. I went on a magical trip, actually. I went to travel on the River Isis. I got out of my car at Folly Bridge. Yeah. And went down and met a large number of people who were gathered to celebrate Lewis Carroll. And a day, the special day, the 4th of July, 1862, when Lewis Carroll and a friend of his called Duckworth took three young girls on a rowing expedition. And the girls were the daughters

of the then Dean of Christchurch College, Oxford, because, of course, Lewis Carroll's real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He was a clergyman and a mathematician, and he taught at Christchurch. And these young people were the children of the dean of the college. And they went out for a picnic. And they went along the River Isis to Godstow. And on the journey, one of the girls, a girl called Alice, said to Mr. Dodgson, oh, do tell us a story. And the story that he told first became Alice's Adventures Underground, then Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and really changed the way we think about children's literature.

I mean, it was the first internationally, globally popular children's story. Well, I think enjoyed by adults as well. And still, I think there was a recent survey of the most popular children's books of all time. I think Maurice Sendak came first, but Lewis Carroll came second in the list. But I have to ask, were you in a rowing boat? Were you in a punt? Were you recreating the scene? We weren't recreating the list. But I have to ask though, were you in a rowing boat? Were you in a punt? Were you recreating the scene? We weren't recreating the scene. We were on a little boat, a little chug chug boat that took a group of us along the Isis. It had been organised by the Lewis Carroll Society. And their president was there, a brilliant man called Brian Sibley,

who knows so much about children's literature, you wouldn't believe it, Lindsay Fulcher, the chairman. But for me, the big excitement was that there were descendants there of both Lewis Carroll's family and the family of Alice Liddell. Alice Liddell's great-granddaughter was there and great-grandson. Alice Liddell, the girl who was Alice in Wonderland, grew up and married a man called Hargreaves. You can actually go and see her grave. It's at Lindhurst. It's in Hampshire. Anyway, her great-grandchildren were there. So I felt, oh gosh, this is the actual blood. And equally exciting, Lewis Carroll didn't marry, had no

children, but he had a brother. And the descendants of that brother, they were there. So they were there celebrating their great, great, great uncle, Uncle Charles Dodgson. And so they were of the blood. So it wasn't that exciting. That is. And actually, our theme today is all about stories, gripping stories and ones that we remember from childhood. And Alice in Wonderland is certainly going to be on most people's lists, I would imagine, for one of those. Because we're actually going to talk about fairy tales. And you could argue that Alice in Wonderland is a bit of a fairy tale. But did you have a favourite one growing up? Do you have a favourite one now? It's certainly a fantasy, isn't it, Alice in Wonderland? I would say that my favourite

story growing up, and in fact, the word growing up is relevant to it, is the story of Peter Pan, in which a fairy does appear, Tinkerbell. And I just became obsessed with that. Peter Pan, I think, created in 1904. People often say, what is your favourite year? And I often say 1904 only because I think that's the year that Peter Pan was first published or produced. And my favourite British novel, The Old Wife's Tale, was published that year. But anyway, so Peter Pan is my answer to that. Peter Pan. Did you have a favourite fairy tale when you were a child?

The one that really, really stayed with me, I'm not sure it was favourite because I found it so unsettling and disturbing, was Hansel and Gretel. Because, you know, thinking about it now, it's a sort of classic Grimm Brothers fare, isn't it? It's dark. There are cannibalistic tendencies because this horrible witch wants to actually eat the children. eat the children. But yeah, it really stays with me. And actually, what I love is, and it's only a theory, is a recent piece of information I came across, which is that the cookies that we have stored on our computer and which lead to that really annoying question every time you click on a website, which is, do you accept cookies and all of that stuff? It's so annoying. But actually, the word cookie may go back to Hansel and Gretel and the idea of leaving a trail. I mean, they did use breadcrumbs, I think, didn't they? But it's the idea of, you know, when you have cookies stored on your computer, it kind of shows the trail that you've been navigating on the web, which I think is lovely. So, yeah, I think this one. Tell me about the Grimm brothers,

because you being a German scholar will know more about them. And they were two brothers, weren't they? One was called Wilhelm and the other was called Jacob. Yeah. And I think they collected these fairy tales. They didn't necessarily write them themselves. They wrote them up. They were folkloric.

They existed already. And they collected them and put them together in a book. Is that right? Yeah. And I think they're just, this is me being a German geek, but I really loved Franz Kafka when I was doing German A-level and at university. So Franz Kafka's sort of surreal world, I think, is almost very much rooted in those grim fairy tales. It's kind of, you know, a sort of central human character and then inhuman characters all around them. And it's a kind of ugly beauty, isn't it, really? So, the Grimms were extraordinary

in that what they collected was dark, I mean, beyond belief, really. Absurd, often comical, sometimes. And I wouldn't really call them fairy tales as we would understand them now. But, you know, but they were absolutely, as you say, collectors. So, and their collection became one of the most influential works of folklore in Europe, let alone Germany and even the world. So, they appeared between 1812 and 1857, seven editions of their tales, and each of them were different. And they were, the book was called, certainly in English translation, Grimm's Fairy Tales, wasn't it? Yes, I think there's a kindle and house merchant, which is Children and Household Tales.

It is one of theirs. And that has even been listed by UNESCO in its Memory of the World Register, which is an extraordinary thing. So yes, I mean, they are hugely important in our cultural heritage as we're growing up, but it's extraordinary when you look at these. I mean, I think most of us are used to the fact that fairy tales and nursery rhymes are often quite dark, but as children, we don't see that darkness so much, or we kind of accept it and focus perhaps on the lightness. But we're here today, aren't we, to talk about the language of folklore, because it is rich and wonderful. And you talked about fairies, so should we kick off with fairies?

Let's kick off with a fairy. Yeah. What's the origin of a fairy? Well, it's quite relevant to Grimm and that sense of darkness, really, because today we think of fairies as being these tiny, delicate little features that are powerful, but ultimately very benevolent. But actually, it goes back to the Latin fata, the fate. So, they're very much linked with fate, really. So, they were considered to be incredibly powerful. And the spelling fairy is actually first recorded in the Fairy Queen. So, this is F-A-E-R-I-E. I mean, Spencer's Fairy Queen. Edmund Spencer's, which celebrated Queen Elizabeth I, who was the figure of the Fairy Queen herself.

And there were various other names for fairies at the time. But yeah, just, you know, I think as we'll go through, we'll see just how malevolent some of these creatures are that today we see as these quite cute little things like gnomes and elves and things. We'll move on to those. But yeah, very powerful beginnings in the fates. And the fates, if you remember, were the three goddesses really who presided over the birth and life of humans. And they were thought to be spinning thread. So they spun their thread, they measured their

thread, and then they cut it. And it was, can you remember the names of the three fates? No. Clopho. Oh, yes. Lachesis and Atropos. So they were the fates. So yes. And they have meaning. Those three words also have meanings, don't they? Yeah. Well, or at least they gave their names to various things in English. So atropos, which literally means inflexible in Greek, it's actually now behind atropine, which is a really poisonous compound that you'll find in Deadly Nightshade and that kind of thing. So that's a bit grim. And lachesis is, it means getting by lot. So again, it's all about your sort of destiny. I'm not sure that that has actually crept into English as a separate word, but that's where it comes from. It's all about the lot or what we are allotted

in our lifetimes. It's so intriguing to me that so much of this is dark. And yet these are things that we associate with childhood and stories that we tell children. And some of them have been sort of adapted into Christmas pantomimes that are supposed to be celebratory. You come from this German tradition because you love the German language. I come from a more French tradition because I went to the French Lycée in London when I was a little boy, where we were introduced to Charles Perrault,

who had his fairy tales that he recorded earlier than the Grimms. I mean, I think his big book was published in 1697, and he's the person who introduced us to Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty. Maybe these aren't so much, although these are folklore tales, aren't they? Even if they don't contain elves and goblins and trolls and all the rest. Yes, they're sort of, what do we call them, fairy tales? Because they don't always involve fairies,

do they? Fairy tales. I don't think that's a strict criterion, although the purple people put me right there. But, okay, wait till we get to elves, because when you say you like the light and the dark. So, you know, the elves that will be accompanying Santa in his workshop every Christmas. Well, elf actually is related to the German word Alp, and an Alptraum is a nightmare. Which will give you a clue because they were really considered to be very, very frightening. They were these dwarfish beings that produced diseases, did cause nightmares. And if you remember, a nightmare was this female monster that was said to come and lie on the chests of sleepers

and almost suffocate them. These elves would steal children and they would substitute changelings in their place. And this is quite relevant linguistically as well, because a relative of elf is oaf. And the very first meaning of an oaf was a changeling child. Gosh. One considered inferior and to have been put there by the elves, but not as authentic and clever as the real thing. So that's a bit grim. And it was only later really that they became more like faeries. So they became daintier and Tolkien gave us elves and elvens. So elven was

around, a female elf, before Tolkien, but he revived it and used it really to mean relating to elves. But of course, we have elfin as well, which is a descendant of that. And if you've got elfin features, they're kind of small and delicate, but you've got a slightly mischievous charm about you if you're elfin. Yes, but that's a compliment, isn't it? To describe someone as elfin. I remember the actress mia farrow was often described as elfin yes sort of pixie really delicate exactly pixie like look exactly but how interesting so the word oaf when you say somebody you're an oaf it actually is a derivation or it's come from elf yeah it says all part of the same family and then go goblins, I'm not sure.

I think actually goblins have preserved a bit of their mischief-making, is putting it mildly. I'm not sure I'd want to meet a goblin, would you? Well, I don't know. You know, goblin, your food, is bad for your elf. I mean, I'm intrigued by all these characters.

In some ways, I would quite like to meet them, but a goblin is a wicked one, isn't it? A goblin is pinching you. Well, tell me about the origin and what they're supposed to be. Okay, so this is from the old French, Gobeline. But ultimately, it goes back to Gobelinus with a capital G. And this was a proper name. It was the name of a mischievous spirit who was said to haunt the region of Evre in northern France. And we're talking 12th century

here. But ultimately, the term may be related to a German word, kobold, K-O-B-O-L-D. And that was a German spirit who haunted houses, but also lived underground and in caves and mines. And when miners were looking for kobold, well, actually, when they were looking for precious materials, often they would come across nickel and other sort of inferior metals. And they would call those cobbled, which gave us cobbled, which means they were put there by the sort of demon or spirits of the mines mischievously. So, yeah, so that's the goblin. And the hob in Hobgoblin, and I think we're going to talk in one of our bonus episodes about A Midsummer Night's Dream, aren't we? Would you call Robin Goodfellow a Hobgoblin? You could.

I don't think he's described as that in the play, but maybe he is. No. Well, the Hob, just as in Robin, Robin Goodfellow, the Hob is a short for Robin. So it's kind of all linked. It's just that use that we come across all the time of a name, person's name used generically. Gosh. use that we come across all the time of a name, person's name used generically. Gosh. I see a pixie as related to an elf, whereas I think a troll is more like a goblin.

Oh yeah, we can come on to those. Okay. So, and we've got gremlins as well, haven't we? So a pixie, pixies are normally quite kindly, I think, and benign. So they are supernatural and they're usually portrayed as being quite small, aren't they? And sort of human-like in form, pointy ears and a pointy hat. And it's interesting we've been talking about Midsummer Night's Dream because it actually is probably related to Puck and Puck in folklore as a mischievous sprite, but also another name as we know for Robin Goodfellow, a Shakespeare torto us to. Not completely sure where Puck itself comes from. It might be Celtic, but we're not completely sure.

So Puck came before Pixie? Yeah. Because people talk about having, say, a Puckish sense of humour, meaning a slightly naughty sense of humour. Puckish personality. Puck is this wonderful character, isn't he, in that play? Well, it depends how you play him. I think he can be an wonderful character, isn't he, in that play? Well, it depends how you play him. I think he can be an amusing character,

but I think also he can be quite scary. Or he, she, or it can be those things. A bit like Pan, really. So the god Pan was either seen as being very sort of mischievous and a troublemaker and causing panic, literally that comes from him, because his voice was so loud and he would play tricks on passersby in dark forests by making these eerie noises and causing panic. Or he can be seen as being really horrible and sexually voracious and all sorts. So yeah,

double-sided. But I mentioned gremlins. I'm not sure if we put gremlins in folklore, really, but they were always having really imaginary mischievous sprites like Puck, but usually regarded as being responsible for a mechanical or electronic failure of a kind. And this is quite interesting because the earliest mention of a gremlin is from the US in the 1920s, but they are really particularly associated with the Second World War. And we think it's a combination of goblin and Fremlins. And Fremlins was a type of beer during the Second World War. It was a brand. So, Gremlins were the sort of creatures you might see when you've had one too many. Gosh, touch the Gremlins.

Yeah. And you mentioned trolls as well, well of course taking on an entirely new meaning these days lots of scandinavian relatives this one but the first english use actually was in shetland and then the terms adopted more widely into english in the mid-1800s but going back to scandinavia in their folklore these, and we'll remember them. What's the tale where there are trolls under the bridge? Oh, Billy Goats Gruff? Yeah, Billy Goats Gruff. So these goats have to cross the bridge, don't they?

But there's a troll underneath. Yeah. And so similarly, trolls in the Scandinavian folklore are really ugly giants, really, that live in caves. And we think it might come from, well, certainly got a Scandinavian root because there's a Swedish troll and a Danish troll. But today, of course, as I mentioned, you know, we talk about trolling online, which is, you know, what we also call flaming. So sending horrible comments, etc. Not quite sure if this troll is related. It would absolutely make sense that, you know, there's this, the idea of this sort of monster lurking just when you least expect it, and who might come out and show their ugliness. It may also come from

an old French word, troller, meaning to wander here and there. And in early German, trollen was to stroll. So they may be people who just literally are strolling through the internet, leaving their mark in a rather negative way. I'm intrigued by why we are so fascinated by these creatures, these folkloric fairy tale creatures, because we are. Do you know a wonderful painting called The Fairy Fella's Masterstroke? It's by a painter, a Victorian painter called Richard Dadd.

And there was a big fad in Victorian times for what became known as fairy paintings. People, really, lots of artists. There's another one that I love by somebody called John Anster Fitzgerald. This is sort of mid-Victorian era. Fascinating. And clearly people really are held by these curious, slightly malevolent, small, usually small creatures.

Yeah. I mean, there was the big photo hoax. Well, this is the Cottingley Fairies. Oh, yes. And these were in 1917. So these were two young cousins who were sort of filmed with lots of fairies around them. I mean, looking at them now, it's so obvious that they've been photoshopped. It fooled Arthur Conan Doyle, didn't it? He was very into these psychic phenomena and was really excited to see the photographs. They do, totally, they do look like little cutouts, don't they, by the young girls? I mean, I don't think today we are as obsessed as we once were. But do you have any idea what it could be about these little creatures

that so intrigues us? Well, I think we have never really lost our fascination and curiosity about a life beyond ours, whether it's UFOs, whether it's ghosts. We are absolutely fascinated by the supernatural, supernatural meaning above the natural order. So I think it's all part and parcel of that. But I think maybe because of the fairy tales that we've grown up with, we are also fascinated by this dark side. I think it's quite integral to their appeal that there is cruelty in there and there is willful destruction, etc. And usually a happy ending what tolkien called his eucatastrophe do you remember sort of pulling something good out of out of disaster eu catastrophe um it's such a good word we're learning a lot today should we take a very quick break

and then yeah well maybe go segue into the world of mermaids and leprechauns oh yes i want to tell you about ogres as well. I want to discover your ogre. And also, I wouldn't mind eventually ending up as a gargoyle. You can tell me where that word comes from. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not.

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Yes, this season we're going to be putting the likes of Tommy from Peaky Blinders, Cersei from Game of Thrones on the couch to learn why their behavior creates so much drama. So make sure you press the follow button to get new episodes as soon as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Shrink the Box is a Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. This is Something Rhymes with Purple. I'm Giles Branworth and I'm asking Susie Dent if a gargoyle is relevant to our discussion on folkloric creatures and where their names came from, fairies, elves, goblins, gnomes, is a gargoyle part of this litany? I don't know if you would call it.

I mean, I can see the connection because they do look very monstrous, don't they? But a gargoyle, we know them, don't we, from buildings, these sort of ugly caricatures of sort of strange faces, and often water will be pouring out of them. Famously in Oxford, there are some amazing ones on the Sheldonian Theatre, which you will know, Charles. But yeah, gargoyle actually, the water here is relevant because gargoyle goes back to the throat. When we gargle, we are using a relative of gargoyle because the water is kind of almost coming, spilling out of their throat. But I'm not sure if any have been actually based on folkloric creatures i think probably not but i may be wrong did we discuss gnomes no we didn't discuss gnomes and now that

is from modern latin gnomus g-n-o-m-u-s but it was used by paracelsus as a synonym of Pygmaeus, which gave us pygmy ultimately. And the Pygmaeus was a mythical race of very small people who were said to inhabit parts of Ethiopia and India. So yeah, again, sort of a mythical creature. And I think the garden gnomes and their sort of jolly smiles, although slightly sinister looking, I always feel, they are definitely a slightly more benevolent descendant of the original gnomes who were much like all the other ones that we've discussed. You know, they could be pretty mean. I love a garden gnome. I have a few garden gnomes. I can't imagine that.

Including a replica of the first British garden gnome. I think garden gnomes were brought to Britain from Germany. And the first one known in the British Isles, I think, is at Lamport Hall, which is in Leicestershire, I think. Okay. The Isham family have a garden gnome there, the original one. And I've got a replica of it in my garden. And I've got a gnome that looks a bit like me, a Giles gnome. With a jumper?

It's wearing a funny jumper. When people talk about a gnomic utterance, you know, sometimes you read in a novel, he made a gnomic utterance. What is that supposed to mean? That kind of means inscrutable, doesn't it? It's kind of enigmatic. And that's got a very different origin that goes back to the Greek for to know and judgment and thought and things. Oh, it's nothing to do with gnomes at all? No. How interesting. No, nothing to do.

So if it's a gnome, accoutrance is usually quite enigmatic, but also you can use it to mean short and pithy. But I think most of us will know that kind of deliberately ambiguous thing. So yeah, it's all about knowledge, the search for knowledge. We're in the world of fairy tales, Jack and the Beanstalk.

There's an ogre. Where does the word ogre come from? Well, if you love Tolkien, as I think we do, you'll know about the orcs in Lord of the Rings, who are really ugly goblin-like creatures that sometimes ride wolves. I mean, the films make them absolutely terrifying. Now, he didn't invent that, Tolkien. This had already been used by the Anglo-Saxons. And an orc was a demon, and it is a relative of an ogre. And both of them are descendants of an Italian word, orco, O-R-C-O, meaning a man-eating giant. But Orcus was the name of a Roman god of the underworld. And it's from him, ultimately, if you take it back far enough, that we get both the orc and

the ogre. So again, Tolkien sort of reignited orc for us, but ogre has not really gone away. But it's funny, you might call someone an ogre, mightn't you? But it's still got a very specific folkloric kind of feel to it. I can picture an ogre, clearly. As I can also picture a leprechaun clearly which is a kind of elfin gobbling in pixie like gnomic character or not gnomic gnome like character yeah and i think of it as being irish why do i think of it as being irish is the word irish yes it is and it's definitely a staple of irish folklore the leprechaun and it's based on old irish words that mean small body because as you said they are they are small as well as impish and and mischievous so we haven't mentioned imp actually because I think

imp is a nice one because again it can be applied to a sort of mischievous child really and that originally meant a child of the devil or a person regarded as such, because it goes back to a Greek word meaning to implant. And I think that might be a reference to either a succubus of old or the idea of a changeling. But a succubus was a female demon, wasn't it, believed to have sex with sleeping men. So actually it would be an incubus, wouldn't it? It would be an incubus if it was a child born because it was a male demon believed to have sex with sleeping women. So I think the whole idea is that something is implanted or grafted and that's where imp came from. But again, it's just diluted massively, isn't it? Because you cheeky imp is very sweet.

It's extraordinary to me how dark so much of this is. And we've mentioned the brothers Grimm, who collected fairy tales, and I mentioned Charles Perrault, who also collected fairy tales. But there were writers who created their own fairy tales. People like Oscar Wilde wrote fairy tales. Peter Pan is a fairy tale of a kind. Lewis Carroll, there are sort of elements of the fairy tale in his stories. But if we go back to the great fairy tale writer is Hans Christian Andersen. And I think of The Little Mermaid, where I've been and seen this statue.

I've seen it in Copenhagen. It's beautiful, but it's so small, isn't it? Everyone says that. Oh, I was expecting something really huge. And it's absolutely tiny. It's delicate. He was an odd character, Hans Christian Hansen. I went, oh, yes, his life story is, well, it does bear close examination.

It's a very intriguing life story. Lots of unhappiness, loneliness, fraught relationships that didn't quite go where he hoped they would. And he had a sort of love, thwarted love for the Swedish nightingale. sort of love, thwarted love for the Swedish nightingale. I'm trying to remember what the singer was called, who he craved for her attention and never quite achieved it. And famously came to stay in England. He was invited by Charles Dickens to come and stay.

And Dickens thought he'd be staying for a few days. And several weeks later, he'd come down for breakfast and Hans Christian Andersen was still sitting there. Oh, wow. He gave us the princess and the pea. I used to love that when I was little. With the mermaid, though, he didn't invent the mermaid as a character. That's been around. The idea of a mermaid is long. It's an old one, isn't it? Yes, absolutely. So the merbit, if you think of mer in French, la mer, is the sea and the

maid is the woman. So yeah, 1350 is the first mention in English of the mermaid. So we're talking head and trunk of a woman, aren't we, and the tail of a fish. And in their early uses, they're often compared with the sirens, the sirens of classical mythology who sang so beautifully, but who lured sailors onto the rocks and their peril. But nowadays they're depicted as these beautiful women with flowing golden or red hair, etc, etc. So, you know, we've kind of Disney-fied a lot of this, haven't we, really? Well, we have Disney-fied it, because so much of it was dark. I think it might be time to go to our correspondents. There's so much to say here,

isn't it? I think it is. I think it is. We must come back to the subject. I love it, because I want to hear also how all these characters, the things that they do, how they cast a spell, you know, where all that comes from. So we must do that another day. But people do keep writing to us, which is fantastic. People even come and see us. We're currently on stage. I think our next show is at the Salisbury Playhouse on the 17th of June.

It's a matinee. We like a matinee. 2.15 in the afternoon. Get in touch. You know, go to somethingrhymeswithpurple.com and you can discover how you can get tickets for that. It's a lovely theatre, the Salisbury Playhouse. Do you know Salisbury Cathedral?

Do you know Salisbury? Yeah, I know Salisbury Cathedral, yes. But I don't know the playhouse, so I'm really looking forward to that. Lots. When we get there, I know Salisbury quite well. Lots to tell you about that. But people have been in touch.

Who has been in touch with us this week, Susie? They have. Okay, so the first one is from Cherry... Is that C-E-R-R? Kerry. I think it'll be pronounced Kerry. Hello, Susie and Giles. Walking fields and woods in the recent springtime,

I have noticed the new blooms of cheerful and colourful dandelions. I often wonder where the origin of this word comes from. Is there a lion somewhere that is dandy? Fascinating podcast. Thank you, Kerry from Wales. And now you know the answer to this, don't you? I know you do because we've talked about this before. Can you remember the dandelion? No, I can you? I know you do because we've talked about this before. Can you remember the dandelion? No, I can't. I mean, I love the idea of a dandelion.

There's a wonderful lyric in the film The Wizard of Oz where the lion is a bit of a dandy and he talks about being a dandelion. He is, isn't he? Go on, tell me what is the origin. Okay, so if you look at the leaves of a dandelion, you will get the origin of its name because they're slightly toothed. And dandelion goes back to dents, as in dent, de lion, a lion's tooth, dents de lion. And it came into English in the late Middle Ages. But you may remember that in French, it's got a much ruder name, the dandelion, which is pisse en lit.

Oh, yes. Piss in the bed. Yes, it does. It takes pisse en lit to come back to me. Yes, go on. We have piss the bed for a long time in English as another name for the dandelion because it was well known for its diuretic properties. You can still buy dandelion tea possibly to help you with the same thing. Absolutely.

But yeah, dandelion, that's where it comes from. Very good. Okay. How about the next one? Have you got that one there? I have the next one here. It's from Jack. Hi, Susie and Giles.

As ever, thanks for the podcast. It provides a weekly linguistic reprieve from the humdrum chores of life when I can dive into the world of etymology with you both. I have a water-based question. Whilst visiting a rather wonderfully hidden waterfall near Bowes Castle in County Durham, I gave myself pause to wonder about the origin

of some fluvial words. The waterfall I stood before was called a force, and in the Yorkshire Dales, we about the origin of some fluvial words. The waterfall I stood before was called a force, and in the Yorkshire Dales we have the very famous Janet's Foss. Indeed, there is the river Foss that flows through my hometown in York. I'm guessing these words are siblings, especially given that I know from some rudimentary Icelandic lessons the word for waterfall is Foss too. If this is the case, is the word faucet also related in some way? Maybe given that both a waterfall and a faucet produce a steady flow of water? All the best for the week ahead. Jack. Wasn't that intriguing?

Oh, this is why I love the purple people. I mean, honestly, some of them are just experts. I fancy doing some rudimentary Icelandic lessons. I'm well impressed, Jack. Okay, well, I can't answer this definitively. I wish I could. But I'll start with Foss, meaning a waterfall or a cascade. So it seems to be from Scandinavian, as Jack says, and it is a respelling of force, which he also mentions in his email. So it began as force and a variant was Foss. But that force is not equivalent to our use of force to mean power is actually a borrowing we think from early Scandinavian and the Norse the Viking word was fors f-o-r-s as for the etymology of that it may be linked to the use of fos to mean with an e at end, to mean a ditch or a trench. So that actually goes back to the

Roman words, the verb fodere, meaning to dig. And that in turn gave us a fossil because fossils are things that are dug up. And the Foss Way is one of the four great Roman roads of Britain. And it's probably called that because of the ditch on either side of it. So that's something dug up. So it's quite possible that if you take it back far enough, the Ur route, if you like, the ultimate route will be similar for a Foss and a Force. I'd love to go to Janet's Foss, by the way, because it sounds absolutely beautiful. And I think they used to have sheep dipping in there. Anyway, but Fawcett, I think is probably from a different family because the first meaning of faucet was a bung for the hole of a cask, also a tap for drawing liquid from a container. And we took that from

the old French faucet, F-A-U-S-S-E-T. And that in turn is from a verb meaning to bore, as in to bore into the ground. And you'll see there are similarities there. So, I mean, maybe these are linked. If you stretch the family tree far enough, you might find that this idea of boring a hole in the ground, digging into the ground, and ultimately sort of producing water are all linked. And it's an intriguing thought. And I'm going to pass this on to colleagues at the OED

because they will be able to continue the trail. Isn't that great? I love that question. Very good. Very good indeed. Very powerful. Yeah. Well, if people, if they want to get in touch with us,

it's very simple. You just drop us an email. It's purple at somethingelse.com, something without a G. Now look, every week you come up with three unusual words. Where do you find them? In all sorts of weird and wonderful places. So a couple of days before

our podcast, I look at my bookshelf and I think, where am I going to get something from this time? And I will pull a random volume down and have a joyful riffle through for half an hour. Sometimes though, I do make a note of things that I just come across, you know, just while I'm looking at the OED for something, because it's a bit like Brewer's Dictionary, Phrase and Fable. Once you're in, you don't find what you're looking for, but you find something a lot more interesting. So my trio today, well, actually, I might have given you these before, but in my show, a theatre show, I often talk about words that I wish we could bring back. And on the list is something called a heart spoon, which is an anatomical word

for the tiny little indent at the bottom of your sternum, with the sternum being the breastbone. So if you feel down under your chest, you'll find a little kind of hollow, and that's the heart spoon, which I think is beautiful. And then it got me thinking about the tailbone, which has got lots of synonyms for it in the dictionary, including rump bone, which is not very nice. But we know it's the coccyx, which is very difficult to spell. Can you spell that? Yes. C-O-C-Y-X. It's double C. C-O-C-C-Y-X. It's really tricky, that one. I always think that should be in Spelling Bees. Anyway, the coccyx, the reason I'm adding coccyx to the list today is i only this week discovered

where it comes from any idea i don't think you will no it's from the greek for cuckoo because if you look at the coccyx sort of side on in an x-ray it looks like a cuckoo's bill a beak isn't that gorgeous i really like that one anyway so i've got coccyx, heart spoon, and then my third one is an obsolete word I just like, the sound of bywoppen, which is by, B-Y-W-H-O-P-E-N, and it means stupefied. So it can either mean being taken totally by surprise, as in blutterbund, which has been in my trio before, or just a bit kind of stupefied and senseless. By Whoppin. So there you go, they're my three for you today. Very good.

What's your poem? I could only have one poem for you today. It had to be a poem called The Fairies. And it was written by a Victorian poet, William Allingham, 1824 to 1889. At that time when the fascination with fairies was at its height, when people were writing these amazing fairy stories and painting these extraordinary pictures with fairies. This poem is called The Fairies. Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen,

we daren't go a-hunting for fear of little men. We folk are good folk, trooping all together, green jacket, red cap, and white owl's feather. Down along the rocky shore, some make their home. They live on crispy pancakes of yellow-tide foam. Some in the reeds of the black mountain lake, with frogs for their watchdogs, all night awake. High on the hilltop the old king sits. He is now so old and grey, he's nigh lost his wits. With a bridge of white mist, column kill he crosses on his stately journeys

from Sliverleague to Rosses, or going up with music on cold starry nights to sup with the queen of the gay northern lights. They stole little Bridget for seven years long. When she came down again, her friends were all gone. They took her lightly back between the night and morrow. They thought that she was fast asleep, but she was dead with sorrow. They have kept her ever since, deep within the lake, on a bed of flag leaves, watching till she wake. By the craggy hillside, through the mosses bare, they have planted thorn trees for pleasure here and there. If any man so daring as dig them up in spite, he shall find their sharpest thorns in his bed at night. Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen,

we daren't go a-hunting for fear of little men. We folk, good folk, trooping all together, green jacket, red cap, and white owl's feather. So it's a haunting poem, isn't it? Poor little Bridget. Yeah, poor little Bridget. But it's absolutely like one of these extraordinary, rather grotesque fairy tales of yesteryear, done in verse by William Allingham. They Keeper in the Lake. Yeah, amazing.

Thank you for that. And thank you to you for listening as always. Thank you for following us. Thank you for mentioning us on social media. Just a reminder, it's at Something Rhymes on Twitter and Facebook or at Something Rhymes With on Instagram. And if you fancy it, there is the Purple Plus Club where you can listen ad-free

and there are some exclusive bonus episodes on just what we love to talk about words and language and names people um something rhymes with purple is the sony music entertainment production it was produced by naya dio with additional production from hannah newton chris skinner jen mystery and our very own hobgoblin more More pixie than no. Absolutely. He is. We wouldn't want to change him, would we? We won't have him as a changeling. No, he will wrap a girdle around this world.

It's gully.