My heading hopefully means "Phonetic puzzle" both ways so apologies if not but I wanted to target Irish Gaelic readers despite my woeful ignorance of that variety. I have a very basic geographical Scottish Gaelic vocabulary, for instance, but was still totally unaware of "fogharach" which I see is common to both forms. OK, to business ... The recent arrival of Another new lurker - AKA Laochra Beag (Little Warrior) - made me wonder how many here may be sufficiently conversant with Hiberno-English and/or Irish Gaelic to help me solve this 206yo low-tech non-military linguistic conundrum which has so far defeated even so-called experts ... So - QUESTION - what the heck are "lethergothorns" !? Trying not to bias free thinking, I'll just add that it was an English diarist's phonetic transliteration of a loquacious Irishman's reference to certain 'gentry' - if you catch my drift - presumably rattling off several words fast enough to sound like one to said diarist's untrained ear. Nor, BTW, does the most obvious "let-her-go thorns" really cut the mustard unless I've missed sentient plant life somewhere in my folklore research. And, finally, the absence of an 'a' is likewise irrelevant given the laxer spelling standards common back when this was written in 1814. To the same end, I'm saving detailed context and current theories until you've had a chance to form your own first impressions and opinions ... so that's about it for now except to say that I expect the answer to be forehead-slappingly self evident to anyone with a smattering of Irish folklore - "wood for the trees" &c. Hoping to intrigue you for the craic or potential 'expert'-debunking kudos, Steve
Ah Red Goblin, my forum name has hidden (and as yet unrealised) commercial activities. None of which I would use here. I am indeed resident in Ireland but not a native speaker. Do not dispair however, I will make enquiries. Can you tell us anything else about context and were a)this was heard and b)did the listener have a regional accent of their own? Cheers, John
Thanks John - nice to have a real name to call you at last and please call me either Steve or just Red if you must. "I want to hire you, Mr. Lewton. "Please, call me Lewton. Mr. sounds so formal." (Discworld Noir) NB1: I'm technically constrained by asking this on behalf of the diary's inheritor who is irrationally wary of me spilling too many beans about his marginally-famous forebear. Well, sometimes 'you can't have your cake and eat it' so I'm exercising pragmatism. OK, so having transcribed his whole diary to best understand its decidedly dubious handwriting to so far crack 1 of its 2 puzzle words, I'd provisionally characterize its author as: Urban Cantabrigian - so, in answer to your question, possibly an East Anglian accent/dialect ? (strictly speaking, though, I don't know where he was actually born & raised as nothing seems to be known of the family before the diary and nobody seems prepared to put in the greater effort required to check genealogical parish records prior to Civil Registration) Quite well educated - good vocabulary & general knowledge for a 20yo though weak on grammar Impecunious commercial artist with matching temperament - attached transcript clip reflects what I read as hasty penmanship by a hand struggling to keep pace with a quick mind as his headings are much clearer I have provided this clip as a screenshot - mainly to: Limit access to forum members Foil robotic extraction of text shown So please don't let anyone else study it long enough to betray trust. I'm hoping us solving this final puzzle will encourage the inheritor to publish this fascinating diary but, meanwhile, the 6 red words should suffice as full context reminders - only the 6th already given above being oddly spelt. My greyed-out comments are naturally optional. NB2: The chance-met salt and his reportedly-strong brogue are pretty much a closed book given only his nationality and dearth of Bristolian anchorage records to maybe help identify his home port by listing all vessels which may have awaited his arrival. "On one thing most critics agree: that before the docks were taken over by Bristol Corporation in 1848, the port of Bristol was badly mismanaged," sadly proving only too true when I tried digging for a fuller picture than given by commercially-blinkered Guild wharfage records so far still only remaining on paper as if through a keyhole. Next up should be discussion of ideas & theories but I'd rather presently leave it that I've crammed dozens of folklore books in the 4 years I've so far spent on this conundrum. Oh, OK then, here's a big multiple hint: If you pick the wrong sort of thorn, lunantishees could drive you batty whereas the guardians of the right sort seem unaccountably anonymous in the relevant literature. If only one could 'go far' enough to 'voice' their opinion and tell us! Windbag out ...
Hi Steve Well from the clip you've shown the Irishman references the semi-sacred Hawthorne. These are (still) considered farie tree and as a gateway the their realm guarded by a spirit/fairy. It bring appalling luck to chop one down. Some much so the as recently as 1999 Clare County Council re-routed a by-pass rather than chop one down. I am trying to gather a list of different spirits in Erse. Cheers John
Also hi to Chris and others apparently interested. Yes, John, such road-diversion stories seem plentiful for striking some as quaint in this day & age. Plus, on that same motoring note, tales of Yank DMC sealing their fate by such disrespect are still debated (e.g.). There is also regional variation - hence NB2 above - but, and please correct me if wrong here, I'm not buying touristic cliches like solitary leprechauns admittedly sometimes said to sit & work under fairy bushes without offending anyone but those optimistic enough to imagine them burying their legendary crocks there too. And, yes, I have read tales of 3/5 occasionally gathering together but these were more remarkable for their sheer atypical rarity. No, as hinted, I deduce 'lethergothorns' to be the mysteriously-anonymous may/hawthorn/whitethorn equivalent of the lunantishee (so-called moon fairies) for sloe/blackthorn. The Victorian folklorists thus seem to have arrived just too late to collect this word which had apparently fallen out of use after the sailor's time. Re lists, BTW, 2 of the biggest I've already checked are Briggs' encyclopedia and Celtic Fairy List - Briggs even including Denham's huge list.on pp93-94 - though not bothering to assemble them into my own exhaustive list such as I would hope already exists somewhere else like the Folklore of Ireland Council, who sadly seek to monetize such info rather than promote interest through free dissemination, or the National Folklore Collection which bizarrely replied. "This word as written (lethergothoms) refers to the Gaelic word lucharachán - puny creature, pigmy, dwarf, elf as defined by Niall O'Donnell's Gaeilge-English dictionary. And so could perhaps be used in this context as a reference to a leprechaun-like creature." My underlines and yes we were reading the word slightly differently back then - the inheritor having had it as "lethergothams" but my comparison below eventually changing my mind - but hands up anyone who can please explain that lingual non-sequitur to me who can't really understand lenition enough to equate "th" with "ch"! And, as for the context, completely ignored/misunderstood from same diary clip ! Besides, aren't most sidhe commonly perceived as smaller than us and why am I suddenly reminded of a fictional racehorse called Lethargic Lad !? Steve
Steve I am hoping to get some interest locally in this but I agree with you that you are not looking at the dreaded leprechaun. It is merely that that creature is the standard small Irish creature of folklore and everything is referenced via them. They are always working - often as cobblers or tailors rather than lurking about. However Si and other types of fairies are all small and some guard 'gateways' but, to further reinforce your problems are without a specific job title. I may be AFK but will be following this up. Cheers John
What about the Welsh Knocker (just googled it) The Knocker, Knacker, Bwca (Welsh), Bucca (Cornish) or Tommyknocker (US) is a mythical human-like creature in Welsh, Cornish and Devon folklore. It is closely related to the Irish leprechaun or clurichaun, Kentish kloker and the English and Scottish brownie. Knocker (folklore) - Wikipedia
TTFN, John, but long story short on Clive's idea - Briggs states, on p255 of her encyclopedia, "Buccas, Gathorns, Knockers, Nickers, Nuggies and Spriggans are individual and collective appellations for the sprites that haunt the tin-mines of Cornwall - They are for the most part a harmless folk, occupied in mining on their own account, out of sight of the human miners. These latter, however, take pains not to annoy the goblin workers; whistling and swearing, for instance, are held to be obnoxious to mine-spirits, and must therefore be avoided." That's her only mention of "gathorn" - I love e-book searchability! - and apparently nothing to do with Ireland or bushes but it's too close a partial match to ignore so thanks for that in hopes of John seeing this in time!
But then we have the Borrowers or thumb sized people (depending on the size of your thumb) who live under the floor boards. Although I am not sure of their entrance and exit points unless they use mouseholes or ventilation grates etc. If a Robert Wadlow character then your hands are a foot long assuming then your thumb is approaching 6" Average Joes thumb more like2.5" So a variation on size This is possibly a Borrowers residence. I found on a recent visit to Ickenham Marsh.
Oh, good grief: * Externally-visible doors? * "These tiny people were not fairies:" (Obituary: Mary Norton | The Independent) Incidentally, re Briggs' 'knocker' piece, I flipped back to p254 to find she was quoting Wright's promisingly-titled book Rustic Speech & Folk-lore: * 1913 ed. @ Project Gutenberg * 1914 ed. @ Internet Archive which frustratingly failed to analyse 'gathorns'. PS: Pod Clock "was a shoemaker" (1st book, ch. 2) and I, for one, can do without wannabe leprechauns muddying the water.
OK, time for another nudge while I'm off complementing my Borrowers Omnibus (1977) by now reading 1982's belatedly-final Avenged book ? So how about the white/black thorn confusion which had me trying to relate the word to lunantishee for too long until the proverbial penny dropped? If I can't readily distinguish thorn trees without a book, then what chances of a salty sea dog having landlubbers' horticultural expertise ? Steve
Hi Steve Just a thought on your last point. There is a tradition of a Maybush. Where a village/farm/estate tree (usually Hawthorn) would be festooned with prayers, hopes and wishes even love notes from 1st May for a week or the month. More or less confined to the Southeast now (Wexford, were I am). But almost universal back the day, even in Dublin. So there's a high chance our sailor would have known one as a child.
This a fortified country pile for the average sized Borrower. They have befriended mice on a number of occasions but it is a fine line friendship.A shared ownership is a rarity.
I was incidentally much amused by The Borrowers Avenged - one of its most apt jokes for this thread being Pod's phonetic rendition of Kitty Whitlace' surname as "Witless". But yes, John, I read tales - 1/2 on dúchas.ie IIRC - of lads rashly felling thorn trees for village maypoles despite other species presumably being taller & straighter - Wikipedia's maypole article citing birch for instance. But dúchas is a huge resource with nearly 4,000 'thorn' matches alone and the only transcripts I did earmark were: 1. This bleeding 'fairy bush' goof 2. This apparent haemorrhagic stroke fatality Disregarding their 'bloody' hawthorn commonality, '1' simply relates a quasi-comic misconception whilst '2' more interestingly tells of a "sharp" warning voice - possibly merely imagined by a brain on the cusp of tragic rupture but, long story short, also suggestive of both lunantishee and "gothán, -áin, pl. id., m., a shrill voice or noise; opprobrium, blame, censure." Or, to put it another way whilst regarding hawthorn guardians as otherwise anonymous, would a non-schizophrenic person beat about said bush by talking of not wishing to offend 'the voices' per se ?
You will note from this photo that the field mouse is setting up his communication link in the guise of a plant shoot,he/she was so wrapped up in ensuring the cable was covered by earth that I photographed and passed by unnoticed. The location was Bentley Priory which was the HQ of 11 Group during WW2 .
FWIW, today's BBC R4 Thought for the Day (podcast not yet ready as I type) hinted at a possible origin of this superstition in Deuteronomy. Not worth discussing here but contextual trivia all the same. Now, as we seem to have reached a hiatus on the 'gothorns' bit, any thoughts on 'lether' which I take to imply bats? It only really makes sense to me, as I hinted, re lunantishee if I ignore their navigational sonar being inaudible to us 'human beans'. Otherwise, 'leather' illogically seems to be totally irrelevant to thorns apart from its leprechaun associations.
All the little folklore folk arent all bad They do have super heroes amongst them This one was spied at a well known toy shop of course everyone else thought it was a toy but I knew better.
