Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/270

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CH. XIII.]
VOCABULARY AND INDEX.
255
be quite unable to walk, and if help or food is not at hand he will sink down and perish. That persons are attacked and rendered helpless by sudden hunger on mountains in this manner is certain. Mr. Kinahan gives me an instance where he had to carry his companion, a boy, on his back a good distance to the nearest house: and Maxwell in 'Wild Sports of the West' gives others. But he offers the natural explanation: that a person is liable to sink suddenly with hunger if he undertakes a hard mountain walk with a long interval after food. Irish feur, grass; gorta, hunger.

Fairy breeze. Sometimes on a summer evening you suddenly feel a very warm breeze: that is a band of fairies travelling from one fort to another; and people on such occasions usually utter a short prayer, not knowing whether the 'good people' are bent on doing good or evil. (G. H. Kinahan.) Like the Shee-geeha, which see.

Fairy-thimble, the same as 'Lusmore,' which see.

Famished; distressed for want of something:—'I am famished for a smoke—for a glass,' &c.

Farbreaga; a scarecrow. Irish fear, a man: breug falsehood: a false or pretended man.

Farl; one quarter of a griddle cake. (Ulster.)

Faúmera [the r has the slender sound]; a big strolling beggarman or idle fellow. From the Irish Fomor. The Fomors or Fomora or Fomorians were one of the mythical colonies that came to Ireland (see any of my Histories of Ireland, Index): some accounts represent them as giants. In Clare the country people that go to the seaside in summer for the benefit of the 'salt water' are