And what is your name?

[angersson]

A conversation on the Lokeans list brought up those who must not be named for the fear that they will show up.

Among these are the Fae. Ya know, I wasn't sure about the origins of the word fairy, so I looked into the etymology and discovered that fairy was originally the word for the place (land of the fae), and that fae is derived from the Fates

Comments

I'm a travelling student so I'm something else ... but here's snatches of my memory

[winterlion]

re: "people of the peace" and some of the names - I'm more familiar with that in the context of the "Daoine Sidhe".

(and "Fair Folk" and "The Hidden People" with Black Irish *grin*)

I suspect it's been "linguistically combined" which is to say that several different legends with similar-sounding names have been combined.

So if ye say "The Fates" (or Erinyes, Furies and a few others I suspect) from the Greek - I also think of The Morrigan and the Norse Norns (either 3 or 9 of them - I've heard refs of both).

when one is talking of the Feanna - as many people had it, a name for themselves was probably along the line of "the people". Their name can also be translated as "fair folk" (as in beautiful).

A lot of cultures have folks calling themselves "the people" and then other people take the word as their name for themselves... *heh*

And as for The Liar (Shai'tan / Satan) - I've mostly heard him associated with Samael but that may also be slightly incorrect.

[marius_98]

There is a difference in why things received euphemistic names in Semetic religions and in the pagan religions. In pagan religions sight tended to be the more important of the senses. In Semetic religions hearing tended to be more important. Therefore, to simply speak a name in the Semetic religions was to invoke what the name represented. Hence why Yahweh was a forbidden word, and also the name of various demons and such. From what I can tell, the renaming of the fairies was a post-conversion thing. That's pretty much what tidbits I can offer. You are more than welcome to call bullshit on me, since I'm really not too much of an expert in this particular field. I'll give you a call at some point. Let me know when is good for you, because I work nights now.