"Fee-fi-fo-fum" is the first line of a historical quatrain (or sometimes couplet) famous for its use in the classic English fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk. The poem, as given in Joseph Jacobs's rendition, is as follows:

Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive, or be he dead
I'll have his bones to grind my bread.^[1]

Though the poem is tetrametric, is follows no consistent metrical foot; however, the respective verses correspond roughly to monosyllabic tetrameter, dactylic tetrameter, trochaic tetrameter, and iambic tetrameter. The poem has historically made use of assonant half rhyme.

[edit] Origin

Earlier variants the fairy tale Jack the Giant-Killer found in chapbooks include various renditions of the poem, recited by the giant Thunderdell:

Fee, fau, fum, I smell the blood of an English man, Be alive, or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread.[1]

Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum. I smell the blood of an Englishman, Be he living, or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to mix my bread.[2]

The latter two verses of the left version are the most famous in popular culture.

In William Shakespeare's play King Lear, the character of Edgar exclaims:

Fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man.

The phrase clearly makes use of the archaic word "fie", used to express disapproval.^[3] This word is used repeatedly in Shakespeare's works, King Lear himself shouting, "Fie, fie, fie! pah, pah!" and the character of Mark Antony (in Antony and Cleopatra) simply exclaiming "O fie, fie, fie!" The word "fum" has sometimes been interpreted as "fume".^[1] Formations such as "fo" and "foh" are perhaps related to the expression "pooh!", which is used by one the giants in Jack the Giant-Killer;^[2] such conjectures largely indicate that the phrase is of imitative origin, rooted in the sounds of flustering and anger.

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[edit] References