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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Hi Stephen, Cor! This is fascinating, and thanks for the digression. I love things like this. Re the picture, it does really look like he's crossing his fingers. Mind you, if you look at the index and little fingers, they are both 'propotioned' so as to represent their smallness relative to the middle two fingers, with the outlining paint/ink 'pooling' to make black triangles in the place of crisp delineation. Maybe not realistic, but it certainly looks contemporarily stylised. In that plane, the hand is not a symmetrical object, but symmetry has its uses, and gets the early/untrained artist out of the obligation to give a 'true representation'. A bit like depicting full-frontal faces - an imaginary line down the centre to give left-mirroring-right. At a guess, and from my own experience of drawing hands and faces, and of dealing with pooling ink, although not in the style of a mediaeval artist...;) Also, how (un)ususal is it/would it have been to cross one's fingers index-over-middle? But that's just my own triggered curiosity. In order to be a bit more certain of the painting itself, you probably need to see it in the flesh - although that might not tell you much more than what you can infer from the images! Would a super-specialised art historian help? I'd love to know what you discover. Happy writing! Best, Sarina. On 23/07/2018 15:44, Stephen Barker wrote: > medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture > > Thank you again, Jim. That sounds good, too, and I was pleasantly > surprised to find that it's in our library. Modern monographs not in > English are often in short supply. > > Sarina, thank you for the lovely reminiscence. I've never heard of > fanites, but I found someone quoting the Opies on the subject: > > /“Fains/or/fainites/: The usual term in London, and throughout > southern England from Margate to Penzance — except for the ‘scribs’ > and ‘screams’ of East Hampshire, and the ‘bars’ of Devon. Also > prevails north of London as far as Olney, and Maids Moreton where > ‘fains’ and fainites’ share currency with ‘kings’. Children are often > uncertain whether the word begins with an f or a v, expostulating that > they have never before been asked to spell it. Variations include: > ‘fennits’ (particularly in Kent), ‘fannies’ (Laverstock), ‘fainies’ > (Maryon Park), ‘fainsies’ (Taunton), ‘fans’ (Gillingham), ‘fails’ > (Poole), ‘faylines’ (Torquay), ‘vainlights’ (Peckham), ‘vainyards’ > (Lancing). > > ‘Fains’ appears to be the earliest form. ‘Fains or fain it — A term > demanding a “truce” during the progress of any game, which is always > granted by the opposing party’ — is recorded in/Notes and Queries/, > 4th ser., vol. vi, 1870, p.415, and said to be in common use by London > schoolboys. ‘Faints’ is not recorded until Barrère and > Leland’s/Dictionary of Slang/, 1889; ‘fainits’ not until Farmer and > Henley’s/Slang/, 1891. ‘Faynights’ is said by a correspondent to/The > Sunday Times/, 25 November 1951, to have been in use about 1900. > Professor J. R. R. Tolkien told us that both the terms ‘fains I’, I > decline (p. 140), and the truce terms ‘fains’ or ‘fainites’, are > survivals of medieval English, the basic expression being ‘fain I’. > ‘This descends from fourteenth century/feine/,/faine/, “feign”, in a > sense derived from Old French/se feindre/, “make excuses, hang back, > back out, especially of battle”.’ He noted that the word fen, ‘ban, > bar’ (p. 140) is probably derived from/fend/, shortened form > of/defend/, since/defend/was used in the French sense/forbid/from > about A.D. 1300 to the time of Milton. ‘The formula/fain I/‘, he > added, ‘seems to throw light on a line in Chaucer which no editor so > far has thought worthy of a note, though its transitive use > of/feyne/has no exact parallel. In the/Clerk’s Tale/, 529, a servant > says “that lordes heestes mowe nat been yfeyned”, and seems to mean > that “lords’ orders cannot be treated with a ‘fain I’ (I decline), but > must be obeyed”.'” > > The Wikipedia article on truce terms > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truce_term>, also drawing heavily on > the Opies' work, says that crossed fingers often reinforce the truce, > which makes sense but was also unknown to me. > > /Barley /is another of these terms, and it shows up near the beginning > of///Sir Gawain /when the Green Knight is setting up the rules of his > game. He'll let a knight hit him with an axe, he proclaims, "Ellez þou > wyl diȝt me þe dom to dele hym an oþer / barlay" "provided you permit > me to give him another / in my turn" (295-6). I've followed the > editors (Tolkien/Gordon/Davis) in making /b//arlay/ turn-claiming > rather than truce-claiming. Additionally, the word is the "bob" line > connecting the alliterative lines to the rhyming "wheel," and so, I'd > argue, could be read as an interjection. > > All that's interesting enough, but my question is about the > illustration (it's on the truce-term Wikipedia page or in higher > definition > <http://contentdm.ucalgary.ca/digital/collection/gawain/id/289/rec/108> > at the University of Calgary). Does the illustration of Gawain > claiming the right to take on the green knight show him with crossed > fingers? He's upper left in red with an axe and a raised hand, > opposite Arthur and co. It looks to me like his index finger is hiding > a bit behind his middle finger, but it could be my wishful thinking. > They look more obviously crossed in this infrared version > <https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/na101/home/literatum/publisher/uchicago/journals/content/spc/2017/spc.2017.92.issue-s1/693361/20171002/images/large/fg18.jpeg> > from Murray McGillivray and Christina Duffy, "New Light on the /Sir > Gawain and the Green Knight/ Manuscript: Multispectral Imaging and the > Cotton Nero A.x. Illustrations > <https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/693361#> (2017)." > [no pay-walls on any of these links] > > All best, > > Steve > > > On 7/23/2018 6:39 AM, Sarina Velt wrote: >> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture >> >> Hi Stephen, >> >> Hello, fellow lurker. I love your query. >> >> I have no academic information for you but, following on from what Roberto Labanti and Jane Wickenden said about children’s crossed fingers, I can offer a school memory, for what it’s worth. >> >> As a schoolgirl in Acton, West London, I remember one of those chasing ‘tag, you’re it’ games I used to play when I was ten or so, nearly forty years ago (i.e. it must be a now-defunct historical peculiarity) – in our versions, the playground was an open free-for-all, but there were designated ‘safe’ places, e.g. steps to school buildings, a particular door, etc. which were suitable distances apart. I can’t offer anything on the crossed fingers, per se, but in terms of accompaniments, our agreed truce word was in one school, something that sounded like ‘faynees’, although the spelling is possibly closer to ‘fanies’; in another school I encountered ‘fanites’. Clearly related, both these words always sounded to me like hugely corrupted Latin exclamations, which might – just might – yield something in themselves in relation to crossing fingers for magic(k)al protection. My Latin doesn’t stretch further than deducing basic connections or declining mensa (badly), so I can’t work this one out! >> >> All the best, >> Sarina Elsdon (more musicological-type person) >> >> ********************************************************************** >> To join the list, send the message: subscribe medieval-religion YOUR NAME >> to:[log in to unmask] >> To send a message to the list, address it to: >> [log in to unmask] >> To leave the list, send the message: unsubscribe medieval-religion >> to:[log in to unmask] >> In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: >> [log in to unmask] >> For further information, visit our web site: >> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion > > ********************************************************************** > To join the list, send the message: subscribe medieval-religion YOUR > NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, > address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, > send the message: unsubscribe medieval-religion to: > [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the > list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For > further information, visit our web site: > http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: subscribe medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: unsubscribe medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion