Talk:Fetch (folklore)

Request to add link to Gothic double article
Hi, I've been working on editing the Gothic double article for the past few months. It is still classified as a stub so I'm looking to divert some more traffic to the article in order for its classification to go up. I have a section on how the origins of the motif is linked to the fetch, and was wondering if I could please add a sentence or two in this article mentioning the use of the motif, and with a hyperlink to my own article? Please let me know. Thank you so much! Snowdrop Fairy (talk) 07:42, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2020 and 20 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Aiboland.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:22, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Title
This article really should be titled "Fetch (Familiar)" with a just a forward from Fæcce, as that spelling is only listed as an alternate regional-historical spelling and "Fetch" is the spelling used throughout (and, to my knowledge, also the popular spelling). --~Kenzal Hunter (talk) 13:01, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

That is a good point. The Fæcce isn't an extinct concept but one still around (though now influenced somewhat by the German Doppelganger) under the more famous and correct form of Fetch (as we speak Modern English now, or at least forms of Modern English). Sigurd Dragon Slayer (talk) 17:05, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Rm merge
I've removed the merge tag. Fylgja focuses on Scandinavian mythology and merging the Anglo-Saxon version of the myth with it, would confuse things up. Besides, noone has provided pro arguments since the proposal was made. Omnipaedista (talk) 13:27, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Title again
I've moved the page to Fetch (folklore), as the sources demonstrate that the connection between the modern-era "fetch" and the Old English faecce is only suggested. It furthermore seems to have only ever been popular in Irish folklore, not English. I've rewritten it substantially based on the sources.--Cúchullain t/ c 19:50, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

That is actually an error by Neville - most scholars disagree with Neville's claim - but I have kept the reference. Neville's claim is faulted as English words are occasionally glossed with English words (hence http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UOJiwTsNgzsC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=Old+English+word+glossed+with+another+English+word&source=bl&ots=vvw7c8Yj0Q&sig=xmRxvsCj7A3okAqmr15zGRzMsnA&hl=en&ei=IPDaSuTvCoOd4Qac-pz1Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Old%20English%20word%20glossed%20with%20another%20English%20word&f=false). In any case the word Fetch generally does come from the Old English feċċan which the word Faecce (FET-CHA) is merely a personalized form of, and, furthermore, English heathens etc. use the English word Fetch to refer to an Old English creature by the name Faecce.

You also cited a source that can not be read and thus that had to be removed - it is also against the rules, by the way. 86.131.254.49 (talk) 10:34, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * There are absolutely no "rules" to the effect that any source must be available online. If that were the case then vast majority of scholarly books and articles would not be useable. In this case I have used the Oxford English Dictionary, the premier English-language dictionary, and the material is easily verified by looking up the entry in a hard copy or by logging on to the website. The other source is an academic text published by Cambridge. Both are more reliable than sources such as "were-wolf.com", and both are quite clear that the connection between the Irish "fetch" and Old English "faecce" is only hypothesized, not definite. Further, neither even suggest that faecce means "a person's guardian spirit or familiar", although your edit indicated that Neville's book says just that.--Cúchullain t/ c 20:58, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I just checked, and some of the other books you were using were also being misquoted. Richard P. Taylor's Death and Afterlife actually agrees entirely with the OED and Neville; from p. 106: "FETCH: The word fetch is of uncertain origin, possibly from an Old English word faecce, though the tradition exists mostly in Irish legend..." No page number is given for the discussion of fetch or faecce in Gillian Mary Edwards' Hobgoblin and Sweet Puck: Fairy Names and Natures, and I can't even find mention of it on Google Books. Other listed books and websites are not reliable sources.--Cúchullain t/ c 21:18, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * This book further discusses faecce and maere and notes that their meaning is extremely obscure and may not be supernatural at all. Yet another strike against the theory that fetch evolved from faecce and designates some kind of "spirit animal". I added another source, quoted correctly this time. I also looked for reliable sources indicating that modern English neopagans use the terms in the "spirit animal" sense but have found nothing beyond unreliable personal websites and the like.--Cúchullain t/ c 20:42, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Plural?
So what's the plural of 'fetch'? Is it 'fetch', or 'fetches'? Kit Foxtrot (talk) 21:39, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Once more into unhelpfulness, Wikipedia!

Ok, "fetch" is the term used in contemporary translations of Old Norse and Anglo Saxon. If someone today has a burr and wants to write a whole article about 19th century chauvinism and misunderstandings, then that's well and good, but, since there is no link on this page to the familiar ON/AS concept of the fetch, and there is no subhead saying that there are other uses of the term, a reader who isn't living in the basement and trying to get a creation count up is going to think, as ever, "Wikipedia doesn't have an article on fetches." Seriously: a whole article about a word that no one defines and for whom no one has witnesses on a concept no one can show is stable, and it displaces the studied one? Great. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.234.66.158 (talk) 00:15, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The article quite clearly discusses the Anglo-Saxon fæcce in connection to the Irish fetch. It also says "The term 'fetch' is sometimes glossed for the Scandinavian fylgja...", linking to that article and explaining what that is. If you have additional sources please share them.--Cúchullain t/ c 03:32, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Literature, Proven Guilty
I would like to suggest the inclusion under the Literature section of the Fetch as used in the Jim Butcher novel, Proven Guilty, one of the Harry Dresden books. In it, they are shapeshifting fairy creatures that feed on fear. They take the form of movie monsters, some familiar, some made up for the book, to create fear in their victims which they feed on. I am sure there are also other accounts of fetch being used in fiction and that this section of the article could be expanded. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.26.144.203 (talk) 16:56, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Accidental removal
Apologies for removing part of this article ... I can only think I worked from an old version. thankyou.Djm-leighpark (talk) 22:50, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Howdy, I am a student that will be working on this page for a class project. If you have any suggestions at all then I am more than happy to hear them. Thanks! Aiboland (talk) 16:40, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Reorganization
Howdy, I wanted to share my suggestion for a reorganization of the information presented in this article. There are a few bits of information that are spread across different paragraphs and could benefit from a little bit of copyediting. I also think the introduction/definition of fetch could be rephrased and to delete the sentence that says the source is unclear (this could be discussed in the body of the article). --Aiboland (talk) 18:19, 22 March 2020 (UTC)