The Devil’s Dictionary994 terms |
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F
- Fairy
- n. A creature, variously fashioned and endowed, that formerly inhabited the meadows and forests. It was nocturnal in its habits, and somewhat addicted to dancing and the theft of children. The fairies are now believed by naturalist to be extinct, though a clergyman of the Church of England saw three near Colchester as lately as 1855, while passing through a park after dining with the lord of the manor. The sight greatly staggered him, and he was so affected that his account of it was incoherent. In the year 1807 a troop of fairies visited a wood near Aix and carried off the daughter of a peasant, who had been seen to enter it with a bundle of clothing. The son of a wealthy bourgeois disappeared about the same time, but afterward returned. He had seen the abduction been in pursuit of the fairies. Justinian Gaux, a writer of the fourteenth century, avers that so great is the fairies’ power of transformation that he saw one change itself into two opposing armies and fight a battle with great slaughter, and that the next day, after it had resumed its original shape and gone away, there were seven hundred bodies of the slain which the villagers had to bury. He does not say if any of the wounded recovered. In the time of Henry III, of England, a law was made which prescribed the death penalty for “Kyllynge, wowndynge, or mamynge” a fairy, and it was universally respected.
- Faith
- n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
- Famous
- adj. Conspicuously miserable.
Done to a turn on the iron, behold
Hassan Brubuddy
Him who to be famous aspired.
Content? Well, his grill has a plating of gold,
And his twistings are greatly admired. - Fashion
- n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.
A king there was who lost an eye
In some excess of passion;
And straight his courtiers all did try
To follow the new fashion.Each dropped one eyelid when before
The throne he ventured, thinking
’Twould please the king. That monarch swore
He’d slay them all for winking.What should they do? They were not hot
To hazard such disaster;
They dared not close an eye — dared not
See better than their master.Seeing them lacrymose and glum,
A leech consoled the weepers:
He spread small rags with liquid gum
And covered half their peepers.The court all wore the stuff, the flame
Naramy Oof
Of royal anger dying.
That’s how court-plaster got its name
Unless I’m greatly lying. - Feast
- n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness. In the Roman Catholic Church feasts are “movable” and “immovable,” but the celebrants are uniformly immovable until they are full. In their earliest development these entertainments took the form of feasts for the dead; such were held by the Greeks, under the name Nemeseia, by the Aztecs and Peruvians, as in modern times they are popular with the Chinese; though it is believed that the ancient dead, like the modern, were light eaters. Among the many feasts of the Romans was the Novemdiale, which was held, according to Livy, whenever stones fell from heaven.
- Felon
- n. A person of greater enterprise than discretion, who in embracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate attachment.
- Female
- n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.
The Maker, at Creation’s birth,
G.J.
With living things had stocked the earth.
From elephants to bats and snails,
They all were good, for all were males.
But when the Devil came and saw
He said: “By Thine eternal law
Of growth, maturity, decay,
These all must quickly pass away
And leave untenanted the earth
Unless Thou dost establish birth” —
Then tucked his head beneath his wing
To laugh — he had no sleeve — the thing
With deviltry did so accord,
That he’d suggested to the Lord.
The Master pondered this advice,
Then shook and threw the fateful dice
Wherewith all matters here below
Are ordered, and observed the throw;
Then bent His head in awful state,
Confirming the decree of Fate.
From every part of earth anew
The conscious dust consenting flew,
While rivers from their courses rolled
To make it plastic for the mould.
Enough collected (but no more,
For niggard Nature hoards her store)
He kneaded it to flexible clay,
While Nick unseen threw some away.
And then the various forms He cast,
Gross organs first and finer last;
No one at once evolved, but all
By even touches grew and small
Degrees advanced, till, shade by shade,
To match all living things He’d made
Females, complete in all their parts
Except (His clay gave out) the hearts.
“No matter,” Satan cried; “with speed
I’ll fetch the very hearts they need” —
So flew away and soon brought back
The number needed, in a sack.
That night earth range with sounds of strife —
Ten million males each had a wife;
That night sweet Peace her pinions spread
O’er Hell — ten million devils dead! - Fib
- n. A lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liar’s nearest
approach to truth: the perigee of his eccentric orbit.
When David said: “All men are liars,” Dave,
Bartle Quinker
Himself a liar, fibbed like any thief.
Perhaps he thought to weaken disbelief
By proof that even himself was not a slave
To Truth; though I suspect the aged knave
Had been of all her servitors the chief
Had he but known a fig’s reluctant leaf
Is more than e’er she wore on land or wave.
No, David served not Naked Truth when he
Struck that sledge-hammer blow at all his race;
Nor did he hit the nail upon the head:
For reason shows that it could never be,
And the facts contradict him to his face.
Men are not liars all, for some are dead. - Fickleness
- n. The iterated satiety of an enterprising affection.