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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7163579" data-attributes="member: 58172">@<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=6888204" target="_blank">snickersnax</a>It might be worth mentioning, the use of the word ‘Fey’, is an other example of the D&D tradition using the wrong terminology.The correct term, for the nature spirit is, ‘Fay’ with an ‘a’. Its etymology derives from Latin Fatum to Late Latin Fata to Old French Faie, to Anglo-French Fay (as in Morgan le Fay).A related Old French term enters Middle English as Fairie (spelled variously, as Faierie, Faerie, Fayry, Fairy, etcetera). This derives from Faie + erie. (Compare wizardry, wizard + ery.)Technically, a ‘Fay’ is the name of the nature spirit, a spirit of Fate, always female. In the sense that speaking the words that predict Fate, extends to mean, the power of words to change Fate and reshape reality: the word ‘Fairie’ becomes the Middle English word meaning ‘magic’. (Compare wizardry.) So a ‘Fairie Knight’ means a magical warrior, and ‘Faerie’ describes any kind of magical creature. Occasionally, the word ‘Fairie’ also served a place name, for the place of the Fay. In other words, a kind of spirit world. (Compare how fishery, being fish + ery, is a place where fish are.) So, Faerie was both the realm of the Fay and the realm where magic comes from.Fairie = n. ‘magic’, the activity of the Fay who speak words that change Fate.Fairie = n. the realm of the Fay, the realm of magicFairie = adj. ‘magical’Fairie = n. any kind of magical creature, or any creature from Fairie.Thus the female is called a ‘Fay’, but the male is called a ‘Fairie man’ or ‘Fairyman’, meaning a man from the land of the Fays. But the man too is a magical being and a wielder of magic.As an aside. By the time of the Renaissance and Shakespeare, the term ‘fairie’ so strongly associated with a specific kind of magical creature, the land spirit of southern England that Shakespeare describes as ‘fairy’. It became necessary to use a different word for other kinds of magic creatures. So they started using the word ‘magic’, from Greek Magos whence Latin Magus and English Mage. So the story of the three wise men, sometimes called the Three Magi, are understood to be three ‘mages’.The English word ‘Fey’ with an ‘e’ is completely unrelated. It comes from the Old English word Fæge, from the Old Norse word Feigr. It is an adjective describing one who knows that oneself is about to die. Loosely it gets defined by words like ‘doomed’, but it is an otherworldy state of mind, maybe like when a prisoner is about to be executed, and the guards call out, ‘Dead man walking’, as he is escorted to the execution. This is what ‘Fey’ means. The etymology is loosely related to the word ‘Foe’ in the sense of a deadly enemy.As often, D&D misuses reallife vocabulary. It uses ‘fey’ with an ‘e’, where properly it would be ‘fay’ or ‘faerie’.So a ‘Fey’ person who is about to die might well have a low Constitution. However, a ‘Fay’ person who personifies Fate is nigh unkillable, and may well have high Constitution.No big deal, just kinda interesting.</blockquote>

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