D&D General The word "Dweomer" by Gygax

[Jack Daniel]

British spelling makes words feel more fantastical to us. I’m only half-joking; if I’m honest, this is exactly why I insist on using fae and faerie instead of fey and fairy.

This is actually an enormous pet peeve of mine. Fae, fay, fairy, faery, and faerie are all perfectly fine nouns we can use to describe that particular class of supernatural beings (or in the case of the forms that end in "-ry," the realm that they come from) — all cognates, all Latinate descendants of fata ("fate, one of the Fates"). Meanwhile, "fey" is a completely unrelated Germanic adjective that means "strange, otherworldly, or doomed to die." I loathe and despise its now common conflation with the other terms. (Thanks, Wotc…)

 

[Yaarel]

It just came to me out of the blue that "dweomer" hasn't been used in D&D since...what, 2nd edition? Ist? I thought Gygax invented it, but a quick Google search says

Borrowed from Middle English dweomer, from Old English dwimor, from Proto-Germanic *dwemrą, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewh₂- (“to whisk, raise dust, fume”).
I always thought having a magical name for "magic" in D&D fit in perfectly. Why was this edited out from the lore in later editions? Genuinely just curious.

The term dweo-mer is a cognate of the Norse term dverg-mál, literally "dwarf speak".

By the way, sometimes it is used to mean an "echo", where the dvergar, namely the mineral patterns in the rocks and mud, are thought to be answering back from the landscape.

But normally, "dwarf speech" refers to magical speech. The female dvergar are one of the fates, the nornir, specifically the bad fates whose end is futile and inconsequential, but not necessarily painful. The curses that the dvergar speak happen, and similarly other magical effects spoken by dvergar.

 

[Yaarel]

This is actually an enormous pet peeve of mine. Fae, fay, fairy, faery, and faerie are all perfectly fine nouns we can use to describe that particular class of supernatural beings (or in the case of the forms that end in "-ry," the realm that they come from) — all cognates, all Latinate descendants of fata ("fate, one of the Fates"). Meanwhile, "fey" is a completely unrelated Germanic adjective that means "strange, otherworldly, or doomed to die." I loathe and despise its now common conflation with the other terms. (Thanks, Wotc…)

It used to irritate me that D&D used the improper term "fey" (dead-man-walking), rather than the proper term "fay" (fairie).

But the fact is, historically, "fey" is one of the many ways to spell fay, and is closer to the French term "fée".

By the way, there are over 100 (!) ways to spell "fairy": fairie, faerie, fayrie, fayrye, fayry, faierie, fayerie, fayery, ... etcetera.

Middle English dictionaries typically prefer the spelling "fairie". Personally, I use this spelling when referring to the term to be a synonym for "magic", as well as the related concepts of "fateful speech", "oracle" and "fate" (faie, feie).

So, I have made my peace with D&D "fey". It seems D&D accidentally got it right.