It is hard to think of Jack and the Beanstalk without hearing "fee-fi-fo-fum" in your imagination. As a storyteller, it is of course, really fun to have the giant call out:
Fee-fi-fo-fum
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he alive or be he dead
I'll grind his bones to make my bread.
Fee-fi-fo-fum was first used in a printed version of Jack and the Giant Killer in 1596. It must have been in the oral tradition by the late 1500’s. Shakespeare uses the chant in King Lear in about 1605 and it has been in the popular vernacular since. Most interpretations suggest fee-fi-fo-fum has no hidden deeper meanings, but relate to the rhyme and meter of the poem. Fee-fi-fo-fum is most commonly associated with the motif of a cannibalistic ogre who smells human flesh.
I recently used the chant at a grade school telling of kindergarten and first grade, and the media center specialist asked me not to use the second line with the youngest groups. In my defense about one third of the kids already knew the story and called out with me! Later as I was thinking about the refrain I began to wonder what it meant. As it turns out, not a lot, but it sure is fun to say!
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