Fiddler’s Green

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Dave from Coronado, California.

Hi, Dave. Welcome to the show.

Thank you. I’ve got a nautical question for you.

Okay. Yeah, shoot.

And it’s the phrase or saying that the fiddler’s green.

Now, I know what the…

You look up fiddler’s green and the definition is pretty straightforward. This is heaven. This is paradise. This is where sailors go in the afterlife.

Sounds like a pub.

I have heard, and I think this is something I believe to be true, that there is another meaning to the word, in that the Fiddler’s Green is a grassy area along the shore where the fishermen would spread their nets out to work on them.

But I can find no reference or confirmation of this theory, but it evolves from a fiddler in this case is a person who uses a fid, a fid being a tool for working ropes and line.

Anyway, I believe this to be true, and I’m hoping you can illuminate me and tell me that I’m right.

Where have you seen the term fiddler used to mean somebody who works with a fid?

Well, I’m not sure where I heard this. I mean, it’s back in my youth. I’m old enough that I can remember things but don’t know why I remember them.

So this is something I heard a long time ago, and I believed it to be true.

Yeah.

Huh.

That’s a good one.

So a fid, but there’s a lot of different kinds of fids in sailing ships. Is the Fid Hole, which is the opening near a master spar, right?

Yes, I’m familiar with that.

I’ll tell you, I’m a volunteer at the Maritime Museum here in San Diego.

Oh, excellent.

I know a lot of nautical stuff, and we play with the nautical language a bit.

So I’m with you on that one. I know that Fid, and I also know the tool.

And there’s a Fidley, which is a ventilation area, our grading cover.

Mm—

Right.

But, you know, I’m just not seeing the word fiddler used to mean somebody who does something with a fid.

Mm—

Well, the history of Fiddler’s Green is interesting to worth exploring and kind of gets at the heart of why it’s probably a red herring, David.

To use a maritime term.

Yeah.

Any reference I’ve ever seen to Fiddler’s Green just has to do with a place, nothing to do with tools or nets or anything.

That wonderful mythical place where the weather is always fair and there’s plenty of grog and unlimited rum and women and tobacco and just sort of the, I guess, the maritime version of the Elysian fields, right?

Yes.

Kind of paradise, the kind of place that you dream about when you’re out there on the high seas.

I’m with you on that one.

But the very earliest uses of it that show up actually in American newspapers in the early 1820s have The Fiddler’s Green as a kind of lighthearted tale about men and women who are unmarried having to dance in the afterlife for all eternity on the fiddler’s green.

So it’s kind of a punishment for being unmarried and not being wedded and having children.

So it’s kind of positive a little bit in that you get to frolic with the opposite sex, but you’re forced to do it.

So over time, it turned into completely positive, but there’s a little bit of a kind of a level of hell tone about it in the earliest mentions.

Wow, I was not aware of that.

David, I’m thinking of that acronym, CANOED. You probably know that one, right?

No, I don’t know that one.

It stands for the Conspiracy to Attribute Nautical Origins to Everything.

Yes.

Oh, I’ve got a few of those, and I can document some of them.

I mean, you can get things like Slush Fund and Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

Oh, yeah.

The wind and those other, those are all that I can pretty much document those, but I’m sure there are others.

Delight to talk to you.

Blue skies and smooth sailing to you.

All right.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Dave.

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