The words flet and dray (or drey,) refer to types of squirrel’s nests. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Flet and Dray”
I learned this week that a flet is sort of the same thing as a dray.
A flet, F-L-E-T, and a dray, D-R-A-Y.
Flet is used in the Tolkien books to refer to a kind of treehouse-like structure, you know, like a platform up a tree.
Yep, yep, yep.
And then a dray.
I only know drayhorse.
What is dray in this context?
D-R-A-Y or D-R-E-Y, particularly in Britain, is a squirrel’s nest.
But you’re right.
Flet is another term for a squirrel’s nest.
A squirrel’s nest.
Okay, that would explain the Tolkien.
He does that all the time.
His words always have some kind of root in the Nordic languages or the Anglo-Saxon languages, the Germanic languages.
Yeah, exactly.
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Thank you.

