Folklore & legend

The Fynoderee of Gordon

Also known as: The Fynoderee of Glen Rushen

Gordon, near Glen Maye, Patrick

The Fynoderee of Gordon was hairy, naked and strong beyond belief. When the blacksmith at Gordon once offered to shake hands with him, he wisely held out the iron sock of a plough instead, and the Fynoderee squeezed it as if it were clay. He worked at night for the Radcliffe family, threshing their corn and saving their hay, and asked for nothing.

He also visited Mullin Sayle, the mill, where the miller's wife, afraid of him, got rid of him by asking him to fetch water in a sieve. He was still trying when she slipped away.

Later he moved up into Glen Rushen and worked for Juan Mooar Cleary. One winter night of heavy snow he went out to bring the sheep down off the mountain. He brought them all in, and when the farmer counted them in the morning there was a little brown yearling among them that turned out to be a hare. The Fynoderee complained that the little one had given him more trouble than all the rest put together. In Moore's version he had to chase it three times round Snaefell.

In the end, Morrison says, he went to live on the top of Barrule with his wife. They quarrelled over the porridge, he threw rocks after her, and she ran and jumped clean over the sea to the Mountains of Mourne in Ireland.

Gordon is a small settlement on the road between Glen Maye and Peel.
Evidence
Long-standing local tradition
Access
Open ground
Location
54.190, -4.703 (Sited to the village)

Sources: Sophia Morrison, "Manx Fairy Tales" (1911), "The Fynoderee of Gordon" (Manx Note Book transcription) [public-domain]; A.W. Moore, "The Folk-Lore of the Isle of Man" (1891), ch. IV Hobgoblins, Monsters, Giants, Mermaids, Apparitions (Manx Note Book transcription) [public-domain]

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