Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'

Subject: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: Sarah2
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 12:42 PM

I was thinking of memorizing "Spring, the Travelling Man" by Winifred Letts, as a good into for Tommy Makem's "Rambles of Spring," but the poem has the word "fraughan" in it, not in my dictionaries. Can anyone o'er the pond enlighten me?

Thanks,

Sarah

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: Sarah2
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 12:43 PM

That's "intro" instead of "into." Duh.

Sarah

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: hesperis
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 12:52 PM

Wouldn't it rhyme with "vaughan"?

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: Sarah2
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 01:05 PM

hesperis,

I would think so, but not sure, as it refers, apparently, to a plant in Ireland:

...Whistling careless and gay in the grey of the morn,
By gorse bush and fraughan and thorn,
On his way to the north.

I'd like to know, both what I'm saying and how to say it. For a change...

Sarah

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: Sorcha
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 01:37 PM

My best guess would be something like--fraw-(gh)on. The gh/kh sound would be almost silent, aspirated in the back of the throat-- fraw'n. It's not in my dictionary either, under that spelling.

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: MartinRyan
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 01:45 PM

Believe it or not, we had a thread on this before! I'll see if I can find it. In a nutshell (sic) a "fraughan" is wild fruit also known as whortleberry.

And, yes - if you pronounce Vaughan as two syllables, fraughan is similar. Roughly: fraw - hun

Regards

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: Sorcha
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 01:46 PM

AHA! look here:

Fraughans, herts or bilberries are the names used in different parts of Ireland for wild blueberries. They were traditionally picked on the first Sunday of August, during Lughnasa, and eaten in pies or mashed with sugar, also sometimes made into jam.

from http://members.tripod.com/~banaltra/Ireland/BanaltrasIrishRecipes.html

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 02:01 PM

From fraocháin, I believe...

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 02:05 PM

Yum! "Fraughans" grow wild and delicious around Lughnasa right here in New Hampster- I can't wait to try the recipe next summer (a delicious dream as the snow falls thick and fast)!

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: Sarah2
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 02:10 PM

Thank you, all!

Sarah

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: MARINER
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 04:28 PM

Sarah, I feel I have to differ with the other posters re fraughan. In this part of Ireland it's pronounced "frockan".As in the famous Wexford ballad "Carrig River"( famous among Wexfordians, anyway)where one verse ends "when the frockans are in bloom"

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: Sorcha
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 04:43 PM

That's OK, Mariner. I said mine was a guess, and I know there are dialects within languages, but "fraw(kh)'awn" seemed to fit the rhyme shceme fairly well........

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: MartinRyan
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 05:09 PM

No problem, MARINER, - you have some strange and wonderful sounds down in Wexford! Forth & Bargy forever!

Regards

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: Sarah2
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 05:46 PM

Mariner:

FROCK-awn or frock-AWN?

Sarah

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: MARINER
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 05:55 PM

Martin, as you mentioned Forth and Bargy, I'm sure you heard of the Yola dialect that was spoken there in the old days. It certainly explains where we Yellabellys get some of our strange pronounciations from. Frockan is obviously from the Gaelic and I suppose should be pronounced Fraw-han or thereabouts.But us Wexfordians must keep the flag of Yola flying, so as far as I'm concerned, like in the Volunteers song , it's frockan. Mariner.

Subject: RE: Query: Define/pronounce 'fraughan'
From: Sorcha
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 05:57 PM

If you leave the "r" out of "frockan"............you get BLUEBERRIES!!! I love it! (Auntie Sorch is on a roll tonight, folks.)