Origin
Earlier variants of the fairy tale Jack the Giant-Killer found in chapbooks include various renditions of the poem, recited by the giant Thunderdell:
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Fee, fau, fum, |
Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum. |
In William Shakespeare's play King Lear, the character of Edgar exclaims:
Fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man.
The verse in King Lear makes use of the archaic word "fie", used to express disapproval. This word is used repeatedly in Shakespeare's works, King Lear himself shouting, "Fie, fie, fie! pah, pah!" and the character of Mark Antony (in Antony and Cleopatra) simply exclaiming "O fie, fie, fie!" The word "fum" has sometimes been interpreted as "fume". Formations such as "fo" and "foh" are perhaps related to the expression "pooh!", which is used by one the giants in Jack the Giant-Killer; such conjectures largely indicate that the phrase is of imitative origin, rooted in the sounds of flustering and anger.
Read more about this topic: Fee-fi-fo-fum
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