=Foldath=, general of the Fire-bolg or Belgæ in the south of Ireland. In the epic called _Tem´ora_, Cathmor is the “lord of Atha,” and Foldath is his general. He is a good specimen of the savage chieftain; bold and daring, but presumptuous, overbearing, and cruel. “His stride is haughty, and his red eye rolls in wrath.” He looks with scorn on Hidalla, a humane and gentle officer in the same army, for his delight is strife, and he exults over the fallen. In counsel Foldath is imperious, and contemptuous to those who differ from him. Unrelenting in revenge; and even when he falls with his death-wound dealt by Fillan the son of Fingal, he feels a sort of pleasure that his ghost would hover in the blast, and exult over the graves of his enemies. Foldath had one child, a daughter, the blue-eyed Dardu-Le´na, the last of the race.—Ossian, _Temora_. =Fon´dlewife=, an uxorious banker.—Congreve, _The Old Bachelor_ (1693). When Mrs. Jefferson [1733-1776] was asked in what characters she excelled the most, she innocently replied,—“In old men, like ‘Fondlewife’ and ‘Sir Jealous Traffic.’” ⁂ “Sir Jealous Traffic” is in _The Busy-Body_, by Mrs. Centlivre. =Fondlove= (_Sir William_), a vain old baronet of 60, who fancies himself a schoolboy, capable of playing boyish games, dancing, or doing anything that young men do. “How marvellously I wear! What signs of age have I? I’m certainly a wonder for my age. I walk as well as ever. Do I stoop? Observe the hollow of my back. As now I stand, so stood I when a child, a rosy, chubby boy. My arm is as firm as ’twas at 20. Oak, oak, isn’t it? Think you my leg is shrunk?—not in the calf a little? When others waste, ’tis growing-time with me. Vigor, sir, vigor, in every joint. Could run, could leap. Why shouldn’t I marry?” So thought Sir William of Sir William, and he married the Widow Green, a buxom dame of 40 summers.—S. Knowles, _The Love-Chase_ (1837). =Fool.= James I. of Great Britain was called by Henri IV. of France, “The Wisest Fool in Christendom” (1566-1625). _Fool_ (_The_), in the ancient morris-dance, represented the court-jester. He carried in his hand a yellow bauble, and wore on his head a hood with ass’s ears, the top of the hood rising into the form of a cock’s neck and head, with a belt at the extreme end. The hood was blue, edged with yellow and scolloped, the doublet red, edged with yellow, the girdle yellow, the hose of one leg yellow and of the other blue, shoes red. (See MORRIS-DANCE.) =Fool’s Prayer= (_The_). A king calls upon his jester to “kneel down and make a prayer!” The fool obeys in words so full of pregnant truth that— “The room was hushed. In silence rose The King and sought his gardens cool, And walked apart, and murmured low ‘Be merciful to me, a fool!’” Edward Rowland Sill, _The Fool’s Prayer_ (1883). =Fools, Jesters and Mirthmen.= Those in italics were mirthmen, but not licensed fools or jesters.