The historical name for a professional firewood gatherer was a fagetter i.e. someone who makes and sells faggots. It is a very old profession and is still extant as a surname. I briefly checked for any examples of faggeter/fagetter as an occupation in the 1921 census but, no luck. Hope that helps - ThreadSky

helxine.bsky.social • 82 days ago

The historical name for a professional firewood gatherer was a fagetter i.e. someone who makes and sells faggots. It is a very old profession and is still extant as a surname. I briefly checked for any examples of faggeter/fagetter as an occupation in the 1921 census but, no luck. Hope that helps

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maartenkossmann.bsky.social•82 days ago

Oh that is very chique! I do fear, however, that it will not really help the reader :(

helxine.bsky.social•82 days ago

Yes, I know. ☹️I'm not sure that "woodsman" is still a viable occupation. Do you have any context for why they need to have a term for this job? Is for a book translation or something?

maartenkossmann.bsky.social•82 days ago

It's for translating an example from a fairy tale. Apparently this was something that very marginalized people would do for money (in most regions, the women gather the firewood for the household, but this is from an oasis setting, where women would rather not go outside of the oasis)

helxine.bsky.social•82 days ago

In my experience oases are well blessed with trees and most people have free access to firewood. However there are always the lazy ones or those who realise that the poorest need to have some sort of occupation. I think wood gatherer is a reasonable option. It sounds right to my English ear.

maartenkossmann.bsky.social•82 days ago

Yes sure! In this case it was about someone getting the wood from the “desert”. With fairy tales from this area it is always difficult to make out whether the setting of the tale is in an oasis or rather in a nomadic environment- even when the story tellers are all very sedentary themselves

helxine.bsky.social•82 days ago

Yeah. If you went for a "poor wood-gathering woman" you would probably hit a lot of the underlying social context and if the literary context fleshed it out that might help. Is it a straight translation? That restricts your options. Sounds like an interesting project, though.

epq.bsky.social•81 days ago

Faggoter
(but firewood gatherer is probably the most transparent to modern readers)

helxine.bsky.social•81 days ago

Cool. Good catch. Have you got a source for that?

epq.bsky.social•81 days ago

From the OED

helxine.bsky.social•81 days ago

I had to let my compact edition go when we downsized. Well that and even with the brilliant magnifying glass I couldn't read it any more, damn cataracts. Somehow I haven't been using it as a specific search term. I will fix that now, thanks

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