F is for Fetch

Retches were believed to be a type of doppelganger in Irish myth. However, if you saw your fetch, it was thought to be a bad omen – especially of death.

Ideally though, you would want to see a Fetch at dawn. Why? “A sighting of a fetch is generally taken as a portent of its exemplar’s looming death, though John and Michael Banim report that if the double appears in the morning rather than the evening, it is instead a sign of a long life in store.”^[1]

“The term “fetch” is sometimes glossed for the Scandinavian fylgja, an animal alter ego in Norse mythology connected to a person’s fate, though unlike the Irish concept, the fylgja is almost always female.” 2 3

Bibliography

1 Fetch, n.2″. Oxford English Dictionary. December 1989. Retrieved 15 January 2011.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetch_(folklore)

2 “Wraith, n. b.”. Oxford English Dictionary. December 1989. Retrieved 26 November 2012.

3 “Fetch-life”. Oxford English Dictionary. December 1989. Retrieved 15 January 2011.

http://www.mythicalcreaturesguide.com/page/Fetch