Flibbertigibbet is an old English word referring to a flighty or whimsical person, usually a young female. In modern user it is used as a slang term, especially in Yorkshire, for a gossipy or overly talkative person. It may also may refer to two separate cultural figures: In Anglo-Saxon mythology Flibbertigibbet is apprentice to Wayland Smith[LINK: http://www.waylands.net/public/smithy/legends.htm] Wayland the Smith, who becomes exasperated with his behaviour and throws him down a hill, where he transforms into a stone. In Shakespeare he is one of the five fiends that possessed 'poor Tom' in King Lear (IV, i (1605)). Shakespeare got the name from Samuel Harsnet's Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures (1603), where one reads of 40 fiends, which Jesuits cast out and among which was Fliberdigibbet, a name that had been previously used by Latimer and others for a mischievous gossip.

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