blow [OE] Blow in the sense of wind blowing is from a common Germanic root with the basic idea of ‘blow up, swell’. One of the more colourful phrases involving Old English blow is to blow hot and cold, or keep changing your mind, which comes from Aesop’s fable of the man and the satyr. A traveller lost in a forest meets a satyr who offers him lodging for the night, promising to lead him safely out of the woods in the morning. On the way to the satyr’s home the man blows on his hands. The satyr asks him why he does this, to which he replies, ‘My breath warms my cold hands.’ At the satyr’s home they sit down to eat some steaming hot porridge. The man blows on his first spoonful and again the satyr asks him why. ‘The porridge is too hot to eat and my breath will cool it,’ he answers. At this the satyr orders him to leave, saying, ‘I can have nothing to do with a man who can blow hot and cold with the same breath’. The blow that is given with a fist [LME] is developed from a blast of wind. See also bloom, gaff.