The line lends itself perfectly to being read in a Yorkshire dialect and provided much amusement to the group. Joyce’s affinity with Yorkshire continues when he writes of ‘the littlebilker being as fain o’t as your rat wi fennel’ (I.3.37). One of the joys of Finnegans Wake is the multiple meanings that can be applied to the text, but in this instance, with us being based in Yorkshire, we were happy to think that Joyce might be referring to a location that is so nearby. In her Third census of Finnegans Wake, Adaline Glasheen suggests that Gilly is also a ‘name given at times to HCE’s slanderer, the Cad’, and notes that ‘Gilly Gaupus’ is Scotch for ‘a tall awkward fellow’.
The Gaping Gill is one of the largest caving systems in the United Kingdom and is located in Ingleborough, North Yorkshire. At last week’s reading group session we continued to read I.2 of Finnegans Wake, beginning from ‘Gaping Gill, swift to mate errthors’ (I.2.36).
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