Brewer's: Ruach

The Isle of Winds, visited by Pantagruel and his fleet on their way to the Oracle of the Holy Bottle, is the isle of windy hopes and unmeaning flattery. The people of this island live on nothing but wind, eat nothing but wind, and drink nothing but wind. They have no other houses but weathercocks, seeing everyone is obliged to shift his way of life to the ever-changing caprice of court fashion; and they sow no other seeds but the wind-flowers of promise and flattery. The common people get only a fan-puff of food very occasionally, but the richer sort banquet daily on huge mill-draughts of the same unsubstantial stuff. (Rabelais: Pantagruel, iv. 43.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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