Hobs and Goblins
Hobs are generally envisaged as large and normally hairy beings with bandy legs, akin in habits to the domestic brownies of northern Britain but more uncouth and much stronger: a hob can free a loaded cart’s trapped wheel, it has been said, either by pushing or lifting the vehicle, whilst in one story from Derbyshire a hob was able to scythe through pieces of iron as easily as weeds. One hob living at Millom in Cumberland was described as “a Body aw over rough,” in other words, covered in coarse hair.256
Lobs, Hobs & Puck
The essence of the hobgoblin, in fact, is its semi-feral, hirsute nature. Poet John Milton, in L’Allegro, bequeathed us a classic description of the type, portraying a “drudging Goblin” who undertakes the work of ten farm labourers and who is content to receive in return just a dish of cream and shelter at night. This “lubber fiend” lies down at night and “basks at fire his hairy strength.” The physical might and the animal pelt are the hallmarks of this species.257
Milton’s vocabulary tells us more, in fact. His hob is “lubber,” which means clumsy, awkward, or stupid. A “lob” is a dolt or blockhead (from the Welsh llob), and it is notable that in A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare has a fairy call Puck “thou lob of spirits” and that in the play The Knight of the Burning Pestle “Lob lie by the Fire” is the offspring of a giant and a witch, uniting ungainly size with malignity. In another contemporary play, the sprite declares his intention to leave the town and go “To frolic amongst country lobs” where he will plainly feel at home.258
Puck, Hobgoblin, and “Robin Goodfellow” are all identical in English folktales. Folklorist Joseph Ritson was told by an informant that Robin Goodfellow does all the farm chores and then lies before the fire, looking like a “great rough hurgin bear;” “hurgin” means “urchin,” a hedgehog, and vividly conjures up the bristling nature of Robin’s hairiness.259 The sprite is often celebrated as a great shape-shifter, and according to Shakespeare, his guises include “a headless bear.” Ben Jonson once nicknamed him “Puck-hairy.”260 Fascinatingly, in Michael Drayton’s epic poem, Nymphidia, Puck, or Hob, is met with “walking like a ragged colt;” as we shall see later, the faery beast called the tatterfoal looks exactly the same. The comparisons of hobs to wild beasts have been constant over centuries.261
Twentieth-century poet Edward Thomas added a final layer of meaning to the name. In his poem “Lob” he described an old countryman he met one day in Wiltshire. He did not learn the man’s name, but he identified him with literary Lob. “He has been in England as long as dove and daw / Calling the wild cherry tree the merry tree.”262 Hobs and lobs are an ancient part of the British countryside, personifications of its cheerful, simple spirit; they’re a part of its natural fauna and deeply in tune with it, for all their lumbering coarseness. Puck in Rudyard Kipling’s Puck of Pook’s Hill is a similar spirit of the ancient land, and we’ll also see this identity, or harmony, with the landscape later in this chapter in the Manx fynoderee.263
Given his bulk and his brawn, it’s hard to class Puck with the conventional faeries. Ben Jonson highlighted this in a masque of 1612, in which Robin Goodfellow declares that he’s “none of those subtle ones that can creep through at a key-hole, or the cracked pane of a window. I must come in at a door.” This is the simple, solid, and down-to-earth hob.264
The Yorkshire hobs are still described, by those who have glimpsed them, as small, brown, active, and naked, albeit covered in black hair. With their hirsute bodies, simple needs, dim wits, and brute strength, hobs are much closer to farm livestock than to either ourselves or to sharp and scheming faeries. For all these reasons, they are classed here as faery beasts.
There are many variants upon the hob’s name including hobgoblin, hobthrush, and hobthrust; the latter two derive their second element from the Anglo-Saxon word thyrs, meaning giant, again making their outsized origin plain. Puck had a similar multiplicity of names, being known too as Pug, Pug-Robin, and Hodge-Poke (in which the first element is a nickname for Rodger, just as Hob and Robin are both nicknames for Robert, and all were used to mean “country yokel”).265
The goblin element of the hob name can, on its own, imply a less friendly sprite. Goblins can be just as solitary as hobs, but they are much more malicious and bad tempered, as I shall describe at the end of this chapter. Finally, a strange member of the clan from Somerset is unlike any of the foregoing. The “blue burches” appear as wisps of smoke in houses and play pranks in kitchens.266
Hard Work & Other Hob Habits
Hobs are generally found in the north of England: for example, there are numerous places associated with them and named after them in Yorkshire alone. They prefer to live in holes and caves in hills and cliffs and are seldom seen in the daytime. It is possible sometimes to lure them out, although they may emerge suddenly and give the visitor a fright—as used to be the case with the denizen of Hob’s Cave in Mulgrave Woods, near Whitby. If you called out to him, he was sure to reply:
“Ah’s tying mah left fuit shoe;
An’ Ah’ll be with thee—noo!”
(I’m tying my left foot shoe and I’ll be with you—now!)
At which point, he presumably leapt from his hiding place and gave the visitor a fright. This hob seems tolerant of human company, teasing them with games of peek-a-boo, as if it were only threatening a delicious shock rather than any serious harm.267
At night, hobs will emerge and undertake menial tasks such as threshing, winnowing, and leading the stock for neighbouring farms, performing prodigious labours equivalent to the work of ten men but seeking no remuneration except a little food. They don’t seem to be attached to any one farm or family but will come and go as they choose. On the downside, they may occasionally indulge in mischief, such as stopping the butter churning, drinking all the ale from the barrels, or undoing all the household chores. One time, the hob of Manor Farm, East Halton in Lincolnshire, decided it would be funny to put the wagon on the roof of the barn; the same hob also objected to the site chosen for the new church in the centre of the village and removed the stones nightly until the builders submitted to his will. The residents of the farm were said to leave a candle lit in a window every night “to keep the Hob quiet.”268
In addition to their good-natured devotion to the most laborious tasks around farms, hobs take on other guises. One hobthrush from Dore in Derbyshire was a cobbler. A shoemaker was worried that he was unable to make enough money from his trade to support his family. One morning, though, he came down to his workshop to find that some leather he had cut out the night before had been made up into a fine pair of shoes. He sold these for a good price the same day and with the money earned was able to buy enough leather for two new pairs of shoes. These were expertly made up the next morning—and so it went on, with his income and his stock of shoes growing rapidly. Naturally he was curious to know who was helping him, so the cobbler stayed up one night to spy in his workshop. He watched the hob complete a pair of shoes, and the shoemaker immediately put them away in a cupboard. The hob repeated the process, working so quickly and so tirelessly that the shop quickly filled with shoes, and the cobbler had to start throwing them out of the window as soon as they were completed, he had so many. Like all faery beings, hobs demand respect for their privacy and insist that any good turns that they do are not made public.269
Another common faery habit has also been imputed (once at least) to hobs. At Ipstones in Staffordshire a changeling left in exchange for a human baby, who had been put down to sleep in a hayfield during harvest, turned out to be a “hopthrust,” as they were termed locally. Although it never grew and never spoke, the human mother cared for it well, in spite of her tragic loss and in the hope that the hobs might restore her own child to her in recognition of her kindness. For the duration of the changeling’s life, whenever she wished for them, she would find small gifts of money concealed about her home in drawers and corners.270
Benevolent hobs have also been associated with healing. The best-known example of this comes from the North Yorkshire coast. A hob inhabited a cave at Runswick Bay and would cure children afflicted with whooping cough if invoked with this verse:
“Hob-hole Hob! Mah bairn’s getten t’ kin’-cough:
Tak’ ’t off! Tak’ ’t off!”271
Puck, in his guise as a hob or lob, is one of these hardworking and helpful sprites. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream a fairy observes that “Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, / You do their work, and they shall have good luck.”272 Puck will voluntarily undertake the full range of chores and regular tasks that must be performed in houses and on farms; he is “excellent in everything” and can do in six hours what it would take human workers twice as long to complete.273 Specifically, in the farmyard Puck threshes grain and chops up firewood. In the dairy he churns butter. In the house he will grind malt, meal, and mustard; he sieves flour; he can mend linen, break hemp, dress flax, and spin thread; and he sweeps the kitchen and washes dishes at night. Conversely, Puck will punish lazy householders and their staff. Puck was so closely identified with farmwork, in fact, that he was often imagined in Tudor times carrying a flail for threshing, or else with a broom and candles.274
Ill-Humoured Hobs
Hobs are handy beings to have around a farm or smallholding. They will undertake endless amounts of arduous labour for very little expense, and they never seem to need a rest. However, this comes at the expense of a touchy temperament and a propensity for rather wearing practical jokes. The Yorkshire hobs have been described as “cheery creatures with little malice—unless they are unappreciated.”275
For all their brutish stolidity, hobs are sensitive to criticism. Any questioning (real or perceived) of a hob’s abilities or judgment will be met with bad temper. In East Yorkshire the hobthrusts are said to let beer run to waste, break crockery, throw pans, spill milk, and rattle things together if offended. A Lake District farmer with fields full of ripened grain ready for reaping wished to himself that his crop might be harvested and in the barn before the good weather had changed. The farm hobthrush heard his wish and laboured all night to get the harvest in. The next day it turned out to be sunny after all, and the farmer wished to himself that his crops had got another day’s ripening in the field and that the overenthusiastic hobthrush was in the mill-pond. He was overheard, of course, and his grain was dumped in the pond instead.276
Like domestic brownies, hobs do not require cash payment for their work, but they do expect recognition in kind—that is, by the provision of food and drink. If this is neglected, the hob’s ire will be roused. At Farnsdale in North Yorkshire, a son and his new wife inherited a farm from his father. With it came the resident hob who did many of the chores around the holding. The wife, being unused to the etiquette of faery helpers, begrudged him his nightly jug of cream and left whey instead. The indignant hob duly departed, taking the farm’s prosperity with it. A similar case on a farm near Whitby in 1828 provoked the hob into making noise, pulling off bed covers at night, and killing poultry.277
The last statements notwithstanding, any suggestion of payment can seriously alienate a hob. Whilst leaving out food can be accepted as sharing, providing them with clothes to wear will cause serious affront. For example, at Upleatham near Redcar the hob attached to the Oughtred family was outraged over a workman’s jacket mistakenly left hanging overnight on a winnowing machine. This was simply a misunderstanding, so when the garments are deliberately made or donated, albeit always with the best intentions, the offence is that much greater, and the hob will generally abandon its former home. This happened at Millom in Cumberland, Elsdon Moat in Durham, Close House at Skipton in Craven, and at Sturfit Hall near Reeth. At Overthwaite in Westmorland in about 1650 insult was added to injury because, after the hob called the Tawney Boy had only been helping out at the farm for barely six months, the family decided that his hair should be clipped at the same time as giving him a suit of clothes. In Yorkshire at Hart Hall in Glaisdale, the offence was not the act of presenting clothes, but their quality: the hob objected to them being coarse hemp, and this precipitated his departure. In like fashion, the hob at East Halton in Lincolnshire was driven away by hemp when he had expected linen.278 In this respect, Puck behaves like any other hob. He expects his bowl of cream in recognition of his unstinting labours, but the provision of clothes is guaranteed to provoke great offence.279
Amongst the household spirits like hobs, mischief often manifests itself by the disgruntled being undoing work that’s already been done: Robin Round Cap of Spaldington Hall near Selby in Yorkshire undertook plenty of useful chores, assisting the threshers and the milkmaids, but he also displayed a mischievous streak and delighted in mixing chaff into the winnowed wheat, putting out the fire, or upsetting the milk pail.280
Given such a propensity for pranks, it could be very valuable to have a hob on your side in a dispute. One account from Mulgrave in North Yorkshire dates from about 1760 and concerns the faery denizen of a small hill called Hob Garth. A misunderstanding arose between two local farmers and one of them escalated it into a feud by breaking his neighbour’s hedges and setting his sheep free. Mysteriously, though, the damage was repaired, the sheep were returned, and much worse damage was inflicted on the guilty party. This happened a second time and locals realised that the local hobman had sided with one of the pair. Soon after, the favoured farmer met a little old man, bent double over a walking stick, and with very long hair and very large feet, hands, eyes, and mouth, who assured him that in years to come he would always do well at lambing time. In subsequent years this happened, whilst the malicious neighbour lost many sheep.281
In one case, a hob sympathised with local people who objected to the re-siting of the church at Marske-by-the-Sea in North Yorkshire. The old one had been demolished and the stones transported to the new location, but overnight the hob would rebuild the church on its original site until the builders bowed to the inevitable. Related to this story of religious observance was the belief in Cumberland that, if you didn’t eat your fill of food on Shrove Tuesday at the start of Lent, Hob Thruss would cram you full of barley chaff.282
Horrible Hobs
Hobs who have been permanently alienated by the household in which they have been living may desert it and go to live on their own—as did the hobs at Breedon Hill in Leicestershire and at Over Silton in Yorkshire—the latter because someone neglected one night to leave out the bread and butter that he expected daily as his reward for churning the cream. Probably worse, though, the creatures may choose instead to stay, but only in order to cause a nuisance. It’s sometimes said that a hob scorned becomes a boggart (see next chapter).283
Where a hob has become an unbearable housemate, one solution to the problem may be to try to move away from it. However, in a series of stories with a theme that is also found linked to both boggarts and brownies, getting away generally turns out to be impossible. At Farndale in North Yorkshire a family resolved to escape from the annoyance caused by the household hob and had packed up the carts with all their belongings. As they left their former home, a neighbour enquired if they were “flitting” or not. The hob’s voice came from the milk-churn—“Aye, we’re flitting”—and the family promptly resigned itself to its fate and turned around and went back. Identical incidents are recorded at East Halton in Lincolnshire and at Hob Hill and Obtrush Rock, both in Yorkshire.284
Exorcising Hobs
Hobs can be laid, or exorcised, just like ghosts and boggarts (see later). As has already been mentioned, this can be achieved quite unwittingly just by presenting the unwelcome hob with clothes, but specific ceremonies also exist. Laying may involve as little as pronouncing a blessing or similar: for example, at Dalswinton in South West Scotland a farmer and the local minister agreed that the farm hob should be baptised. He was taken by surprise and holy water was thrown in his face, a well-intentioned act that had the effect of driving him away forever. Sometimes, though, much more complex rituals will have to be followed if you want to be certain of having expelled a particular sprite. The hob called Robin Red Cap at Spaldington Hall outside Selby in North Yorkshire eventually became too much of a nuisance with his pranks- despite the help he gave to the farm workers—and he was laid by means of the simultaneous prayers of three churchmen, by this means being confined to the farm’s well—and that only for a limited period of time. The Somerset blue burches was laid by a blessing and, in response, fled to a nearby pond in horse form, taking us right back to some of the earlier faery beasts that were examined.285
A sprite called Hob the Headless was found haunting a stretch of the road from Hurworth to Neasham near Darlington. Luckily, the fear he caused was limited by the fact that he could not cross the River Kent, which flowed under the road at Neasham. Eventually Hob was laid under a stone by the roadside for ninety-nine years and a day. Despite this exorcism, the road was not rendered wholly safe, because anyone sitting on the stone became glued to it. Another hob was found at Hob’s Hole, a deep pool on the River Tees at Coniscliffe, where he apparently took the occasional person by drowning.286
Most layings proceed on the basis that the hob will be inimical to the Christian religion. This needn’t be the key factor, though. From Galdenoch Mill in Galloway comes the story of how the miller and his wife got rid of the nuisance brownie (or hob) who lived there with them. This hob was in most respects like his kin—he did chores at night but was not averse to the occasional trick. The miller’s wife found him deeply annoying, and the two finally had a blazing row one day. The sprite responded violently, more like a boggart than a hob, holding her over the fire until her clothes started to burn and then plunging her in the well until she was almost drowned. After this brutal treatment, he left the mill in peace for a time. However, the hob returned after a while, and his mischief was greater than ever, so the local minister was called in to lay the unwelcome presence. A long ceremony of singing hymns and psalms followed. The religious aspect of it didn’t seem to trouble the hob at all: he just sang along, mocking and interrupting the preacher. What finally drove this creature away was the noise; he agreed to leave just to get away from the reverend gentleman’s bawling.287
Highland Hobs
Over and above the English brownie and Lowland Scottish broonie, domestic faeries who live with farmers and help out around the farms, there’s a host of other Highland Scottish beings with particular farming connections who more closely resemble the potentially intimidating hob than the milder (and physically smaller) brownie. Many of these are female and seem to have some traits of the “hag” and of the water sprite about them as well.
Gruagach
The gruagach lives in local caves and looks after the cattle of a farm or a village, for which duties she receives a daily bowl of whey or a regular offering of milk that should be poured out over a holed stone or special slab of rock called the cloch na gruagach (the gruagach’s stone) whilst asking the sprite to protect the herds from death and disease. As long as this bargain is maintained, the cattle will be safe from all pests and predators.
Appearance
The gruagach takes various forms. She has been spotted in a tall hat with long golden hair, dressed in green, but another writer captured the creature’s looks as being like “a seedy brownie, … with long hair on his head; an old wrinkled face and his body covered with hair.”288 On Skye the gruagach often appears as a tall young man, dressed in black like a church minister, wearing a hat and carrying a wand, although at Troda on the island the creature was referred to as “The Old Man with the Grey Beard,” and at Scorrybreck a female gruagach with long hair used to be seen, lying on the roof of a cattle byre. She would sing to the farm’s cattle and kept them safe from all disease or accident.289
Habits
The Scorrybreck gruagach was typical of her kind. She was very strong and could surpass even young men in endurance, although in another account a gruagach killed itself through overwork, trying to thrash an entire barn full of corn in one night.290
Like many of her kind, if the creature is offered clothes, she’ll desert a farm, and if her regular helping of milk is forgotten, or is not served exactly as she likes it, she’ll wreak havoc, turning the cows into the crops and such like. In cases of this kind, it’s noticeable that cattle don’t panic as they normally might if they got loose at night, suggesting that the gruagach will stay with them as a calming presence, for all her devilment. A few gruagachs will indulge in such mischief purely for a love of annoying people with their pranks.291
The gruagach is very strong and can underestimate its own strength: for instance, in one case from Scorrybreck on Skye, a gruagach had been teasing a woman by thwarting her attempts to drive her cattle into a byre; when she realised what was happening, she lost her temper and cursed him; he, in turn, gave her a slap which killed her. He was so remorseful that he sat up all night with the person who watched over the corpse, feeding the fire to keep her warm.292
Gruagachs (like brownies) can become very proprietorial about the houses in which they choose to live: they will supervise and spy upon the servants and punish those who are lazy, thievish, or rude. Generally, though, they can be protective towards humans.293
Glaistig
Glaistigs are often portrayed as violent hags, but their more benign aspect is as dairy maids and cowherds, seldom being seen but using their physical strength and powerful voice to keep the cattle in check. When the family are eating or the herdsman has fallen asleep, the glaistig will be watchful, keeping the cattle out of the crops or away from cliffs. The glaistig of Glen Duror was once a dairy maid before she was abducted from her child bed by the sith folk and, in her bean-sith form, she took great care over all aspects of the management and care of the cattle.294
Nature & Appearance
As in the Glen Duror case, glaistigs are said to be human women who’ve been placed under a faery enchantment and thereby have acquired a faery nature. For this reason, the glaistig can sometimes transform into a dog to better herd and protect the livestock; nonetheless, she’s said to be more human than faery, being more solid and substantial than a sith woman. Proof of this semi-human nature may be the fact that the glaistig attending the Lamonts of Ardnadrochaid died of sorrow and shame after she failed to protect the household’s cattle against rustlers. Another glaistig was stabbed to death by an outraged laird of the MacMillans after she crept up behind him and grabbed and held him.295
The glaistig is heard much more than she’s seen, and she apparently spends a good deal of her time invisible, which may account for the varied descriptions we have. Some have described a tall woman; others say she’s small, stout, and very strong. Her face has been said to be wan and grey and to look like a stone covered with lichen, but other witnesses have recalled her more favourably—as a little woman with yellow hair, as a young woman with long hair or as a “lump of a lassie” with white hair like flax. She may appear dressed in green with a wand, and she moves with a supernatural gliding gait. The glaistig is unique amongst the hobs in that she is also a shape-shifter, being able to assume the bodies of dogs, as mentioned, but also goats, mares, foals, and sheep.296
Habits
The glaistig lives near to farms but is a solitary being, normally keeping to a convenient ravine nearby. She is a half-water, half-land sprite and is probably never far from some body of water; one derivation of the name is “water imp,” and her diet includes a lot of fish and eels. In addition, the glaistig expects a pail of milk nightly and will react angrily if this is withheld or forgotten—the calves may be found amongst the cows in the morning, depriving the household of milk at breakfast, the cream may not rise, or a cow may die. In some places, milk is also offered at other important points in the farming year, such as when the cattle are first left out overnight each year and when they are brought inside for winter. The glaistig of Ault-na-Creige on Mull was driven away when a boy played a prank and left out boiling milk; another at Morven was outraged by a well-meant cup of tea. The glaistig of Glen Duror seemed particularly sensitive to signs of human activity. She not only lived away from houses amongst the rocks in the glen but, it was reported, quit the area entirely once steamers appeared on Loch Linnhe and blasting started in the new quartz quarry.297
As a rule, glaistigs are harmless and pleasant: they will play with children and take especial care of lonely elderly people or those with mental disabilities. Less endearingly, they make sure other farm servants do their work properly. Milkmaids will be punished if they do not clean the cows well before milking them, and the glaistig will also check the udders after milking to check that a proper job has been done. Servants who are lazy or who don’t show the glaistig sufficient respect will be made to suffer, perhaps with a couple of hefty clouts. Some glaistigs are even more brownie-like, washing clothes or tidying up houses at night, in which role they are called the maighdean sheombair (chambermaid), but they could become nuisances, too, in houses by making noise and playing pranks, such as upsetting furniture, putting dust in the food or pulling off bed linen. They would also interfere with tools and spinning wheels left out overnight. Even so, they would not live on the premises, but might be seen arriving for the “night-shift” from their wilderness abodes. The attachment to a house or family might even become so close that the glaistig took on a banshee-like role, seeing future events (such as the arrival of visitors, which would provoke her to greater efforts around the house) and crying out if joy or misfortune are imminent. This was, for example, the case with the so-called “elle-maid” (elf-girl) of Dunstaffnage Castle in Argyll.
Forced Labours
Glaistigs can be captured and forced to undertake tasks for humans, building barns or castles in a single night, for example. However, when they’re compelled by duress or taken captive, they will often exact a revenge by cursing the captor. One man was granted herds of cattle, but was told that his children would grow like rushes—shooting up tall and straight—but then wither away like ferns; the clan would be as impermanent as the mist. Glaistigs can voluntarily bestow skills (in one case, as a thief) and they might voluntarily undertake good deeds other than their farm work too, for example appearing as a foal and carrying a person over a dangerous stream at Erray on Mull.298
Nasty Glaistigs
For all her devotion to a family and to its dairy herds, the farm glaistig could be irritable, whilst the glaistig in her wild state is a nuisance, if not a downright menace. These have been regarded as the enemies of men: one glaistig on Arran lived in a cave that people called “Uamh na Beiste,” the “Cave of the Monster.” Many stories from the Highlands describe how the wild glaistigs will tease and annoy, often with a view to abducting and killing a human if the opportunity presents itself. Some delight in waylaying and attacking travellers. The glaistig of the ford of the River Meig would ask those trying to cross what weapons they had about them. Whatever you made the mistake of naming, you would be unable to wield against her.299
Those dealing with such creatures should always be on their guard, ideally taking the precaution of having a naked blade about themselves at all times. Two brothers from Onich were pestered by a glaistig whenever they went out hunting on Monadh Dhubh and stayed in a shieling. Eventually, they fell out and the glaistig promised the brothers vengeance; the next time she appeared, they took no risks and set their dogs on her. The two hounds got the better of the hag, but one returned with only a few tufts of hair left on its body, and the other came back looking like a plucked chicken. In the worst example of this fatal tendency, four men staying in a bothy overnight wished that their girlfriends were with them. Unexpectedly, the young women appeared soon afterwards. Only one of the men was suspicious about this, and he kept his sweetheart at a distance all night with the help of his dirk. His caution was wise, for the women were actually four glaistigs, and the other three had drained their unsuspecting partners of all their blood. In another version of this story, set at a place called Creag a’ Bhais, “The Rock of Death,” one of the men spots that the women have deer’s hooves, and he fends them off all night by playing his (metal) Jew’s harp. At dawn, they turn into eagles and fly off.300
In fact, robust, even violent, treatment of a glaistig can actually pay dividends. The gift received from her might be an immediate advantage, such as the man who was allowed to kill a white hind amongst the deer herded by a glaistig after he called off his hound from savaging her. Sometimes, much longer-term benefits may be granted. A man called MacLachlan, living at Glenahurich, discovered that a glaistig was killing his newborn foal each year. After the third was born, he caught the hag in the act of trying to drown the young horse and violently seized her. Faced with certain death, she bargained for her life by granting prosperity to him and to his descendants, as well as endowing him with the second sight. Similar good fortune was bestowed upon the blacksmith of Strontian in the Highlands (it’s notable, by the way, that the Gaelic name of this place is Sron an t-Sithein, meaning the “Peak of the Faeries”). This blacksmith always liked to leave his forge tidy at the end of the day, but he kept finding it in disarray every morning. He decided to wait one night to see what was happening, hiding behind the door with one of his largest hammers. Sure enough, a glaistig entered and began to create chaos, whereupon he smashed his hammer down upon her head. To avoid a second blow, she begged for mercy and granted to all of his descendants perfect skills in the smith’s craft.301
Urisks
The urisk (or uruisg) is said to be a “large lubberly supernatural,” a half-human and half-fae (or even half-goat) spirit that is often very like a domestic brownie.302 They are the offspring of a relationship between a man and a leannan sith, having very long hair, long teeth, and long claws. During the summer, the urisk lives alone in caves in wild places. In winter, they shelter in barns and outbuildings and, in return for being allowed to lie before the fire and to receive a bowl of cream, they will undertake farm chores such as herding and threshing. They are very strong and clever but can be savage if provoked. They will desert a farm if neglected or insulted, although it’s not clear whether or not presenting clothes is a welcome act or an affront. One farmer even gelded his urisk in an effort to tame it, an act which he seems to have got away with scot-free.303
Apparently the solitary urisk can crave human company and may tag along with lone travellers at night. This can prove a disturbing experience for the human, either because the urisk is a silent companion dogging his or her heels or because it engages in conversation, on which occasions it has hair-raising stories to tell from heaven, hell, and the otherworld.304
The urisk can also make a nuisance of itself with taunts and jeering and, rather like the glaistig, it may from time to time do this solely to provoke a human’s ire so that there’s an excuse to fight and kill it. In some forms, such as the peallaidh, the urisk haunts rivers, falls, lochs, and the seashore and is more dangerous. This creature’s name means “the shaggy one,” and he is described as a hostile sprite with long, untidy hair. The name emphasises the feral, bestial nature of the hobs. One example of this type from the Highlands is the peallaidh an spuit, “the shaggy one of the waterfall,” who was believed to live in caves behind the cascades. The urisk of Moraig waterfall in Argyll was understood to have a role regulating the flow of water over the precipice; apparently, he stopped it falling too quickly by dangling his feet in the flood.305
On the Isle of Arran, the child of the urisk is called the “Bleater,” the meileachan, and is known on the island as a particular nuisance. In one instance, for example, it waylaid a farmer riding home at night and kept jumping up behind him on his horse. He managed to seize the being and held it tight until he got back to his farm, whereupon he locked it in his barn. Eventually the creature’s mother came to set it free—something the man was happy to do—and as the pair left, he heard her ask her offspring whether it had revealed to the human “the virtue of egg water or the root of nettle.” Similar knowledge is mentioned in connection with an urisk that was driven away from a farm by leaving it a coat in cold weather. The farmer’s wife declared she would not miss it, for it had never disclosed “the virtue of the root of bur and what substance is in the sweat of an egg.” Evidently, there is some magical property in an egg’s cooking water that’s known to the faeries (it may be recalled that a mermaid had something similar to say about it), and on Shetland washing your face in the first egg laid by a chicken could bestow the second sight.306
Manx Hobs
On the Isle of Man, there are two equivalent beings to the English hobgoblin. The first, that most closely resembles its mainland cousin, is the fynoderee (a name that’s also spelled fenoderee and phynodderree), a being that’s known to live on about twelve farms on the island. They don’t tend to enter the farmhouses themselves, nor come near to them unless food is left out. They are rarely seen because during the daytime they keep to the woods and glens. Manx folklorist Mona Douglas described him in these terms: “he is a faery being who is said to have the body of a goat and the head and shoulders of a man; he may perhaps be called a sort of mythical goat.” This further example of a hob being compared to a satyr or faun is a reminder of their “beastly” character.307
The fynoderee is a very typical hob. He has been compared to a domestic brownie and a troll combined. He is said to be bigger and broader than a man, extremely hairy, clumsy, and repulsive with knock-knees. Despite his appearance, he can run very quickly and is a great worker, being immensely strong. At the same time, he’s also very dim. By way of illustration, the fynoderee of Bride parish, working on his own, cut two whole fields of corn in one night and then rounded up a flock of sheep, penning them along with several hares; in like manner, the fynoderee of Gordon tried to fetch water in a sieve.308
Several proofs of the fynoderee’s strength are attested. Manx people point to a huge stone that was carried from the beach to a building site by one. In another incident, he met a blacksmith and asked to shake hands. The smith prudently placed a plough share in the fynoderee’s grip: it was squeezed like putty.309
The fynoderee is friendly towards people, for the most part, and will labour tirelessly, threshing grain overnight, gathering in hay before a storm, or rounding up sheep during a blizzard. Nevertheless, like many of his kind, he is sensitive of criticism and will reject human clothes if they’re given to him, although in his case it doesn’t seem to be principle so much as practicality. For one thing, he is so hairy that garments are unnecessary in any case; over and above this, clothes can make him ill. In one famous story he expresses his disgust with the gift of suit by complaining:
“Cap for the head—alas, poor head!
Coat for the back—alas, poor back!
Breeches for the breech—alas, poor breech!”310
The fynoderee’s response in this case was to abandon the farm for the solitude of Glen Rushen. This would have been a disaster for the farmer, because it is said that the luck of a house resides in the sprite and, with his departure, all happiness and prosperity will also be gone. Mona Douglas has summarised the fynoderee’s position as “a being who keeps all the unruly inhabitants of the unseen world in something like order, and holds the human inhabitants of the Island under his protection.” Some authorities believe that Manx agriculture as a whole has declined along with the waning belief in and respect for the fynoderee.311
The second Manx hob is called the glastin or glashtyn. This sprite has one form as a horse (as was described earlier) but also as a lamb, a pig, and even as a water bull or tarroo ushtey, but he will mostly be seen as a large, hairy, naked man (though females are also known), simple and coarse and prone to grudges. An example of their stupidity is the regular story of a glashtyn herding in the flock of sheep with which he also—with very great trouble—rounded up a hare.312
There are seemingly two separate types of glashtyn. One is semi-domesticated, living in pools in rivers near to the farms where it works. The sprite is good natured and helpful to those whom he favours. He is very strong, being able to thresh a whole stack of corn in a single night and will also tend grain drying in kilns overnight. In return for their labours, people would bank up the cottage fire for them to enjoy at night but would never speak to them. The glashtyn, like so many of his kind, doesn’t like to be given clothes and doesn’t like to be overseen. One on a farm at Barra that was engaged in drying grain realised that a man was spying on him, and he snatched the offender and threw him into the hot kiln as well. Fortunately, some kindly faeries intervened and pulled him out.313
The second type of glashtyn is wild-roaming. He has very unpleasant habits, such as trying to carry off women, but he can be scared off by throwing hot turves at him. The glashtyn at Braddan haunted the churchyard there and was described as being short with an evil, hairy face. If you wanted to pass the spot, you had to bow three times to appease him.314
What I think is particularly striking about this group of beings is how many of them are semi-wild sprites, often with a parallel reputation for violent acts, and yet they’re entrusted with a farm’s valuable assets. Of course, the farmers don’t recruit them; the faery cowherds are generally inherited or volunteer themselves, but it is nonetheless a curious relationship. The spirit of the wilderness accommodates itself to the human subjugation of the landscape.
Goblins & Dwarves
So far, I have discussed the many varieties of hobgoblins, usually a more pleasant and amenable sprite that, despite its size and strength, can live amiably and helpfully in proximity to humans. Strip away the “hob” prefix, which has some connotations of shambling stupidity, and what’s left are the goblins, creatures whose whole nature comprises the worst elements of the aggravated hob.
A goblin tends to imply a bad-tempered, if not an outright malevolent, sprite. The name isn’t an English one, however, it’s borrowed from French gobelin, and ultimately from Greek kobalos, denoting an evil spirit. The German kobold, which can be translated as “knocker,” a mine faery, is also derived from the same source. The word first appeared in (written) English usage in about 1325 and was initially used to mean a devil or demon, although it was later demoted to something slightly less malign and more mischievous.315 “Goblin” became interchangeable with a number of other words: for example, in the romance of Melusine from 1500 one may read of “Many manere of things, the which somme called Gobelyns, the other ffayrees, and the other bonne dames or good ladies.”316 A century later in Fairfax’s Godfrey of Bulloigne, there’s a comparable grouping of supernaturals: “The shriking gobblings each where howling flew; the Furies roare, the ghosts and Faeries yell.”317 By 1713 Thomas Tickell was able to describe “Our own rustical Superstition of Hob-thrushes, faeries, goblins and Witches.” The labels have become virtually identical, so that today a goblin is often nothing more or less than a bad faery.318
Goblins are regarded as solitary and ill-tempered. We should be grateful that they choose to live in isolation from human communities, because they are very dangerous to encounter. Examples include two malign beings of the Scottish Borders. The Red Caps live in old ruins; anyone caught by bad weather when out on the road who takes shelter in the crumbling structures risks being killed. The Red Cap has been described as resembling a well-armed and armoured old man who has large teeth and eyes. He wears a red cap which he dyes in the blood of his victims. It is hopeless to attempt to fight him off, but reciting a passage of scripture or making the sign of the cross will drive him away. Very similar is the Powrie or Dunter who also dwells in ruined pele towers. This goblin isn’t so actively violent; instead, he makes a sound like the stamping of flax or the grinding of grain; if this gets louder or lasts longer than normal, it foretells some tragedy.319
Difficulties similar to those found with the word goblin arise with the term “dwarf,” which largely fell out of English folklore usage after the Anglo-Saxon period. Within Britain, the word “dwarf” was then reallocated for use to describe certain medical conditions because the category of creature known as the dwarf does not exist in folk belief. Dwarves feature strongly in the folklore of Germany, but they only became familiar in Britain again through the Brothers Grimm and the much more recent work of J. R. R. Tolkien.
That said, a descendent of the original word, dweorg, lingered in the north, being used to describe some sort of being that should more properly be labelled a hobgoblin. (It also survives in Dorset, in the south of England, in the form “derrick,” describing a pixie-like being.) There is a story from the Simonside Hills in Northumberland in which a lost shepherd spends a tense and unhappy night with a local duergar, sharing a hut during bad weather. The duergar resents his unwelcome companion and passes the time trying to trick him into falling off a cliff edge which he has concealed with glamour. The shepherd’s peril is only revealed in the light of the morning when his hut-mate has vanished.320
The hobyahs of Perthshire appear to be some kind of goblin or dwarf-like being. There is only one story about them, in which they seem to be unpleasant creatures. An old couple lived with a young girl in a flimsy hovel made of hemp stalks. One night the hobyahs came with the intention of tearing down the insubstantial shelter and eating the occupants. Luckily the family’s dog barked and scared them off. This was repeated several nights running, but sadly the old man misunderstood the reason for the dog’s yelping, and he killed it. The next night the girl was kidnapped and carried off in a sack to the hobyah lair. Fortunately, a man out with his dog found her the following day and freed her whilst the hobyahs slept. He put the dog in the sack instead so that, in the evening, when the hobyahs opened the bag expecting to eat the girl, they were instead eaten themselves.321
Further north, the fridich nan creag of the Highlands are small goblins or gnomes that live inside rocks and subsist upon the crumbs and drops of milk that are dropped by human households when they are eating, cooking, or milking. If a family are too tidy and do not allow the sprites this small share of their food, they will find other sustenance, usually by taking cattle, sheep, and horses through apparent accidents.322
Conclusions
The hobs are, of all the faery beasts, the most animalistic. Many of the faery beasts possess beast-like form, but do not act consistently with their outward appearance.
The hobs are beasts of burden, simple creatures of brute strength and instinct. Yet, while they are a force of nature, they are also a part of nature. Their attachment to certain farms can be likened to the local flora and fauna; the hobs are one with the local environment. It is for this reason that we would wish to foster their good will: the favour and assistance of a hob can be of immense material benefit.
256. Sidney Oldall Addy, Household Tales with Other Traditional Remains Collected in the Counties of York, Lincoln, Derby, and Nottingham (London: Nutt, 1895), 39; John C. Atkinson, Forty Years in a Moorland Parish: Reminiscences and Researches in Danby in Cleveland (London, Macmillan & Co., 1891), 65; John Pagen White, Lays and Legends of the English Lake Country, With Copious Notes (London: John Russell Smith, 1873), 160.
257. John Milton, L’Allegro, lines 105-114.
258. Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, II, 1; John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, 1607, III, 4, http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/bf1.html; William Haughton, Grim the Collier of Croydon, 1605, IV, 1 (vol. 102, Tudor Facsimile Texts, University of Illinois, 1912).
259. Anthony Munday, Fidele & Fortunio, 1584, line 566; The Two Lancashire Lovers, 1640, 222; Ritson, “Dissertation II on Fairies,” 10.
260. Ben Jonson, Love Restored—A Masque, 1612 and see, too, The Sad Shepherd, 1637, III, 1.
261. Drayton, Nymphidia, 1627, line 283. Note, too, that the Irish “leprechaun” derives from the adjective “lubberkin” and that “urchin” was another Tudor word for a fairy.
262. Edward Thomas, Collected Poems (London: Faber and Faber, 2004), 39.
263. Tarlton’s News out of Purgatory, 1588, 55, 222; Rudyard Kipling, “Weland’s Sword,” in Puck of Pook’s Hill (London: n.p., 1906).
264. Ben Jonson, Love Restored, 1612, http://www.luminarium.org/editions/loverestored.htm.
265. Jonson, The Devil Is an Ass, 1616, I, 1; T. Churchyard, A Handful of Gladsome Verses, 1592; and see Robert Nares, A Glossary or Collection of Words, Phrases and Names (Stralsund: n.p., 1825), 628.
266. Tongue, Somerset Folklore, 121.
267. John C. Atkinson, A Glossary of the Cleveland Dialect: Explanatory, Derivative, and Critical (London: John Russell Smith, 1868), 263.
268. Ingrid Barton, North Yorkshire Folk Tales (Stroud: The History Press, 2014), chapter 5; Kai Roberts, Folklore of Yorkshire (Stroud: The History Press, 2013), 96; Leland L. Duncan, “The following extract from a letter,” Folklore 8, (1897): 69.
269. Addy, Household Tales, 38.
270. Elijah Cope, “Some Local Fairies,” in Memorials of Old Staffordshire, ed. Rev. W. Beresford (London: George, Allen & Unwin, 1909), 89.
271. Atkinson, A Glossary, 262.
272. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, II, 1.
273. The Life of Robin Goodfellow, His Mad Pranks and Merry Jests, 1628, in Halliwell, Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology, chapter 6, 120: Second Part, “How Robin Good-fellow Helped a Maid to Work.”
274. The Cobbler of Canterbury, 1608, “Robin Goodfellow’s Epistle,” in F. Ouvry and H. Neville Davies (eds), Library of English Literature, vol. 2, (D. S. Brewer, 1976); Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (London: Henry Cripps, 1621), 124; Ritson, “Dissertation II on Fairies,” 10; Samuel Rowlands, “Of Ghosts and Goblins,” More Knaves Yet? The Knaves of Spades and Diamonds, 1612; Ben Jonson, Love Restored, 1612, http://www.luminarium.org/editions/loverestored.htm); Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, Brinsley Nicholson, ed. (London: Elliott Stock, 1886), book 4, chapter 10; Mary Howitt, “The Carolina Parrot,” in Mary Howitt’s Poems, (London: Nelson & Sons, 1872), 150; Halliwell, “The Pranks of Puck,” in Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology, 165; Haughton, Grim the Collier of Croydon, IV, 1.
275. Ingrid Barton, North Yorkshire Folk Tales, 83.
276. John Nicholson, Folklore of East Yorkshire (London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., 1890), 80; Briggs, A Dictionary of Faeries, 224.
277. Roberts, Folklore of Yorkshire, 99.
278. Richard Blakeborough, Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire: With a Glossary of over 4,000 Words and Idioms Now in Use (London: Henry Frowde, 1898), 203; White, Lays and Legends, 160; William Hutton, The Beetham Repository, 1770, ed. John Rawlinson Ford (Kendal: T. Wilson, 1906), 172; Atkinson, A Glossary, 243; Roberts, Folklore of Yorkshire, 96–8.
279. The Cobbler of Canterbury, 1608, ‘Robin Goodfellow’s Epistle’; Ritson, “Dissertation II on Fairies,” 10; R. Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1612, book 4, chapter 10.
280. Roberts, Folklore of Yorkshire, 98.
281. Blakeborough, Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs, 207.
282. Blakeborough, Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs, 205; White, Lays and Legends, 161.
283. William Grainge, The Vale of Mowbray: A Historical and Topographical Account of Thirsk and Its Neighbourhood (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1859), 325–6.
284. John Phillips, The Rivers, Mountains, and Sea-Coast of Yorkshire (London: J Murray, 1853), 201–11; Bruce Dickins, “Yorkshire Hobs,” Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society 7, part 13 (1942): 18–22; Atkinson, Glossary, 262.
285. Tony Bonning, Dumfries & Galloway Folk Tales (Stroud: The History Press, 2016), 57; Roberts Folklore of Yorkshire, 100; Sutherland, Folk-lore Gleanings and Character, 93; Tongue, Somerset Folklore, 121.
286. William Hylton Longstaffe, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Darlington, In the Bishoprick (London: J. Henry Parker, 1854), 15.
287. Trotter and Trotter, Galloway Gossip, 46.
288. Campbell, Popular Tales, vol. 2, 401.
289. MacDougall, Folk Tales and Fairy Lore, 217; Samuel Johnson, “Ostig in Skye,” in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (London, 1775); Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands, 18-22, 155, 183; MacCulloch, “Folk-Lore of the Isle of Skye,” Folklore vol. 33, 207.
290. See Briggs, Dictionary of Fairies, “Grogan or Grogach” or Spence, The Fairy Tradition in Britain, 101.
291. MacDougall, Folk Tales and Fairy Lore, 217; Campbell, Popular Tales, vol. 2, 401; Johnson, ”Ostig in Skye,” A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland; Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, vol. 2, 306.
292. Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands, 185.
293. MacDougall, Folk Tales and Fairy Lore, 223; Celtic Monthly 5 (1892): 125.
294. MacDougall, Folk Tales and Fairy Lore, 267.
295. Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands, 172; Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands, 157, 161.
296. Mackenzie, Scottish Folk-Lore and Folk Life, chapter IX, 177; Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands, 166.
297. MacDougall, Folk Tales and Fairy Lore, 267; Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands, 159; Watson, “Highland Mythology,” Celtic Review 5 (1892): 63.
298. Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands, 159–183; Fionn, “A Loohaber Hag: The Glaistig of Llanachan,” Celtic Monthly 9 (1901): 189.
299. Mackenzie, Scottish Folk-Lore, 241, 181.
300. MacDougall, Folk Tales and Fairy Lore, 243, 259; Celtic Monthly 3 (1894): 176.
301. MacDougall, Folk Tales and Fairy Lore, 237, 251, 263; Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands, 177; Spence, The Fairy Tradition in Britain, 41.
302. Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands, 191.
303. James MacDiarmid, “Fragments of Breadalbane Folk-lore,” Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness 25, (1901–2), 133; Dieckhoff, “Mythological Beings,” Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness 29, 241.
304. Watson, “Highland Mythology,” Celtic Review 5, 51; Mackenzie, Scottish Folk-Lore, 185.
305. MacDougall, Folk Tales and Fairy Lore, 295-308; James Browne, A History of the Highlands and of the Highland Clans, vol. 1 (Glasgow: A. Fullerton & Co., 1838), 106; Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands, 197; Watson, “Celtic Mythology,” Celtic Review 5, 48; David MacRitchie, The Testimony of Tradition (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1890), 159; MacDiarmid, “Fragments of Breadalbane Folklore,” 133.
306. W. M. MacKenzie, The Book of Arran (Arran: Kilbrannan Publishing, 1914), 277, 280, 284; Burgess, “Some Shetland Folk-lore,” Scottish Review 25, 102.
307. Gill, A Manx Scrapbook, chapter 4, 193; Douglas, “Restoring to Use Our,” 22.
308. Leney, Shadowland in Ellan Vannin; Morrison, Manx Fairy Tales; Moore, The Folk-lore of the, chapter 4.
309. Train, Isle of Man, vol. 2, chapter 18; Jenkinson, Jenkinson’s Practical Guide, 91; Douglas, “Restoring to Use Our,” 22.
310. See, for example, Briggs, Dictionary of Fairies, 170, or Train, An Historical and Statistical Account, vol. 2, 148.
311. Evans-Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, 129; Douglas, “Restoring to Use Our,” 22; Train, Isle of Man, vol. 2, 138; William Harrison, Mona Miscellany: A Selection of Proverbs, Sayings, Ballads, Customs, Superstitions, and Legends, Peculiar to the Isle of Man (Douglas, Isle of Man: The Manx Society, 1869), 173.
312. Roeder, Manx Folk-Tales, 25; Spence, Fairy Tradition in Britain, 84–85.
313. Yn Lioar Manninagh, vol. III; Moore, The Folk-lore of the, chapter 4; Roeder, Manx Folk-Tales, 26.
314. Moore, The Folk-lore of the, chapter 4; Roeder, Manx Notes & Queries, 98; “Glashtin,” Isle of Man—Paranormal Database Records, Paranormal Database, accessed May 22, 2020, www.paranormaldatabase.com/isleofman/mandata.php.
315. See, for example, Rossell Hope Robbins, ed., Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), 28.
316. See Jean d’Arras, Melusine, vol. 68, ed. A. K. Donald, EETS edition, 1895, 4.
317. Edward Fairfax, translation of Torquato Tasso, Godfrey of Bulloigne; or, The Recoverie of Jerusalem, 1600, IX, xv, 162.
318. Tickell, The Guardian, April 15, 1713.
319. Henderson, Notes on the Folk-lore, 253, 255.
320. R. J. King, “Folklore of Devonshire,” Fraser’s Magazine 8 (1873): 773; Frederick Grice, Folk Tales of the North Country: Drawn from Northumberland and Durham (London: T. Nelson & Sons, 1944), chapter 38.
321. Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales: Collected and Edited by Joseph Jacobs (London, Putnam, 1922), 127.
322. Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, vol. 2, 295.