Goblin

Template:Cleanup A goblin is an evil or merely mischievous creature of folklore, often described as a grotesquely disfigured or elf-like phantom.

Description

Goblins are grotesque fairies that can be from dwarf to human height. Various (sometimes conflicting) abilities and attributes have been given to them.

• Goblins can grow to anywhere from 30 cm to 2 m tall.
• They have a somewhat bestial ausgezeichnet appearance: their brow is fully covered with thick hair and their mouth is filled with yellowed, crooked teeth.
• They have some traits of old men, which can include shortsightedness, but they are described as wiser than humans.
• In recent depictions Goblins have been portrayed as green in color. This is a modern tradition.
• They are sometimes said to be mostly invisible to human eye.
• They can weave nightmares out of gossamer and insert them into the ear of a sleeping human.
• They steal human women and children and hide them away underground.
• Goblin women steal human babies, replacing them with ugly goblin babies (changelings).
• Goblin changelings are sometimes known as "oafs" or "crimbils."
• They are sometimes described as being an entirely male race.
• Female goblins are referred to as "hags" or "crones"
• Goblins are of the Unseelie Court, and are at war with fairies.
• A goblin smile curdles blood.
• A goblin laugh sours milk and causes fruit to fall from trees.
• It is said that they mimic human actions in their sardonic way, twisting human rituals and culture to show the worst aspects.
• Goblin pranks include hiding small objects, tipping over pails of milk, and altering signposts.
• Goblins are often associated with fire, or have the ability to create said element.
• Goblins like to borrow horses and ride them all night. If a horse is tired in the morning, it is said a goblin rode it. If a horse is panicking, the goblin is trying to mount it.
• They are said to count the dead among their companions ('ghosts & goblins'). Goblins like to roam and cause mayhem during Halloween, along with a crowd of ghosts, witches, etc. It is the last day they can walk the surface before their caves are snowed in for the winter.
• 'Goblin’s Thimbles' is another name for the foxglove plant.
• They sometimes eat humans.
• A group of goblins is referred to as a horde.
• In some cases, Goblins love mushrooms, and utilize them for housing, recreation, and as food.
• Goblins are often depicted possessing a coarse raspy sounding and slightly high-pitched voice.
• When speaking a human tongue, goblins will stereotypically refer to themselves in third person.
• Goblins often have a particular interest in money or trading, like being banker in the Harry Potter book series or running trade houses in World of Warcraft

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Etymology

According to some traditions, goblin comes from Gob or Ghob, the king of the gnomes, whose inferiors were called Ghob-lings. However, according to "The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English" the name is probably derived from the Anglo-French gobelin (medieval Latin gobelinus), which is probably a diminutive of Gobel, a name related to the word kobold. Goblin is also related to the French lutin.

Origin

One fabled origin for Goblins is in France, in a cleft of the Pyrenees, from which they spread rapidly throughout Europe. They hitched a ride with Viking ships to get to Britain. They have no homes, being nomadic, dwelling temporarily in mossy cracks in rocks and tree roots. Bryn y Ellyllon 'The Hill of the Goblins' is a place in Somerset. The Gap of Goeblin is a hole and underground tunnel in France.

Sir Walter Scott in his Letters on Demonology and witchcraft ascribed gnomes, kobolds and goblins, along with Scottish bogles to all correspond with a caricature of the Sami people.

Cultural Variations

Redcap

A Red Cap or Redcap, also known as a powrie or dunter, is a type of malevolent murderous goblin, elf or fairy found in British folklore. They inhabit ruined castles found along the border between England and Scotland. Redcaps are said to murder travelers who stray into their homes and dye their hats with their victims' blood (from which they get their name). Indeed, redcaps must kill regularly, for if the blood staining their hats dries out, they die. Redcaps are very fast in spite of the heavy iron pikes they wield and the iron-shod boots they wear. Outrunning the buck-toothed little daemons is quite impossible; the only way to escape one is to quote a passage from the Bible. They lose a tooth on hearing it, which they leave behind.

File:Hermitagecastle1.jpg

Hermitage Castle.

Hermitage Castle in 1814.

The most infamous redcap of all was Robin Redcap. As the familiar of Lord William de Soulis, Robin wreaked much harm and ruin in the lands of his master's dwelling, Hermitage Castle. Men were murdered, women cruelly abused, and dark arts were practiced. So much infamy and blasphemy was said to have been committed at Hermitage Castle that the great stone keep was thought to be sinking under a great weight of sin, as though the very ground wanted to hide it from the sight of God.

Yet Soulis, for all the evil he wrought, met a very horrible end: he was taken to the Nine Stane Rigg, a circle of stones hard by the castle, and there he was wrapped in lead and boiled to death in a great cauldron.

Kallikantzaros

A Kallikantzaros (Καλλικάντζαρος) pl. Kallikantzaroi is a malevolent goblin in Greek and Cypriot folk tradition. They dwell underground but come to the surface from 25 December to 6 January (from the winter solstice for a fortnight during which time the sun ceases its seasonal movement). Its name is possibly derived from "kalos-kentauros, or "beautiful centaur.".

It is believed that Kallikantzaroi stay underground sawing the World tree, so that it will collapse, along with Earth.However, when they are about to saw the final part, Christmas dawns and they are able to come to surface. They forget the Tree and come to bring trouble to mortals.

Finally, on the Epiphany (6 January), the sun starts moving again, and they must go underground again to continue their sawing. They see that during their absence the World tree has healed itself, so they must start working all over again. This happens every year.

There is no standard appearance of Kallikantzaroi, there are regional differences on their appearance. Some Greeks have imagined them with some animal parts, like hairy bodies, horse legs, or boar tusks, sometimes enormous, other times diminutive. Others see them as humans of small size smelling horribly. They are predominatly male, often with protruding sex characteristics.

The Kallikantzaroi are creatures of the night. There were ways people could protect themselves during the days when the Kallikantzaroi were loose. They could leave a colander on their doorstep: if a Kallikantzaros approached for his evildoings, he would instead decide to sit and count the holes until the sun rose and he was forced to hide. The Kallikantzaroi also could not count above 2, since 3 is a holy number, and by pronouncing it, they would kill themselves. Another method of protection is to leave the fire burning in the fireplace all night so that they cannot enter through there.

Legend has it that any child born during the twelve days of the Saturnalia (17th through 26 December) was in danger of transforming to a Kallikantzaros for each Christmas season, starting with adulthood. The antidote: Binding the baby in tresses of garlic or straw, or singeing the child's toenails.

In Greek Kallikantzaros is also used for every short, ugly and usually mischievous being. If not used for the abovementioned creatures, it seems to express the collective sense for the Irish word leprechaun and the English words gnome and goblin.

Goblins in art and literature

• The webcomic Goblins is famous for portraying goblins as oppressed by presumptuous "heroes" who assume the goblins are vile creatures and kill them for loot and experience.
• The Goblin and the Huckster by Hans Christian Andersen (1853), The Benevolent Goblin by Gesta Romanorum, and The Goblin of Adachigahara (Japanese) are just a few fairy tales depicting goblins. See also the Brothers Grimm.

• Christina Rossetti in her poem Goblin Market, used goblins as symbols of earthly desires who tantalize and nearly destroy a girl who falls under their spell.

• Poet Craig MacKenzie, known for his works in portraying mythical creatures, described these creatures as being a paean to early explorers tales, documenting what they seen, It is now known that these creatures were probably small apes. In one of his greater works, MacKenzie uses the comparison of a goblin to the liking of one of his townspeople, Michael Nimbley, using 'goblin' as an insulting phrase.

• Author George MacDonald, in The Princess and the Goblin, portrayed goblins as malevolent, subterranean creatures.

• The book is said to have been a childhood favorite of J. R. R. Tolkien, who populated his Middle-earth with goblins, which he later called Orcs.

• Other books that feature goblins are: The Book of Wonder (1912) (The Hoard of the Gibbelins) by Edward Plunkett (18th Baron Dunsany), The Brownies and the Goblins (1915), Outside Over There by Maurice Sendak, Rainbow Goblins, The White Goblin, The Revenge of the Shadow King by Derek Benz and J.S. Lewis

• In the Jim Henson film Labyrinth, Goblins figure prominently. Jareth the Goblin King, a powerful sorcerer (portrayed by David Bowie), commands a legion of foul, diminutive, largely incompetent creatures. The goblins initially do the bidding of a young girl (played by Jennifer Connelly), who must ultimately overcome her fear of them and resist seduction by their king.

• Goblins also feature in the novel The Black Cauldron, adapted into a film in 1985 by Walt Disney Pictures, and in the 1986 film Legend, starring Tom Cruise. In 2005, a new perspective of goblins was depicted in the novel Dance of the Goblins by Jaq D. Hawkins. A film based on the novel and directed by David Heinemann and starring Kevin McNally is currently in pre-production at Goblin Films Ltd.

• The U.S. fighter plane XF-85, is nicknamed "the Goblin." The Goblin is one of America's earliest jets, first flying in 1948. Only 14 feet (4.3 meters) long, it was intended to have a top speed of 650 mph and flying time of 80 minutes. The concept didn't get too far, though, with only two aircraft built and very few flights made. After only a year and with just a few drops and recoveries from B-29 Superfortresses, the program was cancelled.

• The Green Goblin is a villainous character in the Marvel Comics Spider-Man comic book series .

• The March of the Goblins is a polka song composed by J.J. Tarrant.

• In the Spiderwick Chronicles, goblins are toothless, toadlike beings who use random artifacts in the place of fangs.

• Goblin is Monster in My Pocket #27. He appears briefly in the first issue of the comic book. In the video game, he throws sugar cubes in the kitchen, stage 2.

Goblins in modern fiction

Two major branches of goblins exist in popular game properties. Alongside with J. R. R. Tolkien's descriptions of Orcs, the older branch is inherently evil and malicious, with varying coloring and generally matted and filthy hair. This type of goblin appears in Dungeons & Dragons. The distinctive green-skinned, hairless, capricious, and generally amoral (rather than absolutely evil) goblins created for Warhammer are direct progenitors of goblins in more modern games, such as those in the Warcraft Universe or Magic: The Gathering.

Pop Culture

Red Cap is Monster in My Pocket #25. They appear in the video game, sliding down diagonal girders in the stage 4 construction site.

Mike Mignola, the author of the Hellboy comic book series, includes a short story entitled "Iron Shoes" which depicts Hellboy investigating an old abandoned castle in Scotland inhabited by a cannibalistic goblin who wears iron shoes and hurls iron spears.

Redcaps are mentioned in the Harry Potter series by British author J. K. Rowling.

Redcaps are enemies which match their original description of goblins in the MMORPG City of Heroes.

Redcaps are one of the basic Kiths of Kithain in Changeling the Dreaming, the RPG by Whitewolf. Red caps (aka powries) are also some of the monsters in R.A. Salvatore's DemonWars series.

The Final Fantasy series, most notably in Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Redcaps appear and they are considered members of the goblin family, often being the weakest members of this family.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Katharine Briggs, An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Boogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures, "Redcap," p 339. ISBN 0-394-73467-X

Sources:

• British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes
• Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were by Michael Page & Robert Ingpen
• The Complete Encyclopedia of Elves, Goblins, and Other Little Creatures by Pierre Dubois
• Goblins! and The Goblin Companion by Brain Froud

External link

• Redcap Picture

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