Encounter Atlas

Creature index / Fairies and little people

Brownies

Also called Broonie, Brùnaidh, Bwbach, Fenodyree, Household brownie

A shaggy household spirit that does farm work at night in return for a bowl of cream.

The brownie is a household spirit from Scotland and the English border country. It comes out at night while the family sleeps and threshes grain, churns butter, sweeps and tends the animals. In return, the household leaves it a bowl of cream, milk or porridge by the hearth. The name comes from its colouring: brownies are described as brown-skinned, hairy and dressed in rags or nothing at all.

Brownies are easily offended. Criticise their work, watch them at it, or give them a gift of clothes, and they leave forever, sometimes wrecking things on the way out. Reginald Scot noted the clothing rule in 1584. In 1597 King James VI called the brownie a demon that appeared 'like a rough-man', though, he admitted, people believed it made the house luckier.

In the oldest stories brownies are human-sized or larger; later they became small and wizened. Juliana Horatia Ewing's 1865 story 'The Brownies' inspired the name of the youngest Girl Guides, and Palmer Cox's cartoon brownies of the 1880s made them a children's favourite. The Kodak Brownie camera took its name from them.

What witnesses report

  • Chores done overnight
  • Cream or porridge left out and found eaten
  • Things tidied, or thrown about if already tidy
  • Pinches for lazy servants

Famous cases

    Seen the Brownies?

    Tell us what happened. Every report is read by a person before it goes on the map, and you can stay anonymous.

    Report a Brownies encounter Not sure what it was?

    Related

    Hobaka Hob-thrush, Hob-thrustA small, hairy northern English farm spirit that helps out, but leaves if given new clothes.Hobgoblinaka Robin Goodfellow, PuckA homely English household goblin, helpful but fond of practical jokes, like Shakespeare's Puck.Tomteaka Nisse, TomtenisseThe small grey-clad farm guardian of Scandinavia, who expects porridge with butter at Christmas.Koboldaka Hausgeist, HütchenGermany's household sprite, helpful when fed and vicious when mocked, and the root of the word cobalt.Domovoiaka Domovoy, DomovikThe Slavic house spirit, an old grey man behind the stove who guards the family and its animals.Menehuneaka Manahune, Menehune of KauaʻiIn Hawaiian tradition, a people of master builders said to finish great stone works in a single night.