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Hinzelmann was a kobold, or household spirit, said to have haunted Hudemühlen Castle near today's Hodenhagen in Lower Saxony. The story comes from a book, Der vielförmige Hintzelmann (1701, second edition 1704), based on the diary of Pastor Feldmann of Eickeloh, who lived through the events. The Brothers Grimm later retold it.
It began in 1584 with banging noises. Then the spirit began to talk to the servants. It said its name was Lüring and that it came from the Bohemian Forest. It washed dishes, scrubbed pots, groomed horses, found lost things and gave advice, and demanded a bowl of sweet milk with white bread each day, a place at the table and its own room. It thrashed anyone who mocked it, tore up an exorcist's book, and followed the lord to Hanover in the form of a white feather when he tried to escape.
Hinzelmann was rarely seen. Children said it looked like a little boy in a red silk jacket with curly blond hair; Feldmann, as a teenager, saw something more like a 'transparent shadow'. It left of its own accord in 1588. The castle was abandoned after the Thirty Years' War.
What witnesses report
- A voice that talks but no one is seen
- Chores done in the kitchen and stable
- A white feather that seems to follow someone
- Beatings for those who mock it
Famous cases
- 1584Hinzelmann's haunting begins at Hudemühlen Castle
Hodenhagen, Germany
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