Encounter Atlas

Creature index / Fairies and little people

Hobgoblin

Also called Robin Goodfellow, Puck, Dobby, Lob-Lie-by-the-Fire, Bwbach

A homely English household goblin, helpful but fond of practical jokes, like Shakespeare's Puck.

A hobgoblin is a household spirit of English folklore, a 'hob' that is also a goblin. Hobgoblins are said to be small, hairy little men who, like their close relatives the brownies, do odd jobs around the house while the family sleeps, in return for food. Shakespeare's Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream is called a hobgoblin, and Robin Goodfellow is the best known of the kind.

Hobgoblins are more fond of practical jokes than brownies, and can shape-shift. Robin Roundcap of Spaldington Hall in East Yorkshire threshed the corn but, in a bad mood, mixed the wheat back with the chaff and kicked over the milk pail; three clergymen are said to have confined him in a well. In Somerset, Blue Burches haunted a shoemaker's home as an old man in blue breeches, a white horse or a puff of blue smoke.

Over time 'hobgoblin' also came to mean an imagined fear or bugbear, as in Emerson's line 'a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.'

What witnesses report

  • Chores done overnight
  • Practical jokes such as spilled milk or scattered grain
  • A spirit that changes shape
  • A family that moves and finds the spirit has followed

Famous cases

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    Related

    Hobaka Hob-thrush, Hob-thrustA small, hairy northern English farm spirit that helps out, but leaves if given new clothes.Browniesaka Broonie, BrùnaidhA shaggy household spirit that does farm work at night in return for a bowl of cream.Goblinsaka Gobelin, GobelinusThe grotesque, mischievous little creatures of European folklore, and a catch-all name for small fae.Púcaaka Pooka, PhoukaAn Irish shape-shifter that takes riders on wild night gallops, most often as a black horse.Koboldaka Hausgeist, HütchenGermany's household sprite, helpful when fed and vicious when mocked, and the root of the word cobalt.