Encounter Atlas
The Hobyahs are goblin-like creatures from a short and scary folk tale. A family living in a house of hemp stalks is visited night after night by Hobyahs shouting, 'Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!' Each night the little dog barks them away, and each night the old man punishes the dog, until it can bark no more.
The Hobyahs then tear down the house and carry the girl off in a sack. They sleep by day, which is their undoing: a passer-by rescues her and leaves his big dog in the sack instead. The tale was collected by S. V. Proudfit of Washington, D.C., from a family from Perth, Scotland, and Joseph Jacobs reprinted it in More English Fairy Tales.
The story became a schoolroom classic in Victoria, Australia, after it appeared in The School Paper in 1926 and later in the Victorian Readers, and it inspired the dark Australian film Celia (1989). The Hobyahs exist only in this tale, not in reported sightings.
What witnesses report
- Voices shouting 'Hobyah!' in the dark
- Visits only at night
- Fear of dogs
Famous cases
- 1891Tale from a Perth family printed in the Journal of American Folklore
Perth, Scotland
Seen the Hobyahs?
Tell us what happened. Every report is read by a person before it goes on the map, and you can stay anonymous.
