Haunted Pits and Pools- the Hobgoblins of England

Hob Hurst’s House, Derbyshire

During a recent visit to the north Norfolk coast, I realised that our holiday accommodation was near to a village called Thursford. The name immediately interested me, as I suspected that it was either a pagan site (the ford of Thor) or that it had a faery association. Some investigation proved that the latter hunch was correct- it was the ford where a giant or demon (thyrs in Anglo-Saxon) lurked. This set me thinking- and I decided some further place name research was needed to complement earlier postings.

Firstly, a few sentences on etymology. The word thyrs (pronounced in Old English with the ‘y’ rather like the German ‘ü’) is an element actually well known to us students of Faerie. It is one of the variants of the name applied to the hobgoblin who was originally called hob-thurse in Middle English and whose name evolved around England into a variety of forms- hobthrush, hobthrust, hobtrash and, even, hobdross. In other Germanic languages, just as in English, the word originally denoted a giant, ogre, demon, monster or dim-witted person; most interestingly, perhaps, in Norwegian the tusse-folk are the elves.

In England, the hobthrust is- primarily- the good-natured goblin who helps house maids with their early morning chores (in other words, he’s a relative of the brownie); he is, in addition, a nocturnal sprite and he’s associated with boggles in the north of England and, more widely, with Robin Goodfellow. Typically, hobthrust is associated with houses and farms, but the burial mound called Hob Hurst’s House on Baslow Moor in Derbyshire demonstrates that long-standing faery link with ancient sites and with dead ancestors. The word thurse could still retain its more sinister implications in the later Middle Ages, though: in 1380 the theologian John Wycliffe defined the classical lamia as being a type of ‘thirs’ with a woman’s body and horse’s hooves. The English-Latin dictionary, Promptorum Parvulorum, of 1440, defined a thyrse as a “wykkyd sprite” and the very similar Medulla Grammatice of 1460 glossed the Latin dusius (a Gaulish spirit) as “a demon, a thrusse, the powke.” This last word is, of course, more familiar to us as ‘puck,’ another name that went through a comparable evolution: the Anglo-Saxon puca was also originally a demon before evolving in pronunciation through powke, pooke and pouk and acquiring the sense of ‘goblin.’

As is often the case, by no means all place names that look as though they may derive from thyrs (or Thor- in Anglo-Saxon, Thunor) actually do. Most, in fact, are places named after Viking settlers called Thori or Thorstein, Thormod or Thurlak- or perhaps are simply named for a thorn tree. It’s always necessary to go back to the oldest recorded version to see what the earliest form indicates the source name to have been.

Even missing out all the places named after people, there are still quite a few possible hobthrush names, many of which- as we shall see- were applied to fields and other pieces of land. Firstly, though, there is the Norfolk Thursford, as already stated, and, in Oxfordshire, Tusmore, which is the thyrs mere, that is- the lake haunted by the spirit (this might indicate that the thurse could be a sort of fresh water mermaid). These names suggest a close link with water, as do Truswell, near Sheffield, Thyrsmer– a field near Gimingham in Norfolk mentioned in 1485- and another field, at Charlesworth in Derbyshire, which was recorded in 1285: Thursebachelheved- that is, the enclosure at the head of the Thurse Bache or ‘goblin stream.’

The other consistent association of hob-thrushes is with caves and holes. The most famous of these, probably, is the Obtrush who haunted a cave at Mulgrave near Whitby. There were plenty of others, though, scattered across Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire, with one even found as far north as Cumberland. One of the most interesting of these is a field at Barrowden in Rutland, which appears in a document from 1275. This Thyrspit seems to be closely linked to the nearby Robynilpit– that is, Robin Hill Pit, the name of which is very likely to come (once again) from Robin Goodfellow/ Puck, whom we’ve already encountered.

It’s often said in older books that the Hobthrush is a denizen of woodlands. There is certainly a Thurse Wood recorded at Stanton in the Peak District and one of the earliest written records of the Hob is in the famous Paston Letters, where mention is made of “hobbe hyrst” in 1489. A ‘hurst’ is copse or wooded hill in Middle English, but it seems that the Paston example is either a simple spelling mistake or a false etymology, in which someone tried to make sense of ‘hobhurst’ by guessing that it was an abbreviated version of ‘Hob o’ t’ hurst’ (Hob of the wood). In truth, there is no such spirit, but the hobthrust is, nevertheless, a ubiquitous and well-known being.

What can we learn from all this? One thing that stands out for me is the fact that the majority of the names are found in the eastern part of central England- from Norfolk through to the western side of the Peak District. This appears to be where the hobs most commonly lived. Secondly, they are never far from humans- their habitations, but also their cultivated fields and the lanes connecting them. I suspect that many of those thurse pits and holes may well be the places where the hob tended to spend the day, before going to the farms and houses to work at night. As for the water sources, as I have often described, the link between the faeries and springs and wells is a very ancient and well-established one. Once again, therefore, we find evidence that the British landscape is woven together with reminders of the constant presence of our Good Neighbours.

‘Dead faiths & dead beliefs’? Faery lovers and pixie gold in south-western England

Trewortha cairn & cist, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall

Staying recently in Devon, our holiday accommodation had a selection of local books which included Arthur Norway’s Highways & Byways of Devon & Cornwall, from 1897. He featured an interesting story related to him by a solicitor from Tavistock, on the Cornish/ Devonian border. This informant had, in his turn, received the story (and the evidence that lent it credibility) from an old woman called Nancy.

On the whole, Norway manifested a rather dismissive attitude towards the local ‘peasantry.’ He said, elsewhere in the book, that “I gravely doubt whether it can be understood by any save those who have lived among these people how strangely their thoughts and actions are mingled with the traditions and superstitions of the past. Dead faiths and dead beliefs lie about this countryside like withered leaves in autumn.” The author complained that he had waded through these drifts of leaves whilst preparing the book, listening to all sorts of far-fetched stories from ‘those people.’

Superiority and disbelief notwithstanding, Norway related what old Nancy recalled- although this was only because it came to him by way of a respectable and truthful professional gentleman. Nancy had described how a young man from ‘Trelawn’ (there are several in Cornwall) had been advised by a local white witch, or wise woman, to dig for treasure inside a faery ring on Halloween. The youth did as he had been told and fairly soon uncovered a large granite kist, or burial vessel, buried upside down inside a particularly large faery ring. Its position indicated that it was covering something- the gold he’d been promised, hopefully. However, just as his spade hit the stone, a red haired faery girl appeared out of a cloud of mist in front of the youth. She gave him a simple choice: he could either take her as his wife, or he could have the buried gold. He chose the faery bride- which meant that any buried treasure there might have been promptly vanished- but he took the stone vessel home with him anyway and was told by the girl that he could still draw health, wealth and happiness from it so long as he was pure-minded and single hearted. Perhaps he never was, because- although he enjoyed a good marriage and had several children- he died no richer than when he met his faery lover. The granite bowl then passed on down through his family, eventually ending up in Nancy’s hands. She gave it to the solicitor, declaring that, as the daughter of a daughter, she was able to give away a faery gift without destroying its magical properties.

Several themes unite in this short story. The faeries are connected to buried gold and to faery rings, as we might expect. They are also implicitly associated with the burial of prehistoric dead, having some kind of link to ancient ancestors, an association which is manifested in the present through the faery female’s marriage to- and raising of a family with- a modern day human male. By this, the past is connected intimately and indissolubly with the present.

The association of faery gold with ancient burials is an especially strong one. In a posting not long ago I mentioned the tumulus in East Yorkshire known as Willy Howe, which a man is said to have entered in the early Middle Ages and from which he stole a faery goblet. This medieval story was, by no means, the end of the Howe’s fae associations. Another account tells how a man heard that there was a chest of gold concealed in the mound and started to dig there. He uncovered a large container, to which a long train of horses was tethered so it could be pulled out of the ground. As the beasts took the strain, the man exclaimed “Whether god’s will or not, we’ll have this ark.” As soon as he uttered the divine name, the horses’ tethers broke and the chest sunk even deeper into the enclosing earth. The faeries seemingly reacted adversely to the mention of the Christian god and secured their wealth yet more securely. Nevertheless, as in Cornwall, it can be given away when they chose. Another local man had a faery lover who told him that, if he visited the Howe every morning, he would find a silver guinea waiting for him on the summit of the barrow. The only condition the faery woman imposed was that he was never to tell anyone else of his good fortune. Respecting her advice for a long time, the man collected coins daily and became quite rich. However, he eventually bragged about his lover and her gifts and one day took a friend along to see the magic money. Naturally, there was no coin awaiting him that day (or ever again) and, as the record says, he faced “severe punishment” from the angry faeries (William Hone, Table Book, 1827, 41).

The faery presence persists in the landscape in the south-west of England and although gold may no longer be on offer, success in love still features. During the same holiday, we also explored the Quantock Hills of western Somerset. Alongside an obsession with stone circles and such like, we’ve recently added a taste for seeking out obscure holy wells- of which there are plenty in Somerset. One visited on this trip was St Agnes Well, at the tiny village of Cothelstone on the western slopes of the Quantock hills. The well has been restored in the recent past and is obviously still cared for by local people. It’s also known as the Pixie Well and stands on the banks of the Pixie Stream. The site has long been considered to be a wishing well of considerable power, although many local people wouldn’t use its water because they were apprehensive of the mischievous pixies living there. The main magical property of the well was to see into the future- specifically, to determine who a person’s lover would be: on the eve of the feast of St Agnes (January 20th), virgins used divinations to discover their future husbands’ identities. The well was also said to aid fertility. This power of prophecy, and the faery interest in ‘true love‘ are aspects of the Good Folk I’ve discussed before.

That sense of magic and an otherworld contact are still out there to be discovered, as my other visits faery sites and holy wells in Cornwall have suggested.

St Agnes Well, Cothelstone

The Faeries of Albion: Defending the Enchanted Realm

‘Listening to the pleasant conversation of the head of Bran, giant and King of Britain of Welsh mythology,’ an illustration by John Henry Frederick Bacon (1868–1914) from Charles Squire’s Celtic Myth, Legend, Poetry & Romance, (1905).

Following on from my previous posting on the faeries of Albion, I want to pursue my vision of them as part of the spirit of the land. 

Faery Kings

We must start right back at the roots of British faery tradition, with the Welsh collection of stories called the Mabinogion.  The second of the Mabinogi concerns Branwen, daughter of Llyr.  Her brother is the king of Britain, Bran Bendigaid, ‘Bran the Blessed,’ who is a semi-supernatural character of giant proportions.  He marries his sister off to the king of Ireland, but she is mistreated by her new husband, as a result of which Bran and his army invade the island to rescue her and to exact revenge.  They are victorious, but at a very heavy cost: most of Ireland is laid waste, most of Bran’s warriors die and he receives a fatal wound in the foot with a poisoned spear. 

He orders the seven survivors of this expedition to sever his head and take it back to Britain:

“Take the head and bring it to the White Hill in Llyndain (London), and bury it with its face towards France. You will be on the road a long time. In Harlech you will be seven years in feasting, the birds of Rhiannon (adar Rhiannon) singing to you. The head will be as good company to you as it was at its best when it was ever on me. And you will be at Gwales in Penfro for eighty years….  You will make for London and bury the head.”

His companions do as the dying king had bidden them, but the journey is clearly supernatural.  It is a passage through Faery: they rest for seven years in Harlech, where they feast- “As soon as they began to eat and drink there came three birds, which began to sing a kind of song to them; and when they heard that song, every other tune seemed unlovely beside it.  The birds seemed a distant sight, far above the ocean, yet it was as clear as if they had been right next to them.” 

Then they pass on towards Pembroke “[where] they were lacking nothing- and were completely free of care. Of all the grief that they had witnessed or experienced themselves- there was no longer any memory, or any of the sorrow in the world. Eighty years they passed there, having never enjoyed a period of time as carefree or light-hearted as that.”  This never-ending feasting in the company of a head still magically alive (like the Green Knight’s), and with time passing at an entirely non-human rate, is clearly outside our mortal world and plainly within the realm of Faery. 

Finally, the seven survivors are able to continue to London, where Bran’s head in interred on Tower Hill  “And that was one of the Three Fortunate concealments when it was buried, and one of the Three Unfortunate Disclosures when it was unearthed: since no affliction would ever came to this Island from across the sea, as long as the head was in that concealment.”  The head of faery king Bran protected the faery realm of Albion for many years- our first example of how closely the fae are bound up with the political fate of Britain. The longstanding story that King Arthur is not dead, but sleeps beneath a faery hill, awaiting the call to return to defend the island of Britain, is another manifestation of this idea of an enchanted protector.

Warnings of War

The faeries- as is well known- can see into the future.  It seems that they are especially sensitive to this when a major threat to the polity is involved.  At Blore Castle in Staffordshire in September 1459, three freshwater mermaids rose to the surface of the moat over several successive mornings and, whilst combing their hair, sang this prediction:

“Ere yet the haw-berry assumes its deep red,

Embued shall this heath be with blood nobly shed.”

A battle between the Wars of the Roses forces of York and Lancaster met on Blore Heath on September 23^rd, with the Lancastrians being defeated and their commander killed, a slaughter achieved with minimal losses to the Yorkists.  Much noble blood was, indeed, shed.

It’s not unusual for the faeries to convey their knowledge of the future to us through ‘pantomime’ displays.  It’s also quite common for people to see fairies dressed and drilling like soldiers.  The earliest such report dates from February 1639, when a man at Knaresborough in Yorkshire saw a muster of ‘fairies, satyrs and devils’ who were training with pikes and muskets in contemporary fashion.  At the time, the vision may have been taken merely as an example of the sometimes bellicose nature of the fae, but within a couple of years it may have been understood as a foreshadowing of the outbreak of the Civil War.

Various later incidents might therefore be interpreted in the same manner. Two men saw a fairy army marching with pikes and muskets near to Leicester in 1707: this coincided with British involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession- albeit one of the country’s least militarily successful years.  On Midsummer’s Eve, 1735, troops were observed to manoeuvre for nearly an hour on the steep slopes of Souter Fell in the Lake District.  This display was repeated in the same place in 1737 and then again at Midsummer 1744- when two dozen people witnessed the “astonishing phenomenon” over a period of two hours. As a contemporary commentator indicated, it’s possible that this third vision predicted the Jacobite rebellion of Bonnie Prince Charlie the next year.  The 1735 sighting is less easy to explain in the same manner: it predated the British intervention in the War of the Austrian Succession by four years, although thereafter we seem to have been at war with France almost constantly until Waterloo in 1815, so perhaps the parading was apt.

The foregoing examples show the faeries warning of coming conflict.  However, the faery sensitivity to perils facing Britain, combined with an active wish to avert those, was to be dramatised explicitly during the First World War.  I have written before about the dramatisation of Faery as part of the war effort: in Eleanor Gray’s War Fairies of May 1917 and Rose Patry’s play Britain’s Defenders- or Peggy’s Peep into Fairyland, performed towards the end of the same year.  These plays were primarily motivated by jingoism, there’s no denying, but the idea that the faeries would wish to protect Britain against invaders must already have existed in the national consciousness. In the same period, we should note, the faeries were also portrayed working with children to bring peace to a troubled world.

Magic as a Weapon

In fact, magic as a way of warding off harm and attracting victory in war was all the rage in this period- and by no means just in Britain (see Owen Davies’ A Supernatural War, 2018). During the Second World War Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune both engaged in ‘occult warfare’ against Germany, which was aimed at repelling bombing raids and defeating Hitler.  This famous pair were clearly aware of the potential for magic to be used both defensively and offensively, and may have known that ‘spirits of the air’ had been conjured for exactly these purposes in the sixteenth century. 

For example, a document in the British Library (Add. 36, 674) describes how to make an amulet to protect yourself from your enemies (write the names of the archangels Raphael, Michael and Gabriel on a laurel leaf and carry it with you always). Another document in the Bodleian Library in Oxford (e Mus 173) includes charms to protect a person against bladed weapons and to make soldiers courageous. Lastly, the manuscript Folger V.b.26, which dates from the late 1570s, includes numerous spells that summon faeries to assist the magus.  It also has a large number of rituals and charms in which spirits are called upon to protect the magician against his enemies or against thieves, to bind thieves and make them return to the scene of their offence, to bring victory and to give the conjurer great skill in using weapons, whilst at the same time being invulnerable to them.  The manuscript also includes a list of exotically named spirits who are especially efficacious against foes.  It would only have needed very modest adaptations to these to seek to conjure faery beings to fight the Nazis (Folger V.b.26, ff.21, 23, 51, 61, 67, 75 et seq, 208, 225, 229-232).

To conclude, whilst modern stereotypes of the fae tend to imagine that they are peaceable, girlish little beings, more traditional ideas were rather different: as I’ve described in my Darker Side of Faery, they are regarded as robust, vengeful and perfectly disposed to use force if necessary. Within these perceptions, faeries waging war to defend their home would make perfect sense.

The Fay Who Came In From The Cold: Domestic Sprites & Human Homes

In my recently published book on British Brownies, I noted the close similarities that exist between the brownie type of faery and Highland Scottish beings such as the gruagach, urisk and glaistig. I made the decision in the recent book to focus on brownies specifically, and to miss out the Highland sprites, not least because I have dealt with the Scottish spirits in my Faery (2020) as well as in postings on this blog.

Nonetheless, I want here to compare these various faery beings and to consider their common traits and some of the interesting facets of their nature and character. Domestic sprites that live with human households and work devotedly for them are a feature of the folklore of the entire British Isles. England has the brownie (also called the dobby or dobbie)- as does lowland Scotland where Anglian influence was strongest (the brownie becoming the broonie in the Scots dialect of English). However, in England we may also find hobgoblins and boggarts performing identical functions to the brownie, albeit often in a more touchy and bad-tempered way. Fascinatingly, such a tripartite division of domestic sprites is also found in the Highland zone of Scotland- the gruagach, urisk and glaistig already mentioned. What’s more, as in England, whilst the gruagach is generally benign, the other two beings have their darker sides in parallel to their helpful and hardworking aspects.

There are more features shared by these creatures, which I will now very briefly survey. The Maid of Duror was a glaistig known on the shores of Loch Linnhe; she haunted castles, but also worked with cattle and undertook farm labour such as cutting rushes. She ensured the cows produced milk, as long as she received a bowlful in recompense for her attentions. If this was forgotten, the cattle would escape, and ill health and bad luck would come to the farm. A maid who doubted the glaistig’s existence was given a blow to the head which twisted her neck- and the only way to correct the injury was another blow in the opposite direction. This counter-position of diligent work with a vindictive and violent nature is very typical of British domestic faeries. Some glaistigs, like that living on Rannoch Moor, at the head of Glencoe, seemed purely malevolent, for its only habit seemed to be attacking lone travellers. There are striking parallels here with boggarts, which can be valuable assistants on farms until their work is criticised or they feel otherwise insulted or undervalued, at which point they can become extremely troublesome. Some, though, have never displayed a good side and are perpetually malign and dangerous.

With kind treatment, urisks can be induced to perform the heavy tasks around a farm, but they generally prefer to live away from human habitation, most often in caves- one typical site being the Coire nan Uriskin near to Aberfolye. There was an urisk that lurked around Tyndrum waterfall near Crianlarich. She would stay up in the mountain corries (hollows) in summer but in the winter liked to come into houses to sit by the fire, when she would also expect food and clothes. This ambivalent attitude to human homes is again typical of the British domestic spirits. Content as they may be to perform drudgery and chores for people, they like to preserve their distance and independence, enjoying the comforts of dwellings only at night, when the residents are out of the way in bed, or in winter as well- when, of course, necessity compels them to move closer to us.

Of all these beings, the gruagach is the one with the best temper. One Scottish writer described her as an “innocent and supernatural being that frisked and gambolled about the cattle pens.” Nevertheless, like the glaistig and the urisk, she had clear limits to what she would tolerate from mortals. The gruagach typically carried a pliable reed with her and would hit anyone who annoyed her with obscene language or failed to leave her a share of the fresh milking (J P Maclean, An Epitome of the Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland, 1917, 16).

Two contradictions therefore seem to lie at the core of the relationship between the domestic spites and human beings. One is that they are prepared, unbidden and not formally compensated, to help us with the hardest, heaviest or most monotonous tasks around a farm (threshing grain being a good example). Counterbalancing this is a touchiness about their treatment, and an often unpredictable attitude to human gifts (sometimes clothes are welcome, as with the Tyndrum urisk, sometimes they are deeply insulting), which makes showing appreciation of their work something of a minefield.

Secondly, attached as they may be to certain human clans and their castles or mansions, the faeries themselves seem to be amongst some of the wildest of all, dwelling not in cosy houses beneath hills but in damp, draughty caves or cellars, or in ruined castles and hollow trees. Their rejection of human comforts is antagonistic to the fact that they will choose to help run human households, they will be faithful retainers to generations of a family, and they will frequently expect- as of right- to be allowed to sit by the fire at night, before disappearing to their cold, wet roosts in the day. As I’ve often said before, this contrariness often seems to lie at the heart of faery nature, although the apparent contradictions may merely reflect the limitations of human understanding of their supernatural neighbours.

For further details of the (usually) more pacific and traditional brownie, see my British Brownies.

Fear & Hauntings in the Lake District- Boggles, Boggarts & Ghosts

Researching the Cumbrian faeries recently, I realised as well that the area has a concentration of boggart folklore. Daniel Scott, describing Bygone Cumberland & Westmorland in 1899, said that boggles were very common in the two counties, although he tended to think of them as akin to wills of the wisp or explicable as mirages. Even so, mist in the area was still known as ‘haut’ or haunt, suggestive of a more eerie or terrifying nature than just low cloud.

In the North-West of England- that is, Lancashire, Westmorland and Cumberland, the terms boggart and ghost seem often to be indistinguishable. Hence in Longdendale the boggart of a haunted farm at Godley Green- a village itself reputed to have more boggarts than anywhere else in the country- was said to be the ghost of an old woman, Old Nanny, who who hiss at people- alarming but not dangerous. She appeared after dark in old fashioned clothes and was partly laid by a chapel minister, an exorcism that reduced but did not entirely eradicate her hauntings. The Old Shepherd of Appleby was another boggle only partially banished: he was expelled from the farm house he had haunted, but then appeared near a stone nearby as a “large white something.”

Bryham Kirkby’s Lakeland Words, published in 1898, reinforces the sense that boggles and the spirits of the deceased were equated. Amongst the definitions of dialect words provided, he offered “Flaaens- boggles or ghosts.” A dowly place was one where “boggles hes’ ‘t o their awn way” (have it all their own way). These tended to be deserted houses, dark passageways or in lonely lanes, spots where the “flaysome ugly things” would lie in wait to “get up yan’s noase.” A good protection was tewtlen- ‘tootling’ or whistling to keep the boggles off (or, in truth, to try to keep your own spirits up). A cantrip was a dance boggles would perform in a kirk garth (church yard)- and “it maks yan’s skin whidder to think on’t” (it makes your skin crawl thinking about it). It was averred that “Spirit knockin’s nowt tul a boggle”- tapping by ghosts was nothing compared to the fright caused by boggles. All in all, their presence in grave yards and their habit of rapping like the dead made the connection with ghosts unavoidable.

Further north, in the Lake District, a boggart was known on the shores of Esthwaite Water. This waterside being was multiform- and all the more supernatural for that. It would appear and disappear on the lake- side road and scare travellers, sometimes as a calf, sometimes as a ‘donkey thing’ and occasionally as a white fox. In its calf shape, it was accompanied by a sound like a load of rocks being tipped in the lake. It might also manifest as an old woman, but this time with a death’s head and red glowing eyes. Boggles were known even further north across the border in the Scottish lowlands, as with the ‘bogle’ known as the ‘Greetin’ Bairn of the Lake’ who haunted a deserted farm and was said to be part faery, part ghost and part brownie. Heading south, into Lancashire, the boggle appears to have merged completely with the boggart. In 1872 folklorist Charles Hardwick described how “witches, fairies, ghosts and boggarts seem to have become intimately amalgamated in the repertoire of modern superstition” (in the county). he also noted the use of the more general catch-all phrase, “feeorin” meaning all things of this character which would create fear in a person. The cross-over between brownies and bogies was further highlighted by another Lake District writer in 1867. Describing the local domestic sprites, known as dobbies, James Morris observed that there were “plenty of ghosts in Furness, but all of them are dobbies or freetnins” (that is, things that are frightening)

John Richardson, in Cummerland Talk (1871), underlined the multiform, shapeshifting habit of some boggles. The Dalehead Park Boggle lurked around a the road running from Kendal to Ambleside. There was no need to be scared of it as there was no record of it ever hurting anyone, but it was certainly uncanny as well as inconvenient. One man once encountered it in the form of a huge midden that was blocking the road; he just had to bravely find a way around the thing and, when he did, it vanished. Another time he saw it as a huge fire, but when he got to the place where the blaze had seemed to be, there was neither ash nor any sign of burning.

Jeremiah Sullivan, describing Cumberland and Westmorland- Ancient and Modern in 1857, was likewise more sympathetic to this conception of the boggle as a more general supernatural entity. He stated that the word “includes all varieties of apparitions: any shape, human or animal, and any unaccountable noise, is a boggle.” They could therefore appear with two heads and saucer eyes, looking like large dogs, white horses, white rabbits and “unaccountable cats.” You could expect these unnatural creatures to appear where they had no business to be and to vanish through walls. They could do some good though. One spectral calf at Hackthorpe Hall guided a man to buried treasure whilst the boggles of Whitehaven (which were sometimes seen as very large hounds) would produce hideous cries at night, forewarning the population of fatal accidents in the pits.

Even so, Sullivan also recorded that the bargheist, a creature known across northern England, was the main boggle in Cumberland and Westmorland. It would make a terrible bawling noise and haunted barrows and tombs. This once again suggests a ghostly link, as does the Henhow Boggle, which one man bravely questioned and discovered to be the ghost of a murdered woman and her baby. Equally, the weird Dalehead Park boggle, for all its bizarre behaviour, was explained by some as the ghost of a hanged man.

The Cumbrian boggles are perplexing therefore. Fascinatingly, they bear a considerable resemblance to the bugganes of the Isle of Man, which is not far away across the Irish sea. These may also appear in a huge range of forms and are generally mischievous. They can manifest as various huge animals, people or hybrid monsters, but also as a black, engulfing mist. Links are made again to the ghosts of those murdered or wrongfully executed.

For more details on the buggane, see my Manx Fairies. For more on the varieties of bogies and boggles, see my Beyond Faery.