#hobs

The inspiration for this was learning that Tolkien got the word "hobbit" from the Denham Tracts, a collection of 19th-century folklore texts. Unfortunately, we don't know anything about the original hobbits, since they appear simply as a name in a long list of supernatural creatures. But hob is a common name or name component of faeries in northern and central England, and so we can get some idea of what the original hobbits were like by comparison. So here are some hobs!

Tagging @laurasimonsdaughter (because folklore) and @narulanth (who's a fan of both folklore and Tolkien).

Fiddling Hobthurse: A music-playing spirit who lived in Thor's Cave in Staffordshire [1].

Hobgoblins: Hobgoblins are mischievous brownie-like spirits found across England who are usually helpful, but often play pranks and can be vengeful [2].

Hobby-Lanterns/Hobbledy's Lantern/Hob with his Lantern: These are all names for will-o'-the-wisps, which were often considered spirits that led travellers astray - "hobby-lantern" was used in East Anglia, Hertfordshire, Wiltshire and southwest Wales, "Hobbledy's Lantern" was used in Gloucestershire and Warwickshire, both names were used in Worcestershire [3] and "Hob with his Lantern" was used in the Welsh Borders" [4].

Hob Headless: Hob Headless was a spirit who menaced the road between the villages of Hurworth and Neasham in Durham in the 19th century; he was exorcised and hence trapped under a boulder for ninety-nine years [5].

Hob-Hole Hob: This was a spirit living in a cave in Runswick Bay, North Yorkshire, who parents would go to and ask to cure their children of whooping cough by saying "Hob-Hole Hob, my bairn's gotten t'kink cough, tak't off, tak't off!" [6].

Hob Hurst: Hob Hurst was a poltergeist-like spirit living in Hob Hurst's House [7], a Bronze Age burial mound on Harland Edge near Beeley, Derbyshire [8].

Hob o' the Hurst: A spirit living in a cave in Topley Pike near Deepdale, Derbyshire [9].

Hob o' t' Thrush: A spirit who worked for an innkeeper in Yorkshire and was paid in bread and butter [10].

Hobman: A potentially vengeful but generally benevolent spirit from Yorkshire, and we finally get a description of one of these creatures - a stooped old man with long hair, very large hands, feet, mouth and eyes who carried a holly walking stick [11].

Hobs: These are sometimes confused with boggarts, spirits living in caves or at crossroads and ambushing travellers [12] in the form of huge black or white dogs with staring eyes, but the name is usually applied to spirits who did farm labour [13]. A typical example is the one at Hart Hall, Glaisdale, Yorkshire, a small brown hairy man who threshed grain at night and was so offended by being given a sock made of coarse hemp that he left [14]. A hob at Danby in the same county left in anger at being given a hemp cloak [15]; in a similar story in East Halton, Lincolnshire, the hob specified he was angry at being given coarse clothing and would have accepted the gift if it was linen [16], and one in Reeth, Yorkshire churned butter and made fires until his mistress gave him a hat and cloak, at which he said "Ha! a cap and a hood! Hob'll ne'er do mair good!" and vanished [17]. They sometimes also left when their payment (a slice of buttered bread every night) failed to arrive on time, as happened with hobs living in Over Silton on the North York Moors [18] and in the cave of Hobthrust Hall in the Yorkshire Dales [19]. They could also be troublesome in other ways - a hob in Furness, Lancashire accidentally killed a farmer's horse, and when the farmer said he wanted to dunk the hob in a pond, the hob threw the crop into it [20]. A hob is also attested in Coniscliffe, Yorkshire (although no information survives about it) [21] and "hob" is a frequent component of placenames in Warwickshire [22].

Hobthrush: Similar to the above, a "hobthrush" was a nude domestic spirit, a name used for the aforementioned hob in Reeth [23] and for Robin Roundcap in Spaldington Hall, East Yorkshire, who helped maids and threshers but also put out fires, kicked over milk pails and mixed wheat with chaff. At that, the family decided he was more trouble than he was worth, and so three clergymen exorcised him and imprisoned him in a holy well [24].

Hobthrust: A spirit from Derbyshire, who made shoes for a struggling cobbler but made so many that they flooded the house and needed to be thrown out [25].

Bibliography

W. P. Witcutt, 1941, “Notes on Staffordshire Folklore”, Folklore, volume 52, number 3, pp.236-237

Katherine Briggs, 1976, A Dictionary of Fairies, Penguin Books Ltd., p.223

Briggs 1976 p.231

Jacqueline Simpson, 1976, The Folklore of the Welsh Border, Batsford, p.73

William Henderson, 1879, Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders, Nichols & Sons, p.264

Marc Alexander, 2002, A Companion to the Folklore, Legends and Customs of Britain, Sutton Publishing Ltd., p.315

Alexander 2002 p.135

Jo Bourne (editor), 2009, The Most Amazing Haunted and Mysterious Places in Britain, The Reader's Digest Association, p.130

Bourne 2009 p.130

Jeremy Harte, 2004, Explore Fairy Traditions, Heart of Albion Press, p.24

Harte 2004 p.40

Harte 2004 p.67

David Brandon and Allen Brooke, 2009, Shadows in the Steam: The Haunted Railways of Britain, The History Press, p.47

Neil Philip, 2022, The Watkins Book of English Folktales, Watkins Media Ltd., pp.268-269

Briggs 1976 p.222

Harte 2004 p.66

Henderson 1879 p.264

Harte 2004 p.63-64

Briggs 1976 p.222

Harte 2004 p.63

Henderson 1879 p.264

Roy Palmer, 1976, The Folklore of Warwickshire, Batsford, p.72

Henderson 1879 p.264

Dee Dee Chainey, 2018, A Treasury of British Folklore: Maypoles, Mandrakes and Mistletoe, National Trust Books, p.83

Faroeste

A.Jay, Klindnxke90, Hobs

Built In Hobs by Hafele India