So I was looking at mythical goblins and it seems that the prefix hob denotes small (i.e. hobbit).
That made me think of creating a base medium sized goblin that's mundane and sneaky with a more magical trickster version that is small sized.
My dilemma is I keep creating my own version of everything. I don't seem to like how monsters are put together and then I home brew my own versions. While I can see merits of creativity there, it's irritating to keep having to "make them right" by changing them to suit my expectations. It seems every monster I see that I've also read about from myth has the wrong feats or ability scores compared to how I see them.
OK maybe this is just a rant, sorry lol.
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Consider that if goblins are intelligent then perhaps there's more to them than being inherently evil monsters. I don't know what goblins look like in your setting, but I've always been fond of putting goblins in a similar climate to the equivalent of dwarves in my world. Dwarves are known for being short of stature but still medium sized- what would you think of a similar build for goblins?
In my setting, goblins and "dwarves" lived at odds due to territory disputes. Both were primarily subterranean creatures, but due to environmental and political circumstances, the goblins were at a disadvantage and were eventually forced deeper underground as their homes were filled with the refuse and waste that the düweles produced. This furthered the racial divide, and those that were driven to the surface were hunted down as monsters, perhaps unjustly so. In my setting this creates the perception of goblins as monsters, gives them a reason to hate many of the surfaces races, who sided with the düweles against them, with a fiery passion, while still allowing them to have a culture, civilization and actual point of origin, rather than being weak throw away monsters that make little sense.
I would love to hear about your take on goblins, and how you envision them in your world, and what you plan to do with your hob vs non hob goblin peoples now that you're considering re-designing them for your own setting.
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To my scholarly studies "hob" means "devil", not small, thus hobgoblin is devilish goblin.
But I do understand that those that study folklore often realize that those who converted monsters from folklore to gameplay, got it severely wrong in the design stage - I see that all the time.
In fact from my point of view (I'm Japanese American, a student of history and folklore, for example), that many of the concepts of samurai, Japanese culture, as well as the monsters of folklore was somehow mistranslated in their conversion to Oriental Adventures or any westernized game version by most publishers. It's one of the primary reasons that I created the Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG), because since I know that the previous designers got everything wrong, I wanted that corrected.
Its not uncommon for GMs to tweak or change monsters, classes and other game concepts to match their understanding and research of those things. I usually don't worry about what it says in a given monster manual, I either fix them to work the way I want them to work at my game table, or take the larger action of putting it to paper and publishing it.
I don't need to rant, I just fix it myself.
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To my scholarly studies "hob" means "devil", not small, thus hobgoblin is devilish goblin.
But I do understand that those that study folklore often realize that those who converted monsters from folklore to gameplay, got it severely wrong in the design stage - I see that all the time.
In fact from my point of view (I'm Japanese American, a student of history and folklore, for example), that many of the concepts of samurai, Japanese culture, as well as the monsters of folklore was somehow mistranslated in their conversion to Oriental Adventures or any westernized game version by most publishers. It's one of the primary reasons that I created the Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG), because since I know that the previous designers got everything wrong, I wanted that corrected.
I had two completely different reactions to your post.
I: I'm not sure you're right about "hob." I'm curious: what scholarly studies support this notion?
In a kitchen the hob is a projection, shelf, grate or bench for holding food or utensils at the back or side of a hearth (fireplace) to keep them warm, or an internal chimney-corner. In modern British English usage, the word refers to a cooktop or hotplate, as distinguished from an oven.
Etymology
The word is a noun meaning approximately "holder", derived from the Old English verb habban "to have, hold".
A hob is a type of small mythological household spirit found in the north and midlands of England, but especially on the Anglo-Scottish border, according to traditional folklore of those regions. They could live inside the house or outdoors. They are said to work in farmyards and thus could be helpful, however if offended they could become nuisances. The usual way to dispose of a hob was to give them a set of new clothing, the receiving of which would make the creature leave forever. It could however be impossible to get rid of the worst hobs.
Etymology
"Hob" is simply a rustic name for the countryside goblin, "a piece of rude familiarity to cover up uncertainty or fear". "Hob" is generally explained as a nickname for "Robert". "Hob" is sometimes a generic term given to a goblin, bogle or brownie.
There's more there, as well -- and I didn't bother quoting (or listing the citations for) footnotes -- so you may find it worthwhile following the links.
But the short form is that I do think the D&D game designers started with Tolkien, who adapted folklore to his own ends, and then went blindly further off in the wrong direction. Rather than actually examine folklore, I mean. (And Paizo didn't bother fixing it themselves.)
However, I don't think "devil" has anything to do with the creatures outside of a Catholic viewpoint. I got suspicious as soon as I saw your statement, because the Catholic church demonized so much of pagan folklore. (And yes, I mean "Catholic" -- the damage was done largely before the reformation.)
Edited: And "hob" is such a very germanic word -- a word that goes back to a culture without devils at all.
In short, a hob-anything is a kitchen-thing, a household-whatever. Or should be.
~~~
II: Please, can I see what you have on Japanese PF critters? Pretty, pretty please? I'm going to be running in Minkai...
In fact from my point of view (I'm Japanese American, a student of history and folklore, for example), that many of the concepts of samurai, Japanese culture, as well as the monsters of folklore was somehow mistranslated in their conversion to Oriental Adventures or any westernized game version by most publishers. It's one of the primary reasons that I created the Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG), because since I know that the previous designers got everything wrong, I wanted that corrected.
I would love to see a remake of "Oriental Adventures" (in spirit at least) written by someone like you - knowledgeable with history and folklore, familiar with RPGs, and actually from or descended from the area of our world the setting is based on. Since fantasy RPGs are traditional based on western European, for that matter I'd be interested in similar resources to give life to settings based on others parts of historical earth as well: eastern Europe and into Russia, the middle and far east, and north Africa. Yes, I knows its a fantasy game, but some of us like to add authentic touches into characters and settings.
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"Hob" in Welsh is hearth iirc. Putting hobgoblins in their with Brownies. And Puck was described as a hobgoblin. It's been awhile since I putzed around with the etymology of monster names though...
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To my scholarly studies "hob" means "devil", not small, thus hobgoblin is devilish goblin.
But I do understand that those that study folklore often realize that those who converted monsters from folklore to gameplay, got it severely wrong in the design stage - I see that all the time.
In fact from my point of view (I'm Japanese American, a student of history and folklore, for example), that many of the concepts of samurai, Japanese culture, as well as the monsters of folklore was somehow mistranslated in their conversion to Oriental Adventures or any westernized game version by most publishers. It's one of the primary reasons that I created the Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG), because since I know that the previous designers got everything wrong, I wanted that corrected.
I had two completely different reactions to your post.
I: I'm not sure you're right about "hob." I'm curious: what scholarly studies support this notion?
I’m not gamer-printer, obviously, but I think the way the argument would go would be something like that Hobgoblin was a name for various devils, as were various forms of Robert (like Rob, which also gets us Hob), like Robert le Diable, Sir Hobbard de Hoy, or (in King Lear) Hobbididance.
I’m pulling this from Anatoly Liberman’s Word Origins … and How We Know Them (Oxford, 2009), pp. 71-72, which happened to be on my bookshelf at work.
He also has a fun bit (p. 188) speculating about the relation between “bug” and related words and “goblins” – if Hob is in some sense diminutive, it’s kind of neat that part of what makes “bugs” (and, Liberman suggests, tongue-in-cheek, “boglins”) gross is if they are small things that can also get big or swollen.
OK I'm totally off about hob LOL. Thanks everyone for the input.
@Santova
I see my "standard" goblin as about 4 feet tall, with a thick body but thinner arms and legs. Their arms hanging somewhat lower than the equivalent human proportion. Their legs more bent at the knee. Head is basically round with a flat face and triangularly shaped ears set high on the head.
Alternately, they can become heavy-set and gain large jowls (sort of like the Rankin Bass Lord of The Rings Goblin King - Google Rankin Bass Goblin King) as they get older and less active.
They aren't hairy in my take, maybe the males have bushy, coarse cheek hair like Wolverine's sideburns.
They are a dark grayish complexion with feral wolfish eyes.
Instead of becoming heavy-set with age, I could have another type similar to the bugbear in power level that has the large jowls and thicker frame.
My "hob-goblins" would be small sized, stealthy, wiry, and agile but lacking strength. They would compensate with minor magical spell-like abilities that harass or distract opponents. They'd have the same long-armed, stooped posture. Much more clever than their larger cousins. They might be an anomaly, being born to standard goblins and looked down upon until they develop enough to slyly manipulate the bigger goblins.
They'd all be subterranean for sure. Maybe beef them up crunch-wise to justify light sensitivity. In Tolkien fashion I could have them related to elves and/or give them the fey type instead of humanoid.
Culturally they're sort of pack-like. They live in large groups, sleep in heaps and have a well-defined pecking order. Hobs would be "the power behind the throne" so-to-speak, whispering into the ears of bigger, stronger alphas of the pack or setting potential alphas against one another for their own benefit. I think Hobs would see standards as "fodder and foot soldiers" while they would see themselves as better and special.
I see them all as mean-spirited: nighttime attacks would start with slinging hornets' nests, bags of poisonous snakes, or angry badgers/wolverines into open windows or down chimneys of houses on the outskirts of villages or lone homesteaders. Then cut down the scared, confused people as they ran outside. Arson and animal torture also fit right in (i.e. lighting a horse on fire and letting it run into town setting nearby things alight as it slams into everything in it's path).
While they're likely smart enough to forge and craft at some level, I see them as more likely to pillage and scavenge because it's easier or lets them act on their cruel impulses.
@Qunnessaa
I think that gives some credence to the word "bugbear" then if bug and goblin are related.
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My only "hob" reference came from Katheryn Briggs Encyclopedia of Fairies, though I don't have access to that guide at the moment, otherwise I'd post a page number and title reference.
Katheryn Briggs, from my understanding, wasn't an etymologist, rather she collected fairy stories from the folk across the UK that kept the stories alive from generation to generation, then cross-referenced each tale with existing fairy knowledge to create her book.
@Ciaran Barnes - I just completed the page layout for the print proof for Rite Publishing Gamemaster's Guide to Kaidan (my published homebrew). There are already a lot of one-shots, full modules and supplements for Kaidan available at the Paizo Store, but I am hopeful that the GM's Guide will be released this year, though if not, it will definitely be released early next year.
Here's a link to all current Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG) products, though 2 other Kaidan products can be found here and here.
Incidentally, I also contributed to The Empty Throne module of the Jade Regent AP, including writing parts of the City of Kasai Gazetteer and created the original hand-drawn map of the City of Kasai. Notably, F. Wesley Schneider wrote the forward to the Gamemaster's Guide to Kaidan.
@gamer-printer
Can you sum up the major things westerners have gotten very wrong about Asian inspired classes, races, etc? Are some systems (Like Legend of the 5 Rings - not the d20 version) better than others (Such as Oriental Adventures)?
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Well with Way of the Samurai (PFRPG), for example, I describe "samurai" as a social caste more than a player class, because in Japanese culture samurai are in addition to representing elements of the military are also the accountants, bureaucrats, local police, poets, even some farmers called ji-zamurai were part-time farmers and part-time soldiers, the bottom rung of the samurai ladder. Samurai as a player class is very incomplete of the true concept.
Samurai honor while formally codified as Bushido under Ieyasu Tokugawa originated as house codes by each samurai clan, and often those codes differed, sometimes in opposition. During the Sengoku Period (century of war) samurai would serve a given noble lord in one battle, was formally dismissed, and in the next battle might serve another lord in opposition to the lord they previously served (and wasn't considered dishonorable to do that). Seppuku (ritual suicide) while a tradition among samurai was technically illegal by Imperial Law. Sometimes seppuku was performed as a protest against the chosen direction on a given issue of one's noble lord as a form of chastisement. Much of the concept of samurai is much more convoluted than what Japan analog RPGs present as facts.
Samurai aren't the only social caste allowed to bear a sword as a mark of station. My own family were physicians serving the local daimyo in Matsue (western Japan on the Sea of Japan side). My family was allowed to publicly wear a single sword to denote their status, even though they were by caste, Commoners. Even though the yakuza were members of the Hinin/Eta social caste (lowest social caste), as administrators of the red light districts, they too were allowed to bear a katana to denote their social status, even during the Tokugawa Era.
There are entire Kaidan supplements dedicated to each of these races: kappa, tengu and hengeyokai, (and spirit folk from OA is not really a thing, while there was some dryad like spirits in Japanese folklore, there were no race of such beings). Nezumi are featured in one Lafcadio Hearn translated folklore tale "The Boy who Drew Cats", however, otherwise, there is little literary evidence of a race of ratfolk in Japanese folklore.
More a concept out of context, than a true mistake, but while most modern practitioners of shugendo are ascetic priests, in previous centuries the actual priests of shugendo were yamabushi (which doesn't mean "mountain fighter" as many people think). Shugenja were followers in the belief of Shugendo and not always ascetic priests. It's closer to being shugenja to Shugendo as being equivalent to Christian to Christianity. A Christian is a believer in Christianity and doesn't mean priest. Shugenja is the wrong word to use for a Shugendo practitioner - it should have always been yamabushi instead.
Kensai is a misspelling, the actual word "kensei" means "sword saint" (minor issue I know, but I always found it's use in D&D/PF as irritating).
While I do enjoy aspects of L5R, as a game, to me a game about feudal Japan should cover all the social castes and not just the samurai caste. Using the karma system and the wheel of life reincarnation cycle of Kaidan PCs will probably experience movement up or down the social caste system across the character's career. Also (minor quibble) Rokugan being a land-locked "China like" geography. Japan has some very unique aspects not found in other Asian cultures, and what really defines Japanese culture from the rest of Asia centers upon the fact that it's an island nation. I don't think Japanese culture would have survived so uniquely as it did, had been land-locked like Rokugan.
There are many tiny things, scattered throughout the various Kaidan releases that delve into the thinking behind various aspects of Japanese culture - a hint behind the veil, so to speak.
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Wow. I knew about the social caste versus "class" issue. Sort of how PF & D&D have the aristocrat class with is a social class, not an occupation.
I'm sure a number of instances occurred similarly to how your family was allowed to wear a sword based on their deeds, importance to a specific person or other reason to elevate their caste.
Just like actual medieval Europe, PF & D&D does a poor job of emulating the nuances of that time period. From social class, to mythological creatures, to occupation.
And I always knew L5R was kind of a mish-mash of ancient China, Japan and Korea with some SE Asia on the outskirts. Plus some outright western fantasy (Unicorn Clan - and Kirin doesn't equal unicorn of course).
Thanks for the history lesson though. I love learning about cultures.
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Not at all, just that I'm very familiar with Japanese culture, history and folklore and playing in other published Japan analog's bother my sensibilities. Nothing wrong with more imagination based extensions beyond a given culture portrayed as a setting, I simply wanted a more authentic one to also exist.
Besides in Kaidan, I've directly incorporated Buddhist beliefs, the social caste system, the folklore races, and their cosmology baked into a combined mechanic. You don't have to think about authenticity, it plays out more naturally with its own subsystem. Since Kaidan was released before Jade Regent, it uses a different honor system, but that too is baked into the classes and tied much closer into the setting than Paizo's version. Kaidan is highly rated, by Endzeitgeist and other reviewers - though it might not be for everyone. It is very much a horror setting.
Kaidan is it's own place, it's not Japan. It's closer to Japanese culture and mindset, so it's not really historical in the true sense of the word - its culturally authentic more than anything else. "Kaidan" is an archaic Japanese word that means "ghost story" or "strange occurrence", as a setting it might be said to be the land of Japanese ghost stories.
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@Ciaran Barnes - I just completed the page layout for the print proof for Rite Publishing Gamemaster's Guide to Kaidan (my published homebrew). There are already a lot of one-shots, full modules and supplements for Kaidan available at the Paizo Store, but I am hopeful that the GM's Guide will be released this year, though if not, it will definitely be released early next year.
Here's a link to all current Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG) products, though 2 other Kaidan products can be found here and here.
Incidentally, I also contributed to The Empty Throne module of the Jade Regent AP, including writing parts of the City of Kasai Gazetteer and created the original hand-drawn map of the City of Kasai. Notably, F. Wesley Schneider wrote the forward to the Gamemaster's Guide to Kaidan.
This time I'll take my 2nd reaction first: I am indeed running Jade Regent, and will look for your Kaidan material when we get closer. I very much look forward to seeing what you've done in The Empty Throne!
Did you have anything to do with the write-up of oni in the Brinewall Legacy? If not, what would you change if you could?
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Gamer-printer, I'm hoping that since you & I share an interest, we can lend each other our differing backgrounds and strengths. You see, just as your Japanese family has directed your main focus, my German ancestry & American culture has directed mine. (Being of 100% German ancestry, despite being 3rd-generation American on all sides, I have long had a keen interest in both German and English folktales & myths.)
I fear that at least in this one instance, your encyclopedia has sadly led you astray -- and in a fashion that may crop up in other articles. Simply put: the trick with interpreting European folklore or mythology is to properly look back in time past the initial influence of the Christian church and its identification of things with devils.
Sadly, the Roman church, which arrived in England in about 600 AD, had a simple paradigm: If it is not an angel, nor mortal, it is a devil. Well, it was obvious to any churchman of the day that the gods & goddesses they were winning converts away from were neither angels nor mortals. Similarly with all of the spirits & fairies their converts told them stories of: devils, one and all.
Yes, that transition in interpretation happened 1400 years ago. That's a long time. Many folk-tales originated well after 600 AD, when the common folk would truly have been looking for devils in the dark. And the older folktales have gotten retold again & again with the new interpretation. It's tough to sort out! I can't swear that the fairy meaning of "hob," or of any other word with a germanic root, actually goes back to the germanic roots of English culture. But I think it's worth betting on.
Well let me elucidate the fact, though I am half Japanese, the other half is mostly Irish/Scottish, and interestingly one of my Scottish forebears married an Amish woman, so I have a wee bit of German in my bloodline as well. Through my Scottish ancestry, I am related to the 4th king of Scotland, Malcolm Irwin (the character killed by MacBeth at the start of Shakespeare's play MacBeth). While my Irish heritage is heavily Catholic influenced, I am not Catholic myself. I am versed in the Catholic influence on pagan Europe. I have an interest in Irish/Scottish lore as well, hence my interest in fairies. I have ancestors that fought the Romans.
Regarding my contributions to Jade Regent, all my work involved The Empty Throne module only (you can find my name in the contributing author credits of that module - Michael Tumey). I wrote some of the City of Kasai gazetteer, shared with Frank Carr who created the Jade Oath setting. I also designed the City of Kasai map. I am mostly a pro cartographer and do lots of work for 3rd party PF publishers. I also served as a fact-checker for Steven D. Russell's work regarding kami spirits in The Forest of Spirits module, though nothing else. I had no part in the Brinewall Legacy (which I haven't even read, so I cannot offer alternate activity with that module).
You might check Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House, a one-shot and map product (of a Japanese bath house) that I authored, which includes a multi-CR ghost (CR 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20). So that could easily fit somewhere in The Forest of Spirits or in Kasai itself, in The Empty Throne. That product can be found in the first link I posted up thread.
I cannot refute the "hob" issue, however regarding Katheryn Briggs Encyclopedia of Fairies, I still stand behind the bulk of that work as fine scholarship with great discussion on the origin of fairies. That book hardly touches Catholic influence, mostly regarding the older pagan sources.
gamer-printer, You have a fascinating ancestry! I only know of one of my fore-bearing families in any detail, thanks to the massive shake-up of Germany after WWII. Although genealogical sites are happy to tell me of the wonderful achievement of various "Beins," I seriously doubt they're actually related. My family were stolid farmers (ie, peasants) in what is now Poland, but was at one time about as much Germany as anywhere else (the nation-state of Pomerania).
I also served as a fact-checker for Steven D. Russell's work regarding kami spirits in The Forest of Spirits module, though nothing else. I had no part in the Brinewall Legacy (which I haven't even read, so I cannot offer alternate activity with that module).
You might check Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House, a one-shot and map product (of a Japanese bath house) that I authored, which includes a multi-CR ghost (CR 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20). So that could easily fit somewhere in The Forest of Spirits or in Kasai itself, in The Empty Throne. That product can be found in the first link I posted up thread.
I'm sad to hear you can't help me with oni... The entire AP concerns oni extremely closely -- and I am naturally suspicious that Paizo would have gotten them any more "right" than any other Japanese folklore. Ah well, I look forward to the more eastern parts of the AP.
As for Briggs, I looked her up (on Wiki, of course!). She seems to have been a seminal scholar in the study of folklore, and a fine source to have at hand. I envy you your Encyclopedia! However, she was unable to live forever. And there's been a lot of further study in the 40 years since she wrote it. Since you have such a keen interest, you may want to augment your library, that's all I'm saying.
I think goblin archetypes show up in several cultures with different interpretations. Golorian has it's own. Even within the culture storytellers are not rigorously consistent as they are artists! lol... so luckily it's a fantasy game and people make stuff up (then copyright it).
I think the Tolkien estate established once and for all (rather to their dismay) that if you use common English names for critters, others can use them too. "Hobbit" was the only racial name they could keep proprietary, because Tolkien really did make that one up. I'm grateful, I have to admit, that now I can think of Bilbo as one of the "stovetop-folk" thrown recklessly into adventure. It sums him up so well. Tolkien would have naturally assumed that his readers knew what a "hob" was.
As for telling a story to be a good artist... Yes! And adventurers aren't going to gear up and head off to slaughter a kitchen-goblin. Maybe one that's gotten a tad overly mischievous? Well, maybe -- if you're 1st level. (You have to start someplace!) But the adventure I just ran, with my starting party faring forth into the Brinestump Marsh to save travelers on the main trade route from depredations by the recently invigorated Licktoad goblin tribe... that's not doable with true hobs. And it was a good story.
I guess I just got a bit hot under the collar at the defamation of a wonderful creature. And my favorite culture, at that. Plus the thread was started by someone doing a homebrew version thinking he was getting at the roots of the word. (Admittedly, he withdrew from the discussion a long time ago.) I'll shut up now, I promise you.
The oni of Kaidan are the demonic residents of Jigoku (hell), which includes not only traditional oni, but many of the more evil yokai of Japanese folklore like rokuro-kube, which for some reason Paizo determined are undead (they are not, rather they are cursed humans; rokuro-kube is the long necked woman, a curse attributed to overly snoopy people). Much of Paizo's representation of oni fit into their fiction, and cannot be directly attributed to Japanese folklore.
I fear that at least in this one instance, your encyclopedia has sadly led you astray -- and in a fashion that may crop up in other articles. Simply put: the trick with interpreting European folklore or mythology is to properly look back in time past the initial influence of the Christian church and its identification of things with devils.
** spoiler omitted **...
If I might weigh in, while that is, of course, often true, what is the etymology of “hob” in the kitchen-y type thing, and how do we know that’s the original sense of the root in hobgoblin? It’s a nice idea, but the earliest attestation the OED records for “hob” in the sense of a fey creature is just vaguely before 1460, and is sometimes used thereafter as a generic given name for that sort of fairy, which usage (given name) is attested by around 1325, as a variant of Robert, which doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the other “hob,” etymologically.
Moreover, I don’t know any citations of “hob” in the sense of hearth that predate the 16th century. Wikipedia’s source for an OE connection gives no references, its link to Merriam-Webster supposedly in support of the idea is broken, and checking manually reveals that both the Merriam-Webster and the OED do not pretend to know the etymology with any certainty. (The most the OED will speculate is acknowledging Skeat’s suggestion that “hob” in the relevant sense and “hub” might be the same word, and related to the idea of a “boss,” a “round protuberance.”)
With the ideas of brownies and all, “hobs” as kitchen fairies is an appealing notion, but barring better evidence that that’s an early connection, I don’t think there are good grounds for thinking it’s anything other than a folk etymology.
Now, that something like hobs and pucks and pookas (which, though I’d have to double-check Liberman, might have something to do with bugs (bogeymen, bugaboos, bugbears :) )) became associated with devils is certainly the result of Christianization, but again, that the term “hob,” specifically, for a fairy, antedates that development is not clear to me from the evidence presented here and available from a cursory glance in the usual places online.
The "hob" I first ran across was related to hobilar, a mounted medieval infantryman (sometimes referred to as a light cavalryman although they fought dismounted). A hobby btw is an active medium sized horse in medieval English. To "hobble" someone, or animal, is to prevent free movement. Hobilars either hobbled their horses to fight on foot or every 4th man held the horses.
I've seen the hearth reference, either Welsh or Old English, too of course, as well as "hob" or "hobin" being a short for Robert. Later "Rob" or "Robin" which makes more sense to modern ears...
Personally I find the connection of Hobgoblin (a trouble making Goblin also something to be dreaded) to Goblins and the term Bugbear (again something dreaded as well as a fey / goblin) interesting. A Goblin being the basic humanoid monster, the Hobgoblin being more dangerous and the Bugbear being the most dreaded version (which related the usage of hobgoblin and bugbear as something feared).
For me, in my adolescent mind (in the mid seventies), I connected hobgoblin to hobilar and it made sense for the hobgoblin to be a soldier-goblin. And that's what they have been in my game ever since. Larger, more militarized, and disciplined Goblins. Which is largely the D&D / PF take on them as well.
Given the multiple, and twisted, variations of "hob" just settling on something that makes sense in your own game, that has meaning in your own game world, is all you can really do. Well, and discuss the possibilities on message boards :)
Qunnessaa, my original point was just that there is a conceptual relationship between the kitchen-y hob (the boss or grate in the hearth) and the concept of a fairy that sticks close to the hearth, whether for helping out or for creating mischief. If I were going to create my own hobgoblins, the first direction I'd head would still be the kitchen. It's a homebody sort of fairy.
Not the "fairy-mushroom" sort. Or the "appearing/disappearing path in the deep woods" sort.
And above all not the devilish sort, the demonic "slay the children and eat them" sort found in D&D or Pathfinder! But people started throwing the "d" word around. Really, my point is simple: Whether it means "Bob" (nickname for Robert) or hearth-holder, we have a germanic word here. And we have a pagan fairy. It doesn't matter that the OED wasn't able to make citations from before 600 AD (!). Claiming that a germanic word that refers to something pagan means "devil" is... extraordinarily odd. That's what needs citations to justify it. And the OED & other venerable dictionaries that you consulted don't back it up. So I gather you're in agreement now that "devil" is not a factor.
But what is its etymology? I could point out that my wiki link for the etymology of the hearth-hob is working fine, except then I'd have to grant you that the trumps "E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898" in spades, any day of the week. I think I'll skip all that, and simply agree with you that the etymology of the hearth-hob is uncertain, and that of the fairy-hob in fact is related to "Robert" and not a hearth at all.
The "hob" I first ran across was related to hobilar, a mounted medieval infantryman (sometimes referred to as a light cavalryman although they fought dismounted). A hobby btw is an active medium sized horse in medieval English. To "hobble" someone, or animal, is to prevent free movement. Hobilars either hobbled their horses to fight on foot or every 4th man held the horses. (...)
For me, in my adolescent mind (in the mid seventies), I connected hobgoblin to hobilar and it made sense for the hobgoblin to be a soldier-goblin. And that's what they have been in my game ever since. Larger, more militarized, and disciplined Goblins. Which is largely the D&D / PF take on them as well.
Thank you for a fascinating insight! Again, D&D started with Tolkien. So what we're really wondering is where did Tolkien get his hobgoblins from? And this makes a lot of sense, without necessarily being provable. Just as I'm speculating now that his "hob" at home had an awful lot to do with it when the term "hobbit" just popped into his head one day while grading papers.
I've seen the hearth reference, either Welsh or Old English, too of course, as well as "hob" or "hobin" being a short for Robert. Later "Rob" or "Robin" which makes more sense to modern ears... (...)
Given the multiple, and twisted, variations of "hob" just settling on something that makes sense in your own game, that has meaning in your own game world, is all you can really do. Well, and discuss the possibilities on message boards :)
Endlessly, apparently. :) The first part of this last paragraph is great advice!
The oni of Kaidan are the demonic residents of Jigoku (hell), which includes not only traditional oni, but many of the more evil yokai of Japanese folklore like rokuro-kube, which for some reason Paizo determined are undead (they are not, rather they are cursed humans; rokuro-kube is the long necked woman, a curse attributed to overly snoopy people). Much of Paizo's representation of oni fit into their fiction, and cannot be directly attributed to Japanese folklore.
There are oni in Kaidan? Oh, I hope your GM's Guide comes out soon!
Thank you, in any case, for confirming my dire suspicions. I may find that Paizo's not-oni, at least, are so inextricably bound up in the Jade Regent storyline that I can't "fix" them. I may have to settle for the statement that just because they use an actual Japanese word doesn't have to mean that the Minkaian version is all that similar.
Yes, I think we’re basically in agreement about general principles, and I’m sorry if I came across as trying to throw my weight around from an etymological high horse, which I didn’t mean to do.
I think it’s just a question of how far back one is willing to extrapolate. My natural inclination is far too generous for some fields related to my work, so I try to separate what makes sense to me or that I find interesting from what I can strictly back up from my sources. I’m a literature person, which is quite different from being a proper philologist or a linguist, as they would be sure to tell you. :)
This is how my thought process went. So we have a pagan fairy later called a hob. If it’s “Hob” from Robert, the obvious place to check doesn’t cite usage that precludes that being a post-Christian development, i.e., that fairy X came to be called a “hob” after the name could acquire sinister implications by way of “Robert le Diable,” or hobbledehoy, or Hobbididance, though not necessarily, cf. Robin Goodfellow, obviously not a devil. (Unless it’s a euphemism to avoid annoying him, but then one’s being very paranoid about one’s supernatural beings, which is an interesting choice in its own right.)
Now, maybe “hob” as a name for a type of fairy is both from Robert and from pagan times (the amount of OE literature that has come down to us is pitifully small, after all). So maybe something based on the first element of hrod-beort, the “fame” part of “bright fame?” What that would mean I don’t know, but I’ll allow it as a possibility, but I’ve had my knuckles rapped often enough to also point out that I don’t actually have any sources to point out such usage. It’s a very minimalist approach, but there you have it.
As for Brewer, I have no intrinsic objection to it, but just out of curiosity, where does Wiki’s link take you? Bartleby just gives me, “Hob: of a grate. From the Anglo-Saxon verb habban (to hold). The chimney-corner, where at one time a settle stood on each side, was also called ‘the hob.’” Now that’s peachy, but any linguist would ask me, “Prove it!” I’m not a linguist, so I can’t, but if it’s really so obviously Anglo-Saxon, the polite thing to do would be to show at least a few steps, and that Brewer won’t or can’t sets off alarm bells. The OED tends to be polite, and it stops far short of Anglo-Saxon for “hob” in the sense of hearth. Wiki does cite Merriam-Webster for “hub” ostensibly from the same source, but that link is actually broken, and punching “hub” into the Merriam-Webster personally, unless I’m getting a completely different online M-W, doesn’t result in any such speculation, and in fact agrees quite nicely with the OED.
Again, maybe “hob” fairies were so called long before they are attested in any surviving written sources. And maybe they were originally something to do with an Anglo-Saxon hearth, even though “hob” words related to hearth appear surprisingly late, and the “Hob” = Robert thing was just a case of convergent evolution where the latter idea won out under the influence of the Church. I wouldn’t swear to it, though, because, again, minimalism.
Ultimately, connotations shift, and whatever the pedigree of a word, within a given language, usage trumps all. If we’re going to say unequivocally that “hob” goblins in usage and meaning predate “Hob” as a short form or prefix derived from “Hob” understood as a familiar form of Robert as a “Christian name” applied ironically to non-Christian beings, I expect someone to call us on it. (“Liturgy” is a parallel example that springs to mind: it’s purely and respectably Greek in origins, very pre-Christian, but in English usage it overwhelmingly connotes Christian worship, and if we wanted to argue otherwise we’d have to point to suitable examples.)
TL;DR version: The hearth is definitely a reasonable direction to turn if we want to reimagine hobgoblins. However, if we want to argue strongly, and not just as a tempting possibility, that historically the “hob” in hobgoblins predates the sort of Christian folklore that Briggs et al. describe, and not just a coincidence of what sort of names medieval English folk were likely to turn to in naming a “Tom, Dick, and Harry” fairy, that would take some more evidence.
To respond to even thinking Briggs is Christian folklore, which I completely disagree... the English brownie were a diminuitive laborer that would work your fields in exchange for cream and sweet cake. As long as payment is only with the agreed upon food arrangement, they would agree to work the fields, however, as soon as you try to pay them in coin, instead of food - brownies run off never to work for the farmer again.
According to Briggs originates from the idea that brownies weren't originally fairies, rather remnants of a conquered predecessor human culture, perhaps Bronze Age people usurped by Iron Age cultures (like the Tuatha de Danaan usurping the Firbolgs of ancient Ireland). As an earlier human culture, they were pushed out of the habitable areas and forced into hiding in the forests and high country of the hinterland. Now starving, they quietly approach one of the farmers of the new culture and offering their labor in exchange for quality food. Accepting payment in gold or silver, is considered entering into a contract and buying into the foreign invader culture's economy, which is considered anathema to the conquered peoples. Of course as time goes by, and the conquered peoples die out or assimilate with the new culture and are mostly forgotten, the stories convert into fairy tales, and the conquered into fairy beings.
Whether true or not, makes a heck of a lot of sense to me - I find that concept very plausable.
Strangely, on a vacation to Hawaii several years ago, I discovered that in Hawaiian folklore there is the belief in menehune - a diminuitive race of humanoids living in the mountains who were known to be great builders and crafters, whose culture preceeding the existence of the Hawaiians now in charge. When a Hawaiian village needed a dam to be built or a fish pond (a dammed enclosure on the side of a river where caught fish could be placed for living storage to be eaten at a later time), they summoned the menehune from the mountains requesting their labor. Menehune would only work if paid with a single freshwater shrimp for each individual. However, they would only work within a single 24 hour stretch - the entire village of menehune would work together, each carrying a stone and walking from their high places to the building site depositing/building whatever they were called upon to build. After 24 hours even if unfinished they stop working and return home.
I find it very intriguing that menehune legend so closely correlates to English brownie origins. I'm not saying menehune are brownies, but what an amazing link in folklore belief, yet tens of thousands of miles apart, and of completely different cultures. Cool stuff.
I'm sorry, I'm obviously not explaining myself very clearly: I meant specifically with reference to where the "hob" in "hobgoblin" comes from, as far as we can tell with any security, not the resonances of the root generally, and certainly not with reference to all the varied material with which Briggs deals across her oeuvre.
Well I didn't mean to sound too harsh - my original point regarding the "hob" issue does feel very Christian, so I do agree with you on that point.
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This OUP blog seems to offer the most convincing evidence (online, at least) regarding the origin of the word "hobbit".
Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner in "The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary"
Merriam-Webster also has this to say about "hobgoblins":
While a goblin is traditionally regarded in folklore as a grotesque, evil, and malicious creature, a hobgoblin tends to be more about creating mischief. (The character of Puck from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream might be regarded as one.) First appearing in English in 1530, hobgoblin combined goblin with hob, a word meaning "sprite" or "elf" that derived from Hobbe, a nickname for Robert. Goblin derived via Middle English and Medieval Latin from the Greek word kobalos, meaning "rogue." The American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson famously applied the word's extended sense in his essay Self-Reliance: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
My favorite version of goblins come from the Ars Magica game, where they are supernatural forest sprites or faeries, often deformed and wicked, and whose "pranks" often have bloody consequences.
This OUP blog seems to offer the most convincing evidence (online, at least) regarding the origin of the word "hobbit".
Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner in "The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary"Merriam-Webster also has this to say about "hobgoblins":
While a goblin is traditionally regarded in folklore as a grotesque, evil, and malicious creature, a hobgoblin tends to be more about creating mischief. (The character of Puck from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream might be regarded as one.) First appearing in English in 1530, hobgoblin combined goblin with hob, a word meaning "sprite" or "elf" that derived from Hobbe, a nickname for Robert. Goblin derived via Middle English and Medieval Latin from the Greek word kobalos, meaning "rogue." The American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson famously applied the word's extended sense in his essay Self-Reliance: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.My favorite version of goblins come from the Ars Magica game, where they are supernatural forest sprites or faeries, often deformed and wicked, and whose "pranks" often have bloody consequences.
See, this is the basic idea I was getting at with the mythological goblin, a supernatural forest faerie.
Good stuff in this thread. Good stuff.
In my campaign setting, goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears are one race, with the goblins being the adolescents/children, and the hobgoblins being the adults. Goblins are terrifyingly ugly, emaciated beings with sharp teeth and claws who are eternally hungry(their name means "hunger" or "hungry one" in the halfling and dwarven tongues), with tiny lambent eyes and a disturbing ability to imitate any sound they hear in order to attract prey. After eating and growing to an adult size, their hunger lessens and they become the "adult" hobgoblin, who are considerably smarter in that they communicate(goblins understand the goblin language, but do not really "speak" it per se), make use of weaponry(daggers and short swords and short bows are particular favorites, as they allow one to kill swiftly without ruining a potential meal, which they cook, unlike goblins), and tactics(goblin-kin have a strange eidetic memory that allows for near total recall of everything they have ever experienced, and hob is slang for swear or oath in some places akin to our pinky promise). Bugbears are a mutation as their hunger never lessens and they never stop growing, they bear only a slight facial resemblance to a hobgoblin, and are dangerous in the extreme. A single goblin is terrifying, as they are a sign that more are near and an attack is imminent.
Well I didn't mean to sound too harsh - my original point regarding the "hob" issue does feel very Christian, so I do agree with you on that point.
Thanks; I didn’t mean to be too much of a buzzkill, and I was probably focusing in just a bit too much on one point. I mean, I could enthuse about things from Ralph of Coggeshall’s (I think) green children, Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer and beyond (certainly all the Mabinogion material) for ages, but that would drag me very far from the topic of goblins. :)
It doesn’t help that I’ve been shaped by the appalling history of scholarship on a lot of Celtic mythology, or on my own religious tradition, even within my community. (I’m a neopagan, and the state of our thealogy, and the responses to some of my colleagues, themselves co-religionists, who are trying to take a rigorously scholarly approach to our texts and traditions, are often disheartening.) One of these years I’ll need to learn Welsh so I can actually look properly into the Book of Taliesin, whose poems have been edited and translated fairly recently in exemplary fashion, but which are difficult, to say the least, to use for reconstructing the legends that must have grounded the texts we have.
I’m also interested in traces of the development of traditions that might in principle be traceable, like the 19th-c. spiritualists’ take on fairies. One of my favourite parts of Evans-Wentz’s Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries that I’ve never looked more closely into is the informant who tells him that fairies are beings of orange and purple fire that stand twice the height of a human being. I’d be curious to see what an occult (in Pathfinder terms) mythological goblin might look like too. ;)
Arguably, when the Catholics were trying to assimilate pagan cultures, they often (temporarily) adopted pagan holidays and practices as part of Catholism - Easter and Christmas both being Christianized pagan holidays, for example. After a few centuries of allowance, eventually the Catholic church considered such as truly pagan, forcing the peoples to banish the pagan elements confirming original Catholic beliefs.
I've read where Christ was actually born in September, but in order to get the Germanic peoples to convert, moving the birthday to the yuletide season allowed the beliefs to more easily converge.
So the idea that "hob" meaning the devil, could be viewed as the Christianized definition of an older belief of meaning evil pranksters in the pagan belief being equivalent to the devil in Christian belief. Even though the two aren't really the same.
As if you cannot separate the two as the origins of the pagan are mostly lost, and the peoples that believed in the combined Catholic-pagan belief cannot themselves separate the two, especially since the pagan is prehistoric (before writing was adopted by the pagan culture). True pagan elements are lost because it wasn't written down. Fairy beliefs, on the other hand, being the closest to a "historical" comparison, and joining of the two belief systems.
Wheldrake's post can be seen as a truer explanation that coincides with the Christian idea of hob, even though they are not truly the same. I see a link between the two.
Indeed! And those are the sort of interactions that we need to bear in mind as folks interested in myth. Are you familiar with Ron Hutton's work? I've only dabbled so far, and it will be a while before I have time to set aside to reading more of him with the attention he deserves, but what I've seen so far is brilliant, if sobering.
Not familiar with Ron Hutton's work - so I shall explore it.
While a goblin is traditionally regarded in folklore as a grotesque, evil, and malicious creature, a hobgoblin tends to be more about creating mischief. (The character of Puck from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream might be regarded as one.) First appearing in English in 1530, hobgoblin combined goblin with hob, a word meaning "sprite" or "elf" that derived from Hobbe, a nickname for Robert. Goblin derived via Middle English and Medieval Latin from the Greek word kobalos, meaning "rogue." The American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson famously applied the word's extended sense in his essay Self-Reliance: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
As I understood hobgoblins, they were generally slightly less troublesome goblins—unlike goblins, they would show great regard towards children, and might protect or refuse to trouble them. As such, this definition best matches my understanding.
Yes, I think we’re basically in agreement about general principles, and I’m sorry if I came across as trying to throw my weight around from an etymological high horse, which I didn’t mean to do.
I think it’s just a question of how far back one is willing to extrapolate. My natural inclination is far too generous for some fields related to my work, so I try to separate what makes sense to me or that I find interesting from what I can strictly back up from my sources. I’m a literature person, which is quite different from being a proper philologist or a linguist, as they would be sure to tell you. :)
Whereas I'm decades past academia and rigorous writing. While I do have an ABD <giggle> (All But Dissertation -- classes but no degree) in Linguistics, I was in Syntax & Semantics, most definitively not in philology. And yet, I do know about folk etymologies and back-formations, so I'm a bit embarrassed.
How about we put a kettle on the hob? (I swear I've seen that in British novels.) And then we can have a friendly chat over virtual tea.
to throw my own 2 cents in, and as someone who also has spent a lot of time reading and researching folklore, Catholics didn't really have anything to do with demonization of Hobgoblins. Rather, the demonization was more of a Puritan/Protestant influence, and actually happened rather late (IIRC around the 1600's). Before this time, Hobs were just dumber and more mischievous house spirits.
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So yes, hobgoblins have two components -- hobs, the generally helpful, domestic Anglo-Saxon fairy. And...
Middle English gobelin, from Anglo-French, from Medieval Latin gobelinus, ultimately from Greek kobalos rogue
First Known Use: 14th century
Well, "rogue" doesn't sound downright evil. It just sounds like all the other knaves who climbed out of the boats in William's train. Nonetheless, I am ignorant of French folktales, so for all I know "goblins" really did hide in forests and ambush travelers to eat them.
Wikipedia is more informative...
A goblin is a monstrous creature from European folklore, first attested in stories from the Middle Ages. They are ascribed various and conflicting abilities, temperaments and appearances depending on the story and country of origin. They are almost always small and grotesque, mischievous or outright evil, and greedy, especially for gold and jewelry. They often have magical abilities similar to a fairy or demon. Similar creatures include brownies, dwarves, gnomes, imps, and kobolds.
...and I'm relieved to see that the footnote links work; one of them takes us to the On-Line Etymology Dictionary...
early 14c., "a devil, incubus, mischievous and ugly fairy," from Norman French gobelin (12c., as Medieval Latin Gobelinus, the name of a spirit haunting the region of Evreux, in chronicle of Ordericus Vitalis), of uncertain origin; said to be unrelated to German kobold (see cobalt), or from Medieval Latin cabalus, from Greek kobalos "impudent rogue, knave," kobaloi "wicked spirits invoked by rogues," of unknown origin. Another suggestion is that it is a diminutive of the proper name Gobel.
Though French gobelin was not recorded until almost 250 years after appearance of the English term, it is mentioned in the Medieval Latin text of the 1100's, and few people who believed in folk magic used Medieval Latin. [Barnhart]
Thou schalt not drede of an arowe fliynge in the dai, of a gobelyn goynge in derknessis [Psalms xci.5 in the later Wycliffe Bible, late 14c.]
...and we're doing fine right up until the wikipedia article (middle of my links) goes on to claim that "Goblins along with Ogres are said to be the offspring of Cain in Beowulf" -- written well before William was born.
So, Qunnessaa, if you do have access to an actually readable and quotable on-line version of the OED, I'd love to find out what it has to say about "goblin."
IF it is the case that "hob" is Anglo-Saxon while "goblin" comes to us along with the Normans, it seems likely that the English people evolving into being after the invasion would have stuck "hob" and "goblin" together simply as a multi-lingual synonym pair. They did so with many phrases, like "tried & true" or "law & order." With "gentleman" they actually stuck the two roots together into one word. So maybe "hobgoblin" is simply another such redundancy. A way to be sure that whoever you were talking to would understand you, no matter what language they spoke.
And yet... there's an intriguing story in the air. What if the French goblins were indeed nastier than the Anglo-Saxon hobs? More rapacious, more prone to kill, more greedy... But when the roguish invading goblin met the dutiful native hob, they fell in love, and the couple's offspring became more domestic than the one parent and more of a prankster than the other?
So now I'm seeing it: I call Pathfinder goblins to be in the actual tradition, while hobgoblins are indeed smarter & better skilled. However, hobgoblins are poorly portrayed as more martial (more like hobilars), when they should be more domestic, more urban, more "nice." (Still too much a prankster for a family to want as next-door neighbors, mind you.) I wish I hadn't already thrown a standard Pathfinder hobgoblin into my game. I wonder if I can in essence edit the players' memories of what the party bested? A hobgoblin as town mischief-maker could make for a fun encounter!
(And thanks, MMCJawa, for your explanation of the demonization. Because otherwise, one would have to wonder about whether hobgoblin does mean devil -- certainly the English making sense of this new influx knew of them.)
One last finding from clicking around Wikipedia... Brownies & hobs may be the last crumbs from paganism, rather than from a conquered people.
A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in pagan religions as well as in folklore across many parts of the world.
Household deities fit into two types; firstly, a specific deity- typically a goddess- often referred to as a hearth goddess or domestic goddess who is associated with the home and hearth, with examples including the Greek Hestia[1] and Norse Frigg.
The second type of household deities are those that are not one singular deity, but a type, or species of animistic deity, who usually have lesser powers than major deities. This type was common in the religions of antiquity, such as the Lares of ancient Roman religion, the Gashin of Korean shamanism, and Cofgodas of Anglo-Saxon paganism. These survived Christianisation as fairy-like creatures existing in folklore, such as the Anglo-Scottish Brownie and Slavic Domovoi.
A Cofgod (plural Cofgodas ("cove gods")) was a household god[1] in Anglo-Saxon paganism.
The Classicist Ken Dowden opined that the cofgodas were the equivalent of the Penates found in Ancient Rome.[2] Dowden also compared them to the Kobolds of later German folklore, arguing that they had both originated from the kofewalt, a spirit that had power over a room.[2] It is generally accepted that the English hob and Anglo-Celtic brownie are the modern survival of the cofgod.[3]
I'm mentioning this not as a thesis I care to defend but as a topic some people here may want to explore. I'm fascinated...
How about we put a kettle on the hob? (I swear I've seen that in British novels.) And then we can have a friendly chat over virtual tea.
You're too kind. :)
As to "goblin," the dictionaries you quote are quite close to the OED, "French gobelin (obsolete, recorded only from the 16th cent.; but in the 12th cent. Ordericus Vitalis mentions Gobelinus as the popular name of a spirit which haunted the neighbourhood of Évreux). Perhaps < medieval Latin cobalus, covalus, < Greek κόβᾱλος a rogue, knave, κόβᾱλοι wicked sprites invoked by rogues."
Its bare bones definition is, "a mischievous and ugly demon," which seems rather hard on the poor thing.
I would love to look up at some point the context for the OED's first citation, from sometime before 1327, "Sathanas..Seyde on is sawe Gobelyn made is gerner Of gromene mawe." (Which is when I realize my Middle English is disgracefully rusty.)
But this bit from an English version of Melusine from around 1500 sounds much nicer, "Many manyeres of thinges, the whiche somme called Gobelyns, the other ffayrees, and the other ‘bonnes dames’ or good ladyes."
Not to discount all the etymology posts, many of which point to 1500 to 1600 as attributable dates. While paganism still exists today, to me 1500 is late in that belief system. What I'm speaking of cannot be effectively provable, but true paganism, to me means before Christianity, meaning the true source material is probably a thousand years older than 1500 and probably much older than that. I find it difficult to accept citations that are more recent than the Roman Era. Which of course makes it more difficult to cite, I get it, but the true sources of faerie beliefs are immensely old. Show me etymological citations from the first proto-European language (is that even possible) then I would consider that more attributable to the truth.
As to "goblin," the dictionaries you quote are quite close to the OED, "French gobelin (obsolete, recorded only from the 16th cent.; but in the 12th cent. Ordericus Vitalis mentions Gobelinus as the popular name of a spirit which haunted the neighbourhood of Évreux). Perhaps < medieval Latin cobalus, covalus, < Greek κόβᾱλος a rogue, knave, κόβᾱλοι wicked sprites invoked by rogues."
Its bare bones definition is, "a mischievous and ugly demon," which seems rather hard on the poor thing.
I would love to look up at some point the context for the OED's first citation, from sometime before 1327, "Sathanas..Seyde on is sawe Gobelyn made is gerner Of gromene mawe." (Which is when I realize my Middle English is disgracefully rusty.)
But this bit from an English version of Melusine from around 1500 sounds much nicer, "Many manyeres of thinges, the whiche somme called Gobelyns, the other ffayrees, and the other ‘bonnes dames’ or good ladyes."
Ohhhh, you do have access. Be sure to give thanks! (I assume it's due to working or studying in academia.) And thank-you for the quote.
So the OED is positing a demonic meaning, but to the goblin half. Interesting... Not knowing anything about French folklore, I think I'll bow out of a fight on this one. Although I couldn't help but notice that the etymology only refers to "spirits," and the second quote seems to refer to fairies rather than devils. Of course, the first one definitely names Satan. <gulp> This is where I have to admit that even though I majored in English at a very good college, I'm not precisely "rusty" at Middle English -- I never learned it in the first place. Any help you can give me in understanding the quote would be appreciated!
And yes, would people stop calling these creatures ugly or grotesque? They're... appearance-challenged! They have a unique take on personal style! Their mothers think they're beauti... maybe not. :)
In any case, whatever Beowulf mentioned as the offspring of Cain, it was not "goblins," and we can indeed assume that goblins were among the many ruffians alighting along with His Grace William. Thank you!
One more point, I read another book that was written by an etymologist called The History of Pagan Europe (I think, I gave the book to my nephew, but I could borrow it back to get some honest citations). However, the coolest thesis presented in that book, to me, explained that according to the scholarship of the author that ancient Celt influenced the Indus Valley culture - suggesting the Celtic migrations didn't just go west of Switzerland (Celtic origin place), but they went east as well. The Hindu social caste system is almost a perfect match to the Celtic caste system with the Brahmans being equivalent to the Druids (2nd highest caste), and even showing a table of 50 or so words with Celtic on one side and Hindu on the other, and words like horse, stall, man, woman, slave were almost identical, often only different by one or two letters. The Indus Valley culture is considered one of the oldest, and if Celts influenced that culture, where talking immensely old attributions.
I'll try to borrow that book from my nephew to offer citations and post in this thread - might be next month though.
Not to discount all the etymology posts, many of which point to 1500 to 1600 as attributable dates. While paganism still exists today, to me 1500 is late in that belief system. What I'm speaking of cannot be effectively provable, but true paganism, to me means before Christianity, meaning the true source material is probably a thousand years older than 1500 and probably much older than that. I find it difficult to accept citations that are more recent than the Roman Era. Which of course makes it more difficult to cite, I get it, but the true sources of faerie beliefs are immensely old. Show me etymological citations from the first proto-European language (is that even possible) then I would consider that more attributable to the truth.
It's a very good point. The peoples of pre-Christian Europe had an oral tradition. In addition, for most of the centuries before Modern English, anyone much who did write did so in Latin -- and didn't bother with "old wives' tales." It makes all of this work ultimately fictional (as opposed to fictitious), even for the dedicated scholars who pursue it for their whole lives. Are the scholars who've concluded, for instance, that tales of hobs & brownies are vestiges of belief in household gods correct? I don't think there's any way we'll ever find out, short of time travel.
To me, really all you can do (EtA: with a dictionary) is rule things out. If "goblin" had had a Germanic root, we could not have ruled out an Anglo-Saxon pagan birth. But it's from Norman French. If the word had indeed been named in Beowulf, we'd have known that it had somehow crossed the channel at an unknowable point in the past. But no, it wasn't named. So now the most probable source is the Norman Conquest -- distinctly during Christian times. Did the Normans themselves have tales of goblins going back beyond written records? I don't know. But the conquered people of England may well have thought of Christian-style demons when they first heard the Norman tales. Certainly, the reasonable hypothesis is that goblins are not part of paganism in England.
When we look at hobs, however, we don't see anything that would rule out a pagan beginning. And when we look at the folk-tales of other peoples and see similar fairies or spirits, there's excellent reason to assume paganism. So no, we don't ask the OED to show us what the word really means. It can't.
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Obligatory word of warning that Wikipedia can be useful, but articles on relatively "popular subjects" often attract edits that are more based on pop "knowledge" or speculation than fact. See that notation about Cain being the "father" of goblins as an example.
Also, If I recall from the top of my head, the the celtic languages are a derivative of the ancient proto Indo-European language. It's not so much that Celts influenced the Indus valley civilizations, as the other way around.
Ancient household gods may have been the source of goblin legends, and that of other household spirits. but it's like a giant game of telephone...a thousands of years of reinterpretations and cultural changes have resulted in entities fairly distinct from there proto-origins. The "classic fairy goblin" is a pretty late invention, something that was later redefined and expanded upon to form the "Tolkien" goblin that pops up in DnD and modern fantasy books.