DALE DRINNON: The Lincoln Impology continues

This is meant mostly as an amplification on my comments about the Lincoln Imp. 'Imp' is a funny word and it was usually taken to be a sort of demon towards the end of the Middle Ages, but before then the word was more usually used to mean one of the smaller and uglier of the Faery realm, a goblin. Goblins and brownies were mostly interchangeable and they were basically described as small hairy-but-naked humans that lived in the woods but could come to live around the house; usually hiding in the cellar or in the dark corners, but they could come out when the masters were asleep to inspect household goods, steal or wreck things - and they could also be trained to do household chores, presumably on the 'Monkey see, monkey do' principle. These are the same stories of the 'Little People' the world over, but these are also characteristics of current seriously-reported Wildmen reports out of Russia. The Wild Woman Zana was one example of a Wild Woman that took to living in a human house and doing household chores.

Oftentimes if the Little People are given human clothing as a reward they will stop working and go away, and the story should be that they thought themselves to be real humans and too good to work as slaves.

The section of Folklore that deals with such creatures calls them household sprits and this is partly because images of the creatures were made and set about the house or garden for protection (maybe in hopes of enticing such a creature into your house to do your work for you.) Nancy Arrowsmith in A Field Guide to the Little People assumes that the kobolds of Germany were originally JUST the carved icons, and the illustration shows basically what looks like a vaguely humanoid carrot stuck into the ground - ancestor of the common garden gnomes later on, I suppose. They are also represented by masks stuck on the walls inside the house, and certain ones of these masks have specific names presumably denoting different kinds of creatures: the same sort of masks or icons are put into churches and in ships for protection. Hence the traditition of representing Wildmen or Wudewasas in churches.

The icons are also ancestral to charms carried for personal use and the kobolds or goblins are ancestral to the Gobbo charms in Italy, considered the most powerful protection against the Evil Eye. 'Gobbo' is supposed to mean 'hunchback' but the concept seems to be pre-Indo-European and the lucky dwarf or hunchback may originally have been distributed throughout Megalithic Europe under the name Kobbok. In Greece the name was Kobalos and this is often given as the root for kobolds.

The leprechauns of Ireland were basically brownies of the 'Shoemaker and the Elves' type run off but still keeping themselves useful. 'Leprechaun' seems to have originally meant only 'Pygmy' but later was commonly construed to mean 'Shoemaker.' As the references below show, there is a wide variety of suggested derivations for all of these terms. And there is not much distinction in character between the helpful imps and the troublemakers except for the fact that the helpful ones might do a person a good turn. The helpful ones are also just as likely to go into a terrible rage and cause physical harm if threatened or mistreated. I shall append the pertinent passage from Sanderson's Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life, and then the references from Wikipedia.

Sanderson p. 384
I do not propose to go into the details of MLF. Not only is it not specifically our province but it is, except to specialists, incredibly boring; in fact almost as boring as having to wade through the names and perquisites of gods in multiple pantheons. Also, with respect to ABSMs or ABSM-like creatures, the whole business becomes unutterably monotonous for, from all over the world, the stories told are nothing but almost word-for-word repetitions of the modern reports that I have already given aplenty—giant, funny, or pigmy foot-tracks; tiny, man-sized, or giant hairy people; high-pitched whistles or gibberings; abducting of young human females usually followed by their release; and an almost invariable smiting or eradication of such types "In the beginning." The whole dreary business is a bore but it does still have very great significance, for it means that almost everywhere [apart from Australasia, Oceania, and Antarctica, as far as we know] sub-humans if not sub-hominids inhabited the whole earth prior to the arrival of the first Homo sapiens persons who proceeded to oust them or at least take over their territory.

In ferreting out noticias—as the Spanish so aptly put it—of the existence of these sub-humans in all the welter of written, transcribed, spoken, and remembered MLF, one does, however, have to be extremely careful to observe one basic fact. This is the very clear distinction made by most peoples—though little so by Caucasoids of the West during the past few hundred years—between three types of Beings; exclusive of the all-pervading Spirit, or God. These are: (1) Divine Entities, being representatives of God, gods, demi-gods, or disembodied noncorporeal personalities of another world but which may appear in this one and influence it. These are entities

in their own right that, while being able to assume human form or "enter into" humans, do not change their own identities. (2) Disembodied Spirits of various kinds. These may be the souls of people, dead or alive, mass-produced ancestors, spirits of animals, plants, stones, or anything else, either collective [generic] or individual, together with all manner of lares and penates. To most peoples these are just as real as living people, animals, or plants. (3) Unknown or as yet undiscovered but live, corporeal things.

ABSMs have always fallen very clearly and distinctly into the third class. Nowhere in the world is there any doubt about this. If asked, the "benighted natives" will usually say something like the Nepalese at Pangboche when asked by Stonor about the Meh-Teh alleged to have been seen the year before. The answer he got was "How could they [i.e. any of Nos. 1 or 2] leave footprints?"

I have a fancy that a somewhat extensive galaxy of alleged creatures in the folklore of Western Europe is of this same most pragmatic nature. If you come to look into what was said about Fairies, Pixies, Trolls, Titans, Vampires, Ghouls, Gnomes, Imps, Bogies, Brownies, Elves, Leprechauns, Satyrs, Ogres, and Fauns [as diametrically opposed to "ghosts," "specters," "apparitions," "spirits," "phantoms," "wraiths," "spooks," "banshees," "lemures," or "lorelei," which were definitely of Class 2], you will find that they may all be summed up by the classic line from the somewhat bawdy old English song that begins "There are fairies at the bottom of our garden"

Creatures, usually hairy, generally malignant, only rarely benevolent, but perfectly capable of breeding, as well as communicating with human beings, form the basis of these tales. And note, they come in four convenient sizes. The same may be said for all similar types known by whatever other languages all over Europe, North Africa, and a great part of what is today Russia. There seem, indeed, to have been "in the beginning" ABSMs of just the usual four types—pigmy; man-sized [and specifically of the Neanderthaler kind]; giant; and the bestial Meh-Teh with its abominable feet [cloven?] and pointed head.[end of Sanderson passage]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobold

Origins and etymology
The kobold's origins are obscure. Sources equate the domestic kobold with creatures such as the English boggart, hobgoblin and pixy, the Scottish brownie, and the Scandinavian nisse or tomte;[1][2][3][4][5] while they align the subterranean variety with the Norse dwarf and the Cornish knocker.[6][7]
...
Kobold beliefs represent the survival of pagan customs into the Christian and modern eras and offer hints of how pagan Europeans worshipped in the privacy of their homes.[9] Religion historian Otto Schrader has suggested that kobold beliefs derive from the pagan tradition of worshipping household deities thought to reside in the hearth fire.[10] Alternatively, Nancy Arrowsmith and George Moorse have said that the earliest kobolds were thought to be tree spirits.[11] According to 13th-century German poet Conrad of Würzburg, medieval Germans carved kobolds from boxwood and wax and put them "up in the room for fun".[12] Mandrake root was another material used.[13] People believed that the wild kobold remained in the material used to carve the figure.[11] These kobold effigies were 30 to 60 cm (one to two feet) high and had colourful clothing and large mouths. One example, known as the monoloke, was made from white wax and wore a blue shirt and black velvet vest.[13] The 17th century expression to laugh like a kobold may refer to these dolls with their mouths wide open, and it may mean "to laugh loud and heartily".[12] These kobold effigies were stored in glass and wooden containers.[13] German mythologist Jacob Grimm has traced the custom to Roman times and has argued that religious authorities tolerated it even after the Germans had been Christianised.[6]

Several competing etymologies for kobold have been suggested. In 1908, Otto Schrader traced the word to kuba-walda, meaning "the one who rules the house" [since wald ordinarily means "forest", it would seem that the original meaning would actually have been "One who dwells in the forest"].[10] According to this theory, the root of the word is chubisi, the Old High German word for house, building, or hut, and the word akin to the root of the English cove. The suffix -old means "to rule".[14][15]
...
Grimm has provided one of the earlier and more commonly accepted etymologies for kobold,[3] tracing the word's origin through the Latin cobalus to the Greek koba'los, meaning "rogue". The change to the word-final -olt is a feature of the German language used for monsters and supernatural beings. Variants of kobold appear as early as the 13th century.[18] The words goblin and gobelin, rendered in Medieval Latin as gobelinus[19][20], may in fact derive from the word kobold or from kofewalt.[16][21] Related terms occur in Dutch, such as kabout, kabot, and kabotermanneken.[12] Citing this evidence, British antiquarian Charles Hardwick has argued that the house kobold and similar creatures, such as the Scottish bogie, French goblin, and English Puck, all descend from the Greek kobaloi, creatures "whose sole delite consists in perplexing the human race, and evoking those harmless terrors that constantly hover round the minds of the timid."[22] In keeping with Grimm's definition, the kobaloi were spirits invoked by rogues.[23] Similarly, British writer Archibald Maclaren has suggested that kobold beliefs descend from the ancient Roman custom of worshipping lares, household gods, and penates, gods of the house and its supplies.[24]

Another class of kobold lives in underground places. Folklorists have proposed that the mine kobold derives from the beliefs of the ancient Germanic people. Scottish historical novelist Walter Scott has suggested that the Proto-Norse based the kobolds on the short-statured Finns, Lapps, and Latvians who fled their invasions and sought shelter in northern European caves and mountains. There they put their skills at smithing to work and, in the beliefs of the proto-Norse, came to be seen as supernatural beings. These beliefs spread, becoming the kobold, the Germanic gnome, the French goblin and the Scottish bogle.[25]
...
German writer Heinrich Smidt believed that the sea kobolds, or Klabautermann, entered German folklore via German sailors who had learned about them in England. However, historians David Kirby and Merja-Liisa Hinkkanen dispute this, claiming no evidence of such a belief in Britain. An alternate view connects the Klabautermann myths with the story of Saint Phocas of Sinope. As that story spread from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea. Scholar Reinhard Buss instead sees the Klabautermann as an amalgamation of early and pre-Christian beliefs mixed with new creatures.[27]

[Klabautermannen are represented by carved wooden figurines or masks which are said to bring good luck to ships, and these descend from similar wooden representations made in houses and gardens in the wooded and hill countries.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobalos

Kobalos
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The kobalos (pl. kobaloi) was a sprite from Greek mythology, a mischievous creature fond of tricking and frightening mortals.[1] Greek myths depict the kobaloi as "impudent, thieving, droll, idle, mischievous, gnome-dwarfs",[2] and as "funny, little triksy elves" of a phallic nature.[3] They were companions of Dionysus [which identifies them as the same as satyrs]and could shapeshift as Dionysus in the guise of Choroimanes-Aiolomorphos.[4] According to one myth, they robbed Herakles while he slept. He captured them in revenge but took pity on them when he found them amusing.[This is the same story told of the Cecropes or Apes] In one version of the myth, Herakles gave them to the Lydian queen Omphale as a gift. The kobaloi were thought to live in Euboea or near Thermopylai.[2]

Parents used tales of the kobaloi to frighten children into behaving.[5] The term also means "impudent knave, arrant rogue" in ancient Greek, and such individuals were thought to invoke kobaloi spirits.[6] Depictions of kobaloi are common in ancient Greek art. Robert Brown has speculated that their inhuman features show that the kobaloi are non-Hellenic in origin.[2]

The kobalos is related to two other Greek sprites: the kabeiroi (pygmies with large phalluses) and the kerkopes.[2] The kobalos and kabeiroi came to be equated.[2] Other European sprites may derive from belief in kobaloi. This includes spirits such as the Lancashire boggart, Scottish bogle, [Welsh bwca], French goblin, Medieval gobelinus, German kobold, and English Puck.[7] Likewise, the names of many European spirits may derive from the word kobalos. The word entered Latin as cobalus, then possibly French as gobelin. From this, the English goblin [and the regional variants hob and hob-goblin] and Welsh coblynu may derive.[8]

['Kerkopes' were said to have been transformed into monkeys by Zeus, hence the term Cercopithecines to mean 'Old-world monkeys.' Since no monkeys or apes are actually native to Greece, there has also been the suggestion that the creatures were the same as the fauns and satyrs of other myths]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerkopes

COLIN HIGGINS: Redmire Carp and Goblin

One of my favourite guest blogs is that of Colin Higgins from Yorkshire, who - incidentally - was the winner of the compy in January's `On the Track`, where he won my everlasting admiration by recognising Surabaya Johnny by the ever lovely Marianne Faithfull. He also went on the lash with Shane McGowan back in his student days, and is obviously a very fine fellow...

To traditionalists, Carp are synonymous with country house lakes where beneath a canopy of weed and lilies they can grow to enormous size, unseen and largely un-fished for. The reality today is more likely to be stocked commercial pools with numbered pitches containing named fish which emerge a few times a season to give their captors momentary notoriety as ‘The Fat Lady’, ‘Two Tone’ or ‘Benson’ put on a few ounces under an onslaught of high protein ground baits.

The most famous of the former idylls is undoubtedly ‘Redmire Pool,’ a secluded three acre lake near Ross on Wye that came to national attention under this pseudonym when Richard Walker smashed the British record in 1952 with a fish of 44 lbs. Chris Yates went on to break the record again in 1980, his 51 and a half pounder coming from the same lake.

In spite of the prodigious nature of these Redmire fish, Walker, Yates and one or two others were given a glimpse of a fish that dwarfed their own captures, a carp of unspeakable proportions known as The King or simply The Monster. If the monster existed as anything other than a hallucination from too many hours on the bankside it was never landed, though estimates place its weight anywhere from 70 to 100 lbs.

Redmire is also famous for its ghosts. Rumour has it Chris Yates attempted to hold an exorcism after events he has alluded to in print and various anglers have written about strange incidents at the lake, their names being shouted, the sound of a phantom cyclist on the bankside, locomotives heard where there are no lines, sudden inexplicable winds, frost covering the contents of their bivvies in midsummer, locked car doors slamming and most frighteningly, a horrible goblin like creature that reduced two grown men to abject fear before being found cowering in the corner of their tent by fellow anglers. Other carp fishermen have admitted, guardedly in a sometimes macho world, to seeing the same staring-eyed thing.

Whatever the nature of this entity Redmire’s secrets have yielded to commercial pressure and the lake has become a sort of heritage site where, for a price, small groups of anglers can fish the same pitches their heroes once trod. Future records are unlikely though, Leney’s original stocking of fifty Galician carp having died out and their offspring showing none of the same tendency for enormous size. Whether the spooks have also departed now this quiet fold in the Herefordshire hills has gone public remains to be seen.

QUATARI GOBLIN THE REAL DEAL? OF COURSE NOT

A few days ago this photograph was splashed across the internet and people who really should have known better were touting it as being an artefact of major cryptozoological importance. We made some facile joke about toy goblins and Adobe Photoshop and ignored it.

Oh how I love the CFZ readership. They are jolly good at hunting out answers to conundra like this.


Mark North, our one-time artist, and long time friend of us all wrote to Richard Freeman with the solution.

I may have found your answer, it is indeed a cheap stretchy rubber toy that can be found in many shops including Hawkins Bizarre where I last saw one, and thought it was the worst depiction of a werewolf I had seen since watching 'Werewolves of the Blood Moon'. Check it out http://www.stocking-fillers.co.uk/find/product-is-07917?img=_d

So the moral of this story is that, in cryptozoological terms as in everything else in life, it is wise to look before you leap.

The thing that particularly amazes me about this whole sorry episode is that there were so few people prepared to stand up and say that this image was obviously nonsense right from the start.
If we are to succeed in making cryptozoology a discipline that is taken seriously by the scientific world at large, drivel like this, and the recent water blackfella saga should be expunged across the board.

Stuff like this only serves to bring cryptozoology and allied disciplines further into disrepute, and it is about time that we as a community realised this and stopped making fools of ourselves.

GUEST BLOGGER LIZ CLANCY: The Rochdale Goblins

It is always nice to be able to introduce you all to a new guest blogger. Possibly the nicest thing about the CFZ bloggo is that it is a living, breathing community, and new people arrive on a regular basis. I can't tell you anything about Liz, apart from the fact that she bought some books from us at Uncon, briefly spoke to Richard, and had a charmingly old-fashioned habit of referring to me as `Mr Downes`, when everyone else calls me `Jon` or `Hey You` (or somethimes something more scatological), until I told her not to. She is obviously one to watch...

Touchstones is a charming museum, art gallery and local studies centre in Rochdale, Lancashire. It contains a wonderful little café where they serve best peppermint tea I have ever tasted.

My favourite feature in the former Rochdale Central Library building, however, is a small unassuming white telephone tucked up a corner in the local history section. There are actually several of these and not one performs the function intended by Alexander Graham Bell but my favourite will dial up any one of a four local legends provided you press the right button.
According to the over-enthusiastic actress employed to record The Rochdale Goblins (the best of these stories, in my opinion), the people of Saxon Rochdale (or Recedham as it was then known) wanted a parish church on the bank of the river Roche. Plans were drawn up, builders employed and stone was cut.

The morning after the first day’s labour the worker’s returned to the construction site to find it bare. After hunting the surrounding area all day the materials were discovered at the top of a steep hill overlooking the river. Everything was slowly dragged back down to where it should have been and tired but relieved, everyone went home.

Next morning, though, same thing again: all stone and equipment vanished, again to be discovered at the top of the hill. These trials went on for some days until some bright spark suggested the local goblins, who must have been there first, didn’t want the Christian edifice on their land and were responsible for the disruption of the work. It was thus decided Rochdale should take the hint; the church was built on top of the hill overlooking the town and river, consecrated in honour of St. Chad and still stands there to this day; intact and still in use.
Since Touchstones itself is built on the bank of the Roche, though, one must assume that goblins have no objection to cultural centres; either that or they are as fond of peppermint tea as I am.