Goblin
Artwork by Benedetta Fiore. ArtStation | Instagram
Origin: Germanic and British folklore
At best, goblins are the mischievous counterpart to the fae—at worst, they’re hideous miscreants out to rape, pillage, and eviscerate anything they can get their hands on. Given this range in depictions, there is no one typical version of the goblin. The most consistent traits they possess are a penchant for troublemaking, their childlike size, and their universally unwelcome presence. Their characteristics often overlap with early Christian descriptions of demons.
Because they have so many similarities to faeries, there’s no clear origin to where goblins begin their own story. Some speculate that they developed as a dark counterpart to the virtuous fae in Pagan folklore. Sir Walter Scott wrote in his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft that gnomes, kobolds, and goblins resembled caricatures of the Sami people.
Goblins often get thrown under the bus to explain unfortunate events. They were said to steal horses, tip over milk pails, and alter signposts. More than that, they could weave nightmares out of gossamer and thread it into a person’s mind as they slept through their ear; kidnap women and children to hide them away underground; and replace human babies with goblin babies, also known as changelings. Their smile could curdle blood, and their laugh could sour milk and wilt fruit on the tree.
For specifically, in Zimbabwe, legend blames the birth of a disabled child on a goblin who impregnated the mother while she slept. In Japan, the tengu is a goblin said to resemble either a barefoot old man with a long nose, or a man with the wings, beak, and claws of a crow. The tengu was known to roam the mountains, starting fires at campsites, kidnapping children for its meals, and disguising itself as a human to mislead travelers. More recent renditions of this goblin show a softer, but still mischievous side—including one story where a tengu mentored a legendary martial arts founder. (I’m going to assume it was Master Roshi.)
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