Research =D

euphoneus

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Hi, I'm kinda new here =D

Anyway, I have a wonderful idea for a novel, the only thing is I'm in a bit of a pickle. My original idea was to use a brownie for one of my main characters, but the more I look at it, the more I'd rather use someting else. Is there another brownie type hob goblin I could use. :confused: I would want it to be the same size, his size is critical to the story. Help please =/
 
It would help if you would indicate what it is about the brownie you want to keep for your character (beyond its size) and what you definitely don't.


Oh, and Welcome to the Chrons, euphoneus.






* Resists the temptation to suggest a chocolate hobnob. :rolleyes::) *


(Don't mind me: I can't stop myself from making this kind of silly remark. :eek: It isn't personal.)
 
Hello and Welcome to the Chronicles.

I'm not au fait with brownies (apart from tasty chocolate cakes and little girls in para-military style uniforms) and similar elvish creatures, but I imagine you've followed up lines of research about fairies, fays, peris, pixies, leprechauns, gnomes, imps and sprites (quick trawl through my thesaurus!).

But the thing is you're writing fantasy - your own fantasy. Tolkien may have made elves tall and elegant, but that's no reason you have to follow him. You could make them brownie-size. Ditto any of the others - ignore what people have said about their characteristics and make them your own creatures. But if that doesn't appeal, create you own faerie folk from scratch, give them a new name - eg faywrays, blond and prone to screaming especially when being held by giant apes - and write them as you need them!

Good luck with the novel.

J
 
well I was reading up on them and found mixed results. Some say they do turn into a boggart and some say otherwise. I fear I might get too close to the Spiderwick Chronicles if I say that they turn into Boggarts, (I'm trying to be as accurate as I can) But I do need them to live in peoples houses, short, and have rather nasty tempers. I would use a leprochaun (sp?) but my research discovered that they are somewhat around the height of a small child, and idefinatly don't want that.
 
I'm definatly starting to consider making up a different race, but I'm not sure If I'm up to that yet.

Thank you for the advice!
 
I'm definatly starting to consider making up a different race, but I'm not sure If I'm up to that yet.

If you're up to writing a novel, you can create a new race of beings. You already know what you want them to look and sound like. Let your imagination run wild. The hardest part will be in finding a good name that reflects their character but you can always try and adapt a present name eg instead of pixie, picksie; elf/elpha.

J
 
hmmm true. Well it's definatly starting to sound easier xD thanks for the input, I shall definatly take it into consideration. Hey you never kow, maybe one day this book will make me famous xD
 
Goblin or Hobgoblin was pretty much a catch-all term, so you could use that and still maintain a traditional feel while giving your Goblin just about any characteristics you like.

Or, it could be a Bocan, a Lob, a Hob, a Bwca, or a Fenoderee -- all of which are pretty much like brownies, although the names are less well-known to modern readers.

Really, with most any kind of fairy you find a different list of characteristics depending on time and place.

Or here's a list of different kinds of sprites, fairies, etc. from the Denham tracts (written in the mid 1800's); you might look up any names that appeal to you and see if they fit with what you are looking for:

What a happiness this must have been seventy or eighty years ago and upwards, to those chosen few who had the good luck to be born on the eve of this festival of all festivals; when the whole earth was so overrun with ghosts, boggles, Bloody Bones, spirits, demons, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, black dogs, spectres, shellycoats, scarecrows, witches, wizards, barguests, Robin-Goodfellows, hags, night-bats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, hobgoblins, hobhoulards, boggy-boes, dobbies, hob-thrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers, Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons, centaurs, calcars[2], nymphs, imps, incubuses, spoorns[3], men-in-the-oak [4], hell-wains, fire-drakes, kit-a-can-sticks, Tom-tumblers, melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches, hobby-lanthorns, Dick-a-Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gyl-burnt-tales, knockers, elves, rawheads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs[5], pad-foots, pixies, pictrees, giants, dwarfs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons, sprets, spunks, conjurers, thurses, spurns[6], tantarrabobs, swaithes, tints, tod-lowries[7], Jack-in-the-Wads,mormos, changelings, redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies [8], Tom-thumbs, black-bugs, boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pochers, hob-thrushes, bugs, bull-beggars, bygorns, bolls, caddies, bomen, brags, wraiths, waffs, flay-boggarts, fiends, gallytrots[9], imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns, gringes, boguests, bonelesses, Peg-powlers, pucks, fays, kidnappers, gallybeggars[10], hudskins[11], nickers, madcaps, trolls, robinets[12], friars' lanthorns, silkies, cauld-lads, death-hearses, goblins, hob-headlesses, bugaboos, kows, or cowes, nickies, nacks [necks, waiths, miffies[13], buckies[14], ghouls, sylphs, guests, swarths, freiths, freits, gy-carlins [Gyre-carling][15], pigmies, chittifaces[16], nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes[17], grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies, wirrikows, alholdes[18], mannikins, follets [19], korreds[20], lubberkins, cluricauns, kobolds, leprechauns, kors[21], mares, korreds, puckles korigans, sylvans, succubuses, blackmen, shadows, banshees, lian-hanshees,clabbernappers, Gabriel-hounds, mawkins, doubles, corpse lights or candles, scrats, mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites, fates, fiends, sibyls, nicknevins [22], whitewomen, fairies, thrummy-caps[23], cutties, and nisses, and apparitions of every shape, make, form, fashion, kind and description ...

For more research, a very good book on fairy lore is An Encyclopedia of Fairies by Katharine Briggs, if you can get it without paying an arm and a leg for it. (Of all the books on the subject this one is by far the most inclusive I have ever found, and worth spending some money on.)

Amazon.com: An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, & Other Supernatural Creatures (9780394409184): Katharine M. Briggs: Books

This book by Thomas Keightley is fairly good, but the Briggs, in my opinion, is much better:

Amazon.com: The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves & Other Little People (0045863263131): Thomas Keightley: Books
 
Could goblins be one and fifty tall, have green skin, ape-like arms and big bat-like ears?
 
Could goblins be one and fifty tall, have green skin, ape-like arms and big bat-like ears?

I'm not sure what you mean by "one and fifty tall" but ...

I have seen the word Goblin in folklore and in various literary sources applied to just about any kind of fairy you can imagine, plus ghosts, walking corpses, and demons. The word generally (but not always) is applied to something small, but Tolkien made his goblins large and he wasn't the first one to do it.

... so, why not?

(Although, what you describe suggests "Ogre" to me, that's just what comes immediately into my head. If I saw a picture of something like that labeled "Goblin," I wouldn't give it a second thought.)
 
oh thank you Teresa, I'm assuming =D That was very helpful.

Actually I was thinking of maybe a bwca at first, but I'm not sure how to pronounce it myself xD
 

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