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Goblin   /gˈɑblɪn/   Listen
Goblin

noun
1.
(folklore) a small grotesque supernatural creature that makes trouble for human beings.  Synonyms: hob, hobgoblin.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Goblin" Quotes from Famous Books



... where she stood, but there was no one to go with her down them. She waited—waited. And then she saw far off the gleam of the torch from which spring colored fires. It flitted through the darkness; it hovered. The gleam of it lit up, like a goblin light, the beginnings of the strange ways. She saw shadowy forms slipping away stealthily into their narrow and winding distances; she saw obscure stairways, leaning balconies full of soft blackness. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... existence at all events was recognised. But even this negative way of adopting the old beliefs gave way as the Church spread further. The tribe of daemons soon included the popular fairy, elf, and goblin. And then came the positive adoption of pagan customs. Gibbon describes how the early Christians refused to decorate their doors with garlands and lamps, and to take part in the ceremonial of lifting the bride over the threshold of the house.[464] Both these customs have survived in ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... thinketh that there cannot be poetry even in the dry technicalities of science, let him take such an expression as 'coral,' which, in the original Greek, [Greek: koralion], signifies a sea damsel; or the chemical 'cobalt,' 'which,' remarks Webster, 'is said to be the German Kobold, a goblin, the demon of the mines; so called by miners, because cobalt was troublesome to miners, and at first its value was not known.' Ah! but these terms were created before Science, in its rigidity, had taught us the truth in regard to these matters. Yes! and fortunate is it for us that we ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... before,—breaks suddenly into a kind of atrocious laughter,—and finally sobs itself out in a plaint like the crying of a little child. The ghastliness of the performance is chiefly—though not entirely—in the goblin mockery of the laughing tones as contrasted with the piteous agony of the wailing ones: an incongruity that makes you think of madness. And I imagine a corresponding incongruity in the soul of the creature. I know that she loves me,—that she would throw away her poor life ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... stare infants out of countenance; his soul perfectly revelled. They were his only relief, and safety-valve. He was great in such inventions. Anything suggestive of a Pony nightmare was delicious to him. He had even lost money (and he took to that toy very kindly) by getting up Goblin slides for magic lanterns, whereon the Powers of Darkness were depicted as a sort of supernatural shell-fish, with human faces. In intensifying the portraiture of Giants, he had sunk quite a little capital; and, though no painter himself, ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... Demeter Courotrophos, the mother of corn and children alike, and makes it a little coat out of the dress worn by its father at his initiation into her mysteries. Yet she is an angry goddess too, sometimes—Demeter Erinnys, the goblin of the neighbourhood, haunting its shadowy places. She lies on the ground out of doors on summer nights, and becomes wet with the dew. She grows young again every spring, yet is of great age, the wrinkled woman of the Homeric hymn, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... only concealed the handkerchief, while I said, as easily as I might, "You need not accuse your German blood, for I have lived long enough in my American's Paradise to know that civilized Paris is considerably worse in this particular respect, with the addition of a certain goblin levity particularly French. How often have I seen babies frightened by the skulls in the dentists' windows, with their cynical chewing action! It is said that a child sat next a dentist's apprentice once in an omnibus, and was observed to turn rigid, fixed and white, but unable to speak: he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... destroyed. Hygiene has done its part; and other circumstances have conduced to the same result. Though neither Dr. Koch nor any other man living has been able as yet positively to meet and vanquish consumption in open battle, yet the goblin has in a measure been robbed of his terrors. He is no longer boastful and victorious over ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various

... female goblins that would change themselves into night mares and sit on the body of the dreamer. They usually came in through a hole or a crack; but if that person in the house could plug up the hole, or stop the crack, he could conquer the female goblin, and do what he pleased with her. If a man wanted to, he could make her his wife. So long as the hole was kept stopped up, by which the goblin entered, she made a good wife. If this crack was left open, or if the plug dropped out of the hole, the she-goblin was ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis

... her goblin gods and harlot goddess, sank into her own Aralu. Nourished there on dust, Lilit, with the sister vampires of eternal night, ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus

... speaks while in old caves moulder Priest-made destinies and lord-made law, The goblin leered from the monarch's shoulder And, his sight being true and his young heart bolder, 'Twas only the goblin the ...
— The Bay and Padie Book - Kiddie Songs • Furnley Maurice

... into the Satan's Invisible-World of the Berlin Palace, we could not but afford the reader, when an actual Goblin of it happened to be walking in our neighborhood. Such an Invisible-World of Satan exists in most human Houses, and in all human Palaces;—with its imps, familiar demons, spies, go-betweens, and industrious bad-angels, continually ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... the copper grew warm, Quoth the lad, "Lest some harm From the visit of Nick be betiding,— Set open the door, And not long on the floor Will the Goblin of Hell be abiding!" ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper

... fellow in the School Whose batting simply was a dream: A dozen times by keeping cool And hitting hard he saved the Team. But oh! his fielding was so vile, As if by witch or goblin cursed, That he was called by Arthur Style, ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale

... deep and sad of the long-deserted house which is not sufficiently wrecked by time and decay to have lost the pathos of human associations. The breath of the dying twilight stirred the ivy leaves upon the wall of the detached chapel where never a person had prayed for many a year, and the goblin bats came out from the shadowy places to flutter against the pale sky. Then I felt that I had lingered long enough on this desolate spot, and the thought of the awaking hearths brightening the little town with the blaze of wood made me hasten through the heather ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... The little goblin's unsuspecting simplicity made me foolhardy; I would stuff him recklessly full of lies; rout him out o' field grandly, and stop his ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... had great difficulty in persuading him to stand the third proof. While she was praying him, however, to stay, the Prikulich appeared the third time, and beat him again with the hammer until he was half dead. Then the goblin made a fire and flung him into it. The poor fellow uttered not a single sound, in spite of all this torment; and the maiden was saved and wedded her deliverer. This is a tale by no means uncommon. Want of space forbids ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... forgotten, light and dull. From the sacred heights the green sky spills Still water on the city. Glazed cobblers' lamps shine. Empty bakeries are waiting. People in the street, astonished, stride Towards a miracle. A copper red goblin runs Up towards the roof, up and down. Little girls fall, sobbing From the poles of ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein

... would, must have been the death of Silas if the work had lasted much longer. Seeming never to need sleep himself, he would reappear, with a tied-up broken head, in fantail hat and velveteen smalls, like an accursed goblin, at the most unholy and untimely hours. Tired out by keeping close ward over a long day's work in fog and rain, Silas would have just crawled to bed and be dozing, when a horrid shake and rumble under ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... behind her she was conscious of a sense of oppression. It was not fear, which is a simple, concrete emotion, easily understood; it was not even so subtle as dread of any abstract thing, ghost or goblin damned. She gave her shoulders a little shake, as if the sensation were some tangible thing to be thrown off, and laying aside her hat and gloves she went through to the buffet kitchen and put the kettle on. She ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens

... upon God as a goblin, wherewith to frighten grown-up children to bed when nothing else is of any avail; it is for this reason that they depend so much on God. All right; meanwhile I should like to advise every ruling lord to read through, on a certain day every six months, ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... coincident, it is not singular that this coincidence should have been observed and registered, and that omens of the most absurd kind should be trusted in. In the west of England, half a century ago, a particular hollow noise on the sea-coast was referred to a spirit or goblin, called Bucca, and was supposed to foretell a shipwreck: the philosopher knows that sound travels much faster than currents in the air, and the sound always foretold the approach of a very heavy storm, which seldom takes place on that wild and rocky coast without a shipwreck on some ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various

... distracting questions before me. My progress seemed like a journey through the Spessart, where at every step some new goblin or monster starts from the ground or steps from ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... formerly been haunted by the goat demon, and that the miller had suffered much from its mischievous disposition. It frequently let on the water when there was no grain to grind. But one night the miller watched his mill, and had a meeting with the goblin, who demanded the miller's name, and was informed that it was myself. After a trial of strength, the miller got the best of it, and the spirit departed. After hearing this, I remembered that the same story, under a slightly different form, had been told me when a boy ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier

... night Demon foul to urge the deed? Would he tremble at the sight If some horrid goblin sprite Came his ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... hint of his subsequent transformation into a goddess. For the better achievement of his merciful deeds, he assumes all manner of forms, and appears in the guise of a Buddha, a Bodhisattva, a Hindu deity, a goblin, or a Brahman and in fact in any shape. This chapter was translated into Chinese before 417 A.D. and therefore can hardly be later than 350. He is also mentioned in the Sukhavati-vyuha. The records of the Chinese pilgrims Fa-Hsien and Hsuean Chuang[23] indicate ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... of the Lay, if not exactly non-existent, is of the simplest and loosest description; the whole being in effect a series of episodes strung together by the loves of Margaret and Cranstoun and the misdeeds of the Goblin Page. Even the Book supplies no real or necessary nexus. But the romance proper has never required elaborate construction, and has very rarely, if ever, received it. A succession of engaging or exciting episodes, each plausibly joined to each, contents its easy ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... of some impending evil. This fear not even the flickering flame of the lamp, which she lighted at last and placed upon the mantel, was able to dispel, for the shadows grew darker, folding themselves around her heart, until she covered her eyes with her hands, lest some goblin shape should spring ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... of its victim; 2dly, that if even here he were mistaken, for public opinion was not always righteous, what was public opinion after all?—"A breath—a puff," cried Dr. Riccabocca—"a thing without matter—without length, breadth, or substance—a shadow—a goblin of our own creating. A man's own conscience is his sole tribunal, and he should care no more for that phantom 'opinion' than he should fear meeting a ghost if he cross ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... consciousness, for the moment, of seeing herself crouched down there under the aspens and the shadow, a humpbacked white creature, with distorted face and wide eyes. She remembered a picture she had somewhere seen of a little chattering goblin in a graveyard, and was struck with the resemblance. Distinctly, too, she heard herself saying, with a laugh, she thought, "I might have known it; I ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... the Derbices; by the Chinese of one of the wild tribes of Kwei-chau; and was told to Wallace of some of the Aru Island tribes near New Guinea, and to Bickmore of a tribe on the south coast of Floris, called Rakka (probably a form of Hindu Rakshasa, or ogre-goblin). Similar charges are made against sundry tribes of the New World, from Brazil to Vancouver Island. Odoric tells precisely Marco's story of a certain island called Dondin. And in "King Alisaunder," the custom is related of a people of India, called ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... was just in time. If I had no laucht at yon foolish lads and begun to rin at the first you'd a bin sinkin' doon to the bowels o' the airth be the noo! Wully Beagrie thocht you was a ghaist, and Tom MacPhail swore ye was only like a goblin on a puddick-steel! "Na!" said I. "Yon's but the daft Englishman—the loony that had escapit frae the waxwarks." I was thinkin' that bein' strange and silly—if not a whole-made feel—ye'd no ken the ways o' the quicksan'! I shouted till warn ye, and then ran to drag ye aff, ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker

... him from his thrall, And lead him into the light? 'Ah me!' he murmured, 'I dare not call, Lest she may doubt it a goblin's waul, And leave me ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... and kind letter, in which you do me the honour to ask my opinion respecting the pedigree of your island goblin, le feu follet Belenger; that opinion I cheerfully give, with a promise that it is only an opinion; in hunting for the etymons of these fairy names we can scarcely expect to arrive at any thing ...
— Letters to his mother, Ann Borrow - and Other Correspondents • George Borrow

... happened to be held in an open forest-glade of smooth turf, upon which there was just one mole-heap. As soon as the Queen had given her permission to Peaseblossom, up through the mole-heap came the head of a goblin, which ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald

... the Clergy. For granting even that Religion were dead; that it had died, half-centuries ago, with unutterable Dubois; or emigrated lately, to Alsace, with Necklace-Cardinal Rohan; or that it now walked as goblin revenant with Bishop Talleyrand of Autun; yet does not the Shadow of Religion, the Cant of Religion, still linger? The Clergy have means and material: means, of number, organization, social weight; a material, at lowest, of public ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... one might have imagined sullen and disconsolate because he could not make the dead earth smile into flowers, was looking through the frosty fog of the winter morning as I walked across the bridge to find Thomas Weir in his workshop. The poplars stood like goblin sentinels, with black heads, upon which the long hair stood on end, all along the dark cold river. Nature looked like a life out of which the love has vanished. I turned from it ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... rest ye free From murders, Benedicite; From all mischances that may fright Your pleasing slumbers in the night Mercy secure ye all, and keep The goblin from ye, while ye sleep. —Past one a clock, and almost two,— My masters all, ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... that it had been carried home to some one with more power than little Trotty to give it effect. What was the good of convincing that kindly old soul that the people of his own class had warm hearts? He knew it very well. Take from the book the fine imaginative description of the goblin music that leaps into life with the ringing of the bells, and there remain the most excellent intentions—and not ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... drift they? What's the mournful dirge they sing? Do they hail a witch's marriage Or a goblin's burying?" ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... about when I went into an oak-tree, and found a little door leading down some steps that took me to the goblin's cave?' ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre

... greatly fear and reverence the tigbalang or bibit. This is a ghost, goblin, or devil; and as it knows the cowardice of these Indians, it has been wont to appear to them in the mountains—now in the guise of an old man, telling them that he is their nono; now as a horse; and now as ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... velvet and fur, and her arms up to her elbows were hidden in a huge white muff. She swayed as she walked on weird little high heels and the toes of her boots drew out to long points, almost like a goblin's. Her hat was a velvet affair, so awkward and heavy it seemed to weigh down her head, and her candleflame hair was smothered under it. Is it any wonder that they did not know her ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot

... have nothing to do but to provide you with a model? My time is fully occupied; I am engaged upon a mystical play, which is to be called The Spinster's Prayer or the Goblin Child's Mother, and take Paris by storm. A propos—yes, now I come to think of it, there is something in Comoedia there that ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... suppose there is no Land in the Universe more free from the debauching, and the debasing Vices of Ungodliness. The Body of the People are hitherto so disposed, that Swearing, Sabbath-breaking, Whoring, Drunkenness, and the like, do not make a Gentleman, but a Monster, or a Goblin, in the vulgar Estimation. All this notwithstanding, we must humbly confess to our God, that we are miserably degenerated from the first Love of our Predecessors; however we boast our selves a little, when Men would go to trample upon us, and we venture to say, ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather

... murder mended not The cruel hardship of their lot; For now the twain were scarce in bed Before they heard the summons dread. The beldam, full of apprehension Lest oversleep should cause detention, Ran like a goblin through her mansion. ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine

... fond than Dickens of old nursery tales, and he had a secret delight in feeling that he was here only giving them a higher form. The social and manly virtues he desired to teach, were to him not less the charm of the ghost, the goblin, and the fairy fancies of his childhood; however rudely set forth in those earlier days. What now were to be conquered were the more formidable dragons and giants which had their places at our own hearths, and the weapons to be used were of a finer than the "ice-brook's temper." ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... laughingly, not to be confused by her old playfellow's look. "I'm neither ghost, goblin nor evil spirit, nor anything worse than ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... the plate of pancakes in his hand he glanced into every green thicket that he passed, half hopeful, and half fearful that he might find a tiny creature hidden in the leaves. Not a glimpse of fairy or goblin did he see, but when he came to the blackberry bushes where the sweetest berries grow something seemed to whisper to him: ...
— The Story-teller • Maud Lindsay

... day-light fail, Then to the Spicy Nut-brown Ale, 100 With stories told of many a feat, How Faery Mab the junkets eat, She was pincht, and pull'd she sed, And he by Friars Lanthorn led Tells how the drudging Goblin swet, To ern his Cream-bowle duly set, When in one night, ere glimps of morn, His shadowy Flale hath thresh'd the Corn That ten day-labourers could not end, Then lies him down the Lubbar Fend. 110 And stretch'd out all the Chimney's length, Basks at the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... was slowly rising, wavering, undulating, and creeping its slow way up the sides of the gorge. Now it hid a tuft of foliage, and now it wreathed itself around a horned clump of aloes, and, streaming far down below it in the dimness, made it seem like the goblin robe ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... spirit of health, or goblin damn'd, Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee. I'll call ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... moment Mrs. Scudder opened the pantry-door and put an end to this mysterious conversation, which had already so affected Miss Prissy, that, in the eagerness of her interest, she had rubbed up her cap border and ribbon into rather an elfin and goblin style, as if they had been ruffled up by a breeze from the land of spirits; and she flew around for a few moments in a state of great nervous agitation, upsetting dishes, knocking down plates, and huddling up contrary suggestions as to what ought to be done first, in such impossible ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... than the frown of any other being. Triumph, inhuman triumph, glistened in its eye, and, with relentless delight, it brewed the tempest, and hurled the destructive lightning. Edwin gazed upon this astonishing apparition, and knew it for a goblin of darkness. The heart of Edwin, which no human terror could appal, sunk within him; his nerves trembled, and the objects that surrounded him, swam in confusion before his eyes. But it is not for virtue to tremble; it is not for ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... his own candle having burned out, Mark watched the shadow of his companion dancing about, now on the floor, now on the ceiling or on either side, looking grotesque and goblin-like for a few moments, and then dying out again and causing the lad to start, as he felt in a dreamy way that he was being left behind, though on recovering his fleeting senses it was only to find that ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... beds in purple buds where they have lain Until the mystic midnight time drew near, To chimes of hare-bells and the far-off strain Of forest melodies, the elves appear In all the gorgeousness of goblin gear. With brilliant dress the golden-beetle wore, With scarlet plumes the humming-bird once bore, They come in troops from every flower and tree, And 'round the fairy throne in concourse pour,— The Queen ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... in horror for the objects of my excited thoughts; and as I saw another enormous wave advancing till it overhung me, instead of getting out of its reach, which I could easily have done, I kept staring at it as it broke into what seemed innumerable goblin faces and yelling voices over my head. I was down again. My leading thought now was that I would strike out and swim for my life. But when I had just made up my mind to this—which the sailors would have called being washed away—I rose once ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various

... horror seriously, which is diabolism. The German begins to have an eerie abstract sympathy with the force and fear he describes, as distinct from their objective. The German is no longer sympathising with the boy against the goblin, but rather with the goblin against the boy. There goes with it, as always goes with idolatry, a dehumanised seriousness; the men of the forest are already building upon a mountain the empty throne of the Superman. Now it is just at this point that I for one, and ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton

... stern key. There was no sort of response, however. The nervous effect of the start subsided; and I think my uncle must have remembered how constantly, especially on a stormy night, these creaks or cracks which simulate all manner of goblin noises, make ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

... the owl, the kouku, which in Malay is the ghost-bird, the burong-hantu, seemed to deepen the silence. Does not that word hantu, meaning in Malay an evil spirit, have some obscure connection with our American negro "hant," a goblin or ghost? Certainly the bird's long and dismal "Hoo-oo-oo" wailing through the shuddering forest evoked dim and chilling memories of tales told by candlelight when I was a ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... sullen silence. Once—her dark eyes full of hunger— Thus she spoke and thus besought him: "Tell me, O my silent Panther, Tell me, O beloved husband, What has made you sad and sullen? Have you met some evil spirit— Met some goblin in the forest? Has he put a spell upon you— Filled your heart with bitter waters, That you sit so sad and sullen, Sit and smoke, but never answer, Only when ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... falling constantly everywhere, destroyed the Daityas and the Danavas by thousands. Sometimes it blazed like fire and consumed them all; sometimes it struck them down as it coursed through the sky; and sometimes, falling on the earth, it drank their life-blood like a goblin. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... to tell more of the tale. In spite of minute examinations and close search, no solution of the mystery of the noises, on this or any other occasion, was ever found. The natives, of course, attributed the disturbance to the Pezazi, or goblin. No one, perhaps, has asserted that the Aztecs were connected by ties of race with the people of Ceylon. Yet, when the Spaniards conquered Mexico, and when Sahagun (one of the earliest missionaries) collected the legends of the people, he found them, like the Cingalese, strong believers in the ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang

... section of Time's Laughingstocks takes us to the old-fashioned gallery of some church, where the minstrels are bowing "New Sabbath" or "Mount Ephraim," or to a later scene where the ghosts, in whose melancholy apparition Mr. Hardy takes such pleasure, chant their goblin melodies and strum "the viols of the dead" in the moonlit churchyard. The very essence of Mr. Hardy's reverie at this moment of his career is to be found, for instance, in "The Dead Quire," where the ancient ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... small, white, and almost transparent larvae. These change their skin very frequently during growth, and attain full development in about eleven weeks. Two centuries ago the bed bug was a rare insect in Britain, and probably owes its name, which is derived from a Celtic word signifying "ghost" or "goblin," to the terror which its attacks at first inspired. An allied species, the dove-cote bug (Cimex columbaria), ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... storm-tossed in rocky fetters? Of what trespass is the retribution destroying thee? Declare to me into what part of earth I forlorn have roamed. Ah me! alas! alas! again the hornet[46] stings me miserable: O earth avert[47] the goblin of earth-born Argus:[48] I am terrified at the sight of the neatherd of thousand eyes, for he is journeying on, keeping a cunning glance, whom not even after death does earth conceal; but issuing forth from among the departed ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus

... the midst of the raging billows, through a frightful opening, appears PLUTO'S palace. Eight FURIES issue from it, and form the entry of the ballet, in which they show their delight at having kindled such dire wrath in the heart of the sweetest of divinities. A GOBLIN adds perilous jumps to their dances, and meanwhile PSYCHE, who, in obedience to VENUS, has come to the infernal regions, is seen crossing again in CHARON'S bark, holding the box given to her by PROSERPINA ...
— Psyche • Moliere

... GEORGINA, poetess, born in London, sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and of kindred temper with her brother, but with distinct qualities of her own; her first volume, called the "Goblin-Market," contains a number of very beautiful short poems; she exhibits, along with a sense of humour, a rare pathos, which, as Professor Saintsbury remarks, often "blends with or passes into the utterance of religious ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... alternately singing and sighing, for it seemed that the fierce heat vexed him despite of his melody. He was a strange ape, tall and lean and withered, with a wry shoulder like a gibbous moon and a wry leg like a stricken tree, and his face was as the face of a goblin, with a long, peaked nose, and loose, protruding lips, traitors to the few and evil teeth that interwalled his livid gums, and his ears stood out like bats' wings from his yellow, wrinkled cheeks. He was visibly punished by his journey; the sweat streamed from his leather ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... fever shakes me, and The self-same wind that makes the young lambs shrink Makes me a-cold. My fear says I am mortal. Yet I hare heard (my mother told it me, And now I do believe it) if I keep My virgin flower uncropt, pure, chaste, and fair, No goblin, wood-god, fairy, elf, or fiend, Satyr, or other power, that haunts the groves, Shall hurt my body, or by vain illusion Draw me to wander after idle fires, Or voices calling me in dead of night To make me follow, and so tempt ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford

... that the brush had been removed, and that the opening was partially obstructed by a goblin-like head with little horns ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... First Stories and Lessons.—Athens has no kindergartens. The first teaching which children will receive is in the form of fables and goblin tales from their mothers and nurses,—usually with the object of frightening them into "being good,"—tales of the spectral Lamie, or of the horrid witch Mormo who will catch nasty children; or of Empusa, a similar creature, ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... no longer a silk sleeve; but a vast star, seemingly cut out of a lapis lazuli, was set mosaic-like in the midst of green and blue-grey mountains that soared up from it—up, up, in shapes strange as a goblin's dream. Then, the azure star vanished, and rocky heights shut away the view of the distant sea. Vegetation grew sparse. At last we had reached the desolate and stony top of the mountain-range which a little while ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... motion, than that of the warriors in the Lady of the Lake, who start up at the command of Rhoderic Dhu, from their concealment under the fern, and disappear again in an instant. The Lay of the Last Minstrel and Marmion are the first, and perhaps the best of his works. The Goblin Page, in the first of these, is a very interesting and inscrutable little personage. In reading these poems, I confess I am a little disconcerted, in turning over the page, to find Mr. Westall's pictures, ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... thinking you were a goblin—a devilkin! However, I see how it is: you are a sap-engro, a chap who catches snakes, and plays tricks with them! Well, it comes very nearly to the same thing; and if you please to list with us, and bear us pleasant company, we shall be ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... stories, and songs! Associated with the greatest events of the history of Germany, France, and Northern Europe; with the Rome of Caesar and Aurelian; with the Rome of the Popes; with the Reformation; with the shadowy goblin lore and beautiful fairy tales of the twilight of Celtic civilization that have been evolved through centuries and have become the household stories ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... rosy apple of a face made one's heart ache to look on now. It made one frightened, too: it was so dark and witchlike, so uncanny, almost wicked, so thin and full of inky shadows. She would sit up in her bed a wizened little goblin, and laugh a queer, dry, knowing laugh to herself,—a laugh like the scraping of reeds in a solitary place. A strange black weariness seemed to be crushing down her brows, like the "unwilling sleep" of a ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne

... I cried, pointing at a hideous-looking goblin-like creature, with a great head, whose bare skin was tufted with patches of white down. Its eyes were enormous, but nearly covered by a nasty-looking skin, which seemed to be stretched over them. Projecting beneath was an ugly great beak, and its nearly naked body, ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... and this is the story told by one after the other with a consistency which impels belief. It is already very different from any old theology. The Spirit is not a glorified angel or goblin damned, but it is simply the person himself, containing all his strength and weakness, his wisdom and his folly, exactly as he has retained his personal appearance. We can well believe that the most frivolous and foolish would be awed into decency by so tremendous an experience, but impressions ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle

... fully, with the evening light on his face, the strange man looked a little less like a goblin. He wore a square pale-grey jacket suit, on which the grey butterfly tie was the only indisputable touch of affectation. Against the great sunset his figure had looked merely small: seen in a more equal light it looked tolerably compact and shapely. His reddish-brown ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... unlaid ghost, a | |gnome, a goblin, a swart fairy at the | |least, who has settled down for the | |winter in a perfectly respectable cellar | |over in Brooklyn and whiles away the | |dismal hours of the night by chopping | |spectral cordwood with a phantom axe. | |Instead of going to board ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde

... "'Ouphe and goblin! imp and sprite! Elf of eve! and starry fay! Ye that love the moon's soft light, Hither—hither wend your way; Twine ye in a jocund ring; Sing and trip it merrily, Hand to hand and wing to wing, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... anywhere. People below might prate of murder, or suicide, or slow poison; there was nobody to whom it was vital enough to open the question seriously; and then they feared the Raynier with an uncanny fear, as people fear a catamount in the woods, or the goblin of old wives' tales after dark. There were horrible stories of bouts and brawls, of tortures, gags, whips, and—oh, no matter! Nor was all the crime on the shoulders of the Raynier men. It was understood that more than one woman of the name found life too intolerable to endure ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various

... freshness; while, at the same time, he decked and bedizened each separate twig and branch of the poor, leafless, skeleton trees with rare festal jewels and ear-drops of glittering icicles; besides weaving fantastic devices of goblin castles and airy, feathery foliage on the window panes, fairy armies in martial array and delicate gnome-tracery—transforming their appearance from that of ordinary glass into brilliantly-embroidered flakes of transparent, lucent crystal. Ah me! Jack Frost is a cunning ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... in quest of the goblin Sal, but she saw nothing save an idiotic face with bushy tangled hair; and nose flattened against the window pane. In terror Mary clung to Mr. Knight, and whispered, as she pointed towards the figure, which was now laughing hideously, "What is it? ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes

... Foxglove is known as the Great Herb, and Lusmore, also the Fairy Cap; and in Wales it is the Goblin's Gloves; whilst in the North of Scotland it is the Dead men's Bells. We read in the Lady of the Lake there ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... personage in folk-belief; he may object to certain kinds of animals, or to certain colours in cattle; and must, generally speaking, be propitiated and cared for. Corresponding to him we have the drudging goblin of English folklore. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... strange that the Canadian peasant dwells in a world charged with the supernatural. Night furnishes the opportunity for goblins to be abroad; the flickering lights on the marshes are goblin fires. Then, too, the vagrant dead wander about restlessly, sinful souls refused entrance to Heaven until they have sought and secured adequate prayers for their pardon and relief. To cross a cemetery at night might attract ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... that on returning one night from the neighboring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that he had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just as they came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and vanished ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving

... scattered over the borders, civil war was crushed, the Revolution triumphant. Soon the "dwarfish, ragged sans-culottes, the small black-looking Marseillaises dressed in rags of every colour," whom Goethe saw tramping out of Mayence "as if the goblin king had opened his mountains and sent forth his lively host of dwarfs," had forced Prussia, the arch-champion of monarchy, to make peace and leave its Rhine provinces in the hands of regicides. Meanwhile terror reigned in Paris. In the frenzy of mortal strife the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... land; the river of the reeds and poplars, the silver swan-sails, sun and moon, woods, and the white slumbrous clouds; where cuckoos, and the wind, the pigeons, and the weirs are always singing; and in the flash of naked bodies, the play of waterlily leaves, queer goblin stumps, and the twilight faces of the twisted ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... places, from three hundred to forty yards distant from the Germans. No one spoke, or only in whispers. The moonlight turned the men at arms into ghosts. Their silence added to their unreality. I felt like Rip Van Winkle hemmed in by the goblin crew of Hendrik Hudson. From somewhere near us, above or below, to the right or left the "seventy-fives," as though aroused by the moon, began like terriers to bark viciously. The officer in the steel casque paused ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis

... golfing brogues to the blaze. "Don't you love a good drenching, downpouring night? I do!" He was a burly full-blooded blond, extravagantly facetious in convivial moments, and a mournful brooder in solitude. King, better known as "The Goblin," was a dark, whimsical elf in thick spectacles, much loved in the 'varsity dramatic society for his brilliant impersonations. The Goblin said nothing as he sipped his coffee and gazed ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley

... went on, it was impossible that such a man could be a mere destroyer. War in fact was no sooner over than the warrior settled down into the farmer, and the home of the ceorl rose beside the heap of goblin-haunted stones that marked the site of the villa he had burned. The settlement of the English in the conquered land was nothing less than an absolute transfer of English society in its completest form to the soil of Britain. The slowness of their advance, the small numbers of ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... his explanations as calmly as if the matter were one of every-day significance. "You are looking for the windows," he remarked. "They are behind those goblin faces you see outlined on the tapestries under the ceiling. As for the door, if you had looked to the left when you entered, you would have detected the edge of a huge steel plate hanging flush with the casing. This plate can be ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... on a bank. His fayland eyes could see right into the ground. He saw the fat fleshy root like a little goblin, reaching its long white fingers down into the soil, picking out the magic crystals to pack away in its pockets; and he could see the tall stem like a wood-elf carrying them up, and spreading them upon ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... cried the knight, recovering himself, "What do you concern me, you goblin? There, take your kiss!" And he furiously hurled his sword at the figure. But it vanished like vapor, and a gush of water which wetted him through left the knight no doubt as to the foe with whom ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... Napier's Old English Glosses (1900), 191, where in a list of glosses of the eleventh century to Aldhelm's Aenigmata occurs "larbula [i. e. larvula], puca." Prof. Napier notes that O.E. puca, "a goblin," whence N.E. Puck, is a well authenticated word. Dr. Bradley suggests that the source might be a British word, from which the Irish puca would be borrowed; this word pooka, as well as the allied poker, has already been treated in the N.E.D. Puck, pouke, we find in O.E. ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... vaulting, the rogues in great astonishment said to one another, By cock's death, he is a goblin or a devil thus disguised. Ab hoste maligno libera nos, Domine, and ran away in a full flight, as if they had been routed, looking now and then behind them, like a dog that carrieth away a goose-wing in his mouth. Then Gymnast, spying his advantage, alighted from his horse, drew his sword, and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... readily accepted every sort of rumor about this mysterious automobile. It was said to be a supernatural car. It was driven by a specter, by one of the chauffeurs of hell, a goblin from another world, a monster escaped from some mythological menagerie, in short, the devil in person, who could defy all human intervention, having at his command invisible and ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne

... biting, were running in the way that a boar does when from the sty he breaks loose. One came at Capocchio, and on the nape of his neck struck his teeth, so that dragging him he made his belly scratch along the solid bottom. And the Aretine,[2] who remained trembling, said to me, "That goblin is Gianni Schicchi, and rabid he goes thus maltreating others." "Oh," said I to him, "so may time other not fix his teeth on thee, let it not weary thee to tell who it is ere it start hence." And he to me, "That is the ancient soul of profligate ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... powerful hands were around his throat. He was not devoid of courage or strength, and resisted, struggling for breath. He merely succeeded in drawing his assailant out into the light far enough to get a glimpse of a giant and a face black and horrible to behold. A goblin from the cistern! And with this idea, he quit fighting, and sank to the floor. Nilo kept his grip needlessly—the fellow was dead ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... with an expression upon her face of horror and unrest, which bore some resemblance to the look of one whose intellect was becoming unhinged. It seemed as if she were afraid that something might leap out upon her from the darkness, or as if goblin voices might at any moment mutter in her ear. For a long time she stood motionless in the middle of the room, her eyes staring, her hands hanging at her sides. Then she moved slowly to a writing-table, took a sheet of paper and a pen, and wrote a few lines. When she had finished she enclosed the ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... with his deadly darts, This goblin of grisly bone? He dabbled and spilled man's blood, and he killed Like a butcher ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... home, may be seen two great stones which are said to mark the grave of a mighty Indian chief. Possibly Kilcokonen, friend of George Durant, lies buried there. The Hertford children in olden days, when tales of ghost and goblin were more readily believed than they are to-day, used to thrill with delicious fear whenever in the dusk of the evening they passed the spot, and warily they would step over the stones, half-dreading, half-hoping to see, as legend said ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson

... aerial hyaline, Their fluid limbs and rare array Flickering on the wind, as quivers Trailing weed in running rivers; And others, in far prospect seen, Newly loosed on this terrene, Shot in piercing swiftness came, With hair a-stream like pale and goblin flame. As crystelline ice in water, Lay in air each faint daughter; Inseparate (or but separate dim) Circumfused wind from wind-like vest, Wind-like vest from wind-like limb. But outward from each lucid breast, When some passion ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson

... of the cliff she looked back, and saw that he was still standing—a squat, fantastic figure like a goblin out of a fairy-tale—outlined against the shining sea behind him, ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... stones, And censers' fumes lull sighs and moans As barriers dank, flee their fold, Betrayed by crystals on a crest That ride this kingdom's batter'd gnomes, A fitful syrinx stills all groans As chasms roar with devils' glee. Then fancies greet each goblin's eye, Each donga's depth and mount unsunned: A quire's rune, in onyx dress, And black-linkt harps with eyes that see Each blood-set jazel in a sky, Where heights eternal reign unstunned, Pierce sylvan airs that wizards bless. Come from sequestered shoals of hell Blithe pixies and ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque

... moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath passed across his mind, for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty fears; the goblin was hard on his haunches; and (unskillful rider that he was!) he had much ado to maintain his seat; sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's backbone, with a violence that he verily feared ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... a sound often made use of to excite terror in children. Bu-man, the devil, or a goblin; an imaginary evil being; a phrase used to keep ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... many days to consider, as he had to deal with those who were more capricious than the changing seasons, and more perverse than opposing winds and tides. Reluctantly the friar and his friends were prevailed on to remain at the goblin castle, and how it fared with them we ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... anvil goblin coffin cavil cabin council rosin origin javelin pencil axil assassin tranquil resin bobbin violin peril moccasin ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins

... but to us," she corrected, smiling; "but tell me what think you of this appearance which has so startled our Margaret. Was it ghost or goblin or dream of the night? We have never had either witch or warlock about the house of Thrieve since the old Abbot Gawain laid the ghost of Archibald the Grim with four-and-forty masses, said without ever breaking his fast, down ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... agree with the Cabiri, Hephaesti, Telchines, and Idaean Dactyli. The Brownies and Fairies are of the same kindred as the Lares of Latium. "The English Puck, the Scottish Bogle, the French Esprit Follet, or Goblin, the Gobelinus of monkish Latinity, and the German Kobold, are only varied names for the Grecian Kobalus, whose sole delight consisted in perplexing the human race, and calling up those harmless terrors that constantly hover round the minds of the timid." "The English and Scottish terms, 'Puck,' ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... bed away The witching Spell, a foe to rest, The nightly Goblin, wanton Fay, The Ghost in ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... moonlight, in and out of the chimney stacks, and all the way to the distant mountains. It looks inviting, and possible, by moonlight. And, indeed, any bright day in summer, from my window, Dockland with its goblin-like chimneys might be the enchanted country of a child's dream, where shapes, though inanimate, are watchful and protean. From that silent world legions of grotesques move out of the shadows at a touch of sunlight, ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... Dunske Folkesagen appear one or two circumstances relative to the freaks of a nis, the goblin of the Danish popular creed, similar to the pranks detailed in our Lancashire legend. Fancy, however sportive and playful with materials already in her possession, is of a much less creative character than is generally supposed, even ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... coat were outlined with black and profusely decorated with red hands and horseshoes painted in vermilion; on his neck was a band of beadwork, carrying a little bundle of sacred medicine; and, last, he had on each ankle a string of sleigh-bells that jingled at each prancing step. A very goblin of a horse! His jockey was, as before, Chaska, the Indian boy, stripped to the breechclout, with an eagle feather in his hair and a quirt hung ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... what weird, and fantastic, and goblin-like shapes the comets assume under the telescope. Look at the representation on page 137, from Guillemin's work,[1] of the appearance of the comet of 1862, giving the changes which took place in twenty-four hours. If we will imagine one of these monsters close ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... : doni, donaci, glacier : glaciejo. glass : vitro, "a—," glaso. "looking—," spegulo. glaze : glazuri. glorify : glori. glove : ganto. glow : ardi, brili. "-worm," lampiro. glue : gluo. glycerine : glicerino. gnat : kulo. gnaw : mordeti. goat : kapro. goblet : pokalo. goblin : koboldo. God : Dio. gold : oro. goldfinch : kardelo. golosh : galosxo. goodbye : adiaux. goose : anserino. gooseberry : groso. gospel : evangelio. gout : podagro. govern : regi. governess : guvernistino graceful : gracia. gradual : grada, lauxgrada. graft : inokuli, grefti. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief. Now, I saw the damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass, like a coarser sort of spiders' webs; hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade. On ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... of the type; I only know that it seems probable and that it is charming. It makes one wish that it were in Mr. James's way to paint in some story the present phase of change in England. A titled personage is still mainly an inconceivable being to us; he is like a goblin or a fairy in a storybook. How does he comport himself in the face of all the changes and modifications that have taken place and that still impend? We can hardly imagine a lord taking his nobility seriously; it is some hint of the conditional frame of Lord Warburton's ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... to answer for in the advent of that young stranger. For both in her form and her character you might have traced a family likeness to that singular and spirit-like life of sound which night after night threw itself in airy and goblin sport over the starry seas...Beautiful she was, but of a very uncommon beauty,—a combination, a harmony of opposite attributes. Her hair of a gold richer and purer than that which is seen even in the North; but the eyes, of all the dark, tender, subduing light of more than Italian—almost of ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... imperfections, were not of the Mrs. Ray type, we betook ourselves to the granary, lighted a huge lantern which Dan had made out of a turnip, and proceeded to devour all the apples we might have eaten through the day but had not. We were a blithe little crew, sitting there in the light of our goblin lantern. We had in very truth been given beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for mourning. Life was as a red ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... his pace again, And to the goblin cried: "What ho, Sir Page, what luckless chance Hath buckled thee to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... was no mud, no unhappiness, here were no puzzled women, and touching mayors of ruined villages, but instead gay goblin houses, pointed churches like sugar cake, the old French theatre with its stone garlands glittering in the sun; sun everywhere, streaming over the Place du Theatre, over women shaking coloured rags from the windows, ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... mysterious thing could not be pronounced supernatural, and yet it was as unlike anything human as is possible to imagine. It was more like some fantastic figure seen in a dream—the creation of a disordered brain. It may be that it was a goblin—Nick thought it one. It was only about two feet high; a mass of dark-brown hair streamed down its back, partially concealing a great hump, and thence flowed down to its heels. Its head was round as a ball and topped ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff

... be found in the Prose Edda. It is given in the Glossary as one of the old names for the moon. Mr. Conway also says that there is a curious old Sanscrit word, glau or glav, which is explained in all the old lexicons as meaning the moon. Hence 'the ghost or goblin Glam (of the old legend of Grettir) seems evidently to have arisen from a personification of the delusive and treacherous effects of moonlight on the ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... "Break his slumbers;" when and how he ceased to have a sluggish and confused idea that such things were, companioning a host of others that were not; there are no dates or means to tell. But, awake, and standing on his feet upon the boards where he had lately lain, he saw this Goblin Sight. ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... once a regular student: he lived in a garret, and nothing at all belonged to him; but there was also once a regular huckster: he lived on the ground floor, and the whole house was his; and the goblin kept with him, for on the huckster's table on Christmas Eve there was always a dish of plum porridge, with a great piece of butter floating in the middle. The huckster could accomplish that; and consequently the goblin ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen



Words linked to "Goblin" :   folklore, evil spirit, hobgoblin, hob



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