In George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin (1872), the beautiful princess Irene lives in a fantasy kingdom, fair and courteous in the sunlight, but whose hollow mountains and hills are infested with goblins that emerge at night.
The OED entry really does look a bit of a mess - it doesn't look like there ever was a med. L. 'cobalus' - but beyond that I'm not going. There also seems to be general agreement that the original goblins/kobolds were brownie-like protective and helpful house spirits, but that the ones you met down the mine were mischievous at best. Why this was, who knows?
Victorian goblins are something else again, and will have been absolutely loaded with repressed middle-class guilt and eugenic fantasy. H.G. Wells, being a progressive and rational person, won't have had any truck with that sort of nonsense, though.
Hey Adam really interesting. In Act 3 of Wagner’s comic opera Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg Hans Sachs refers to a Kobold as a both an instigator and potential helper in quelling the massive riot of the night before.
Reminded me of what you say about the German Kobold.
Very interesting! Wagner is key to the development of Fantasy (or so I argue in my recent History thereof) -- though I really only discuss the Ring, not the Meistersinger.
[dips toe in etymology of 'goblin']
[shakes head sadly over OED entry]
[dips toe a bit further]
[pulls foot out before it gets bitten off]
The OED entry really does look a bit of a mess - it doesn't look like there ever was a med. L. 'cobalus' - but beyond that I'm not going. There also seems to be general agreement that the original goblins/kobolds were brownie-like protective and helpful house spirits, but that the ones you met down the mine were mischievous at best. Why this was, who knows?
Victorian goblins are something else again, and will have been absolutely loaded with repressed middle-class guilt and eugenic fantasy. H.G. Wells, being a progressive and rational person, won't have had any truck with that sort of nonsense, though.
Yes, thanks! (I suspect you and I are among the very few who've written studies of orcs/goblins and of Fredric Jameson! ;) )
Hey Adam really interesting. In Act 3 of Wagner’s comic opera Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg Hans Sachs refers to a Kobold as a both an instigator and potential helper in quelling the massive riot of the night before.
Reminded me of what you say about the German Kobold.
Ein Kobold half wohl da:
ein Glühwurm fand sein Weibchen nicht;
der hat den Schaden angericht't.
Der Flieder war's: Johannisnacht!
A goblin must have helped:
a glow-worm could not find its mate;
it set the trouble in motion.
It was the elder-tree: Midsummer Eve!
Thanks Andy
Very interesting! Wagner is key to the development of Fantasy (or so I argue in my recent History thereof) -- though I really only discuss the Ring, not the Meistersinger.
Thanks, Adam! I discuss this a bit in Chapter 1 of my new book on Tolkien's Orcs.
This book? I'll check it out: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mismeasure-Orcs-Reassessment-Demonized-Creatures/dp/1476694354