Robin Goodfellow, of whom we have given above a full account, is evidently a domestic spirit, answering in name and character to the Nisse God-dreng of Scandinavia, the Knecht Ruprecht, i.e., Robin of Germany. He seems to unite in his person the Boggart and Barguest of Yorkshire.
Hob-goblin is, as we have seen, another name of the same spirit. Goblin is the French gobelin, German Kobold; Hob is Rob, Robin, Bob; just as Hodge is Roger. We still have the proper names Hobbs, Hobson, like Dix, Dixon, Wills, Wilson; by the way, Hick, i. e. Dick, from Richard, still remains in Hicks, Hickson.
Robin Hood, though we can produce no instance of it, must, we think, also have been an appellation of this spirit, and been given to the famed outlaw of merry Sherwood, from his sportive character and his abiding in the recesses of the greenwood. The hood is a usual appendage of the domestic spirit.
Roguery and sportiveness are, we may see, the characteristics of this spirit. Hence it may have been that the diminutives of proper names were given to him, and even to the Ignis Fatuus, which in a country like England, that was in general dry and free from sloughs and bog-holes, was mischievous rather than dangerous.[371] But this seems to have been a custom of our forefathers, for we find the devil himself called Old Nick, and Old Davy is the sailor's familiar name for Death.
In the Midsummer Night's Dream the fairy says to Puck "Thou Lob of spirits;" Milton has the lubber-fiend, and Fletcher says,[372] "There is a pretty tale of a witch that had a giant to be her son that was called Lob Lie-by-the-fire." This might lead us to suppose that Lob, whence loby (looby), lubbard, lubber,[373] and adding the diminutive kin, Lubberkin, a name of one of the clowns in Gay's Pastorals, was an original name of some kind of spirit. We shall presently see that the Irish name of the Leprechaun is actually Lubberkin. As to the origin of the name we have little to say, but it may have had a sense the very opposite of the present one of lubber, and have been connected with the verb to leap.[374] Grimm[375] tells of a spirit named the Good Lubber, to whom the bones of animals used to be offered at Mansfield in Germany; but we see no resemblance between him and our Lob of spirits; we might rather trace a connexion with the French Lutin, Lubin.[376] The phrase of being in or getting into Lob's Pound (like the "Pouke's pondfold,") is easy of explanation, if we suppose Lob to be a sportive spirit. It is equivalent to being Poake-ledden or Pixy-led.
Wight, answering to the German Wicht, seems to have been used in the time of Chaucer for elf or fairy, most probably for such as haunted houses, or it may have had the signification of witch, which is evidently another form of it. In the Miller's Tale the carpenter says,
I crouchè thee from elvès and from wights.