Fairy List
Boggarts
(Irish)
Extracted from "The Fairy Mythology"
Others will make noises in walls, to frighten people. In short, everything that is done elsewhere by fairies, boggarts
In the house of an honest farmer in Yorkshire, named George Gilbertson, a Boggart
had taken up his abode. He here caused a good deal of annoyance,
especially by tormenting the children in various ways. Sometimes their
bread and butter would be snatched away, or their porringers of bread
and milk be capsized by an invisible hand; for the Boggart
never let himself be seen; at other times, the curtains of their beds
would be shaken backwards and forwards, or a heavy weight would press
on and nearly suffocate them. The parents had often, on hearing their
cries, to fly to their aid. There was a kind of closet, formed by a
wooden partition on the kitchen-stairs, and a large knot having been
driven out of one of the deal-boards of which it was made, there
remained a hole.[352] Into this one day the farmer's youngest boy stuck
the shoe-horn with which he was amusing himself, when immediately it
was thrown out again, and struck the boy on the head. The agent was of
course the Boggart, and it
soon became their sport (which they called laking[353] with Boggart) to
put the shoe-horn into the hole and have it shot back at them.
The
Boggart at length proved such a torment that the farmer and his wife
resolved to quit the house and let him have it all to himself. This was
put into execution, and the farmer and his family were following the
last loads of furniture, when a neighbour named John Marshall came
up—"Well, Georgey," said he, "and soa you're leaving t'ould hoose at
last?"—"Heigh, Johnny, my lad, I'm forced tull it; for that damned Boggart
torments us soa, we can neither rest neet nor day for't. It seems loike
to have such a malice again t'poor bairns, it ommost kills my poor dame
here at thoughts on't, and soa, ye see, we're forced to flitt loike."
He scarce had uttered the words when a voice from a deep upright churn
cried out, "Aye, aye, Georgey, we're flitting ye see."—"Od damn thee,"
cried the poor farmer, "if I'd known thou'd been there, I wadn't ha'
stirred a peg. Nay, nay, it's no use, Mally," turning to his wife, "we
may as weel turn back again to t'ould hoose as be tormented in another
that's not so convenient."
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