Once upon a time there lived a hobbit... (From Gazette & Herald)

Once upon a time there lived a hobbit...

9:30am Thursday 28th May 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

IN 2004 the fossilised remains of what appeared to be a very small human were discovered on the Indonesian island of Fores.

Experts disagreed about whether this was a human or perhaps an ape-like animal that walked upright.

The creature was about three feet (90cm) tall with over-sized feet, but was not a pygmy, so it is not surprising that it was nicknamed a hobbit due to its remarkable similarities to the fictional creations of J R R Tolkien in his book Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien called his tiny characters hobbits and curiously, they also had large hairy feet.

The results of recent research into the remains have recently been published but there is no definite conclusion as to whether the so-called hobbit was a human.

Its brain was much too small in relation to the size of its body and its large feet did not have arches. Arches in the feet are a characteristic of human beings.

However, there is a theory that this small creature might have been a human of ancient times that suffered from a disease that stunted its growth. In other words, there is still some doubt.

Inevitably, the publicity surrounding these tiny human-like creatures has been linked to our native hobs. Can there be a link between the hobs of the North York Moors and the Cauld Lad of Hilton Castle, the redcaps of Scotland, the leprechauns of Ireland or other brownies and goblins?

For centuries, hobs, under various names, have featured in the folk lore of the northern counties and the surviving tales suggest these were very small brown and dwarf-like men who lived solitary and secret lives on the farms or in the castles of the region.

They were described as being very ugly and having long hair that covered their bodies; some worked in secret on land and were inevitably naked. They sought no reward other than a word of thanks or perhaps a drink of fresh cream and were capable of long and sustained work that often required astonishing strength.

While they would work willingly for little or no reward, they did become mischievous and even dangerous when angry. Some, however, did not work on the land.

Nonetheless, surviving stories of the hobs do show remarkable similarities – and in many way correspond with the creature found upon the island of Fores.

Around the north of England, the names of locations remind us of our local hobs – they include names like hob-holes, hob garth, hob green, hob hill, hob moor and hob-truss hall.

There are stories of a hob in Glaisdale, the village where I was born and grew up. He was known as the Hob of Hart Hall, that being the farm where he lived and worked.

According to the local lore, he loved his work and did not stoop to mischief, but he always worked around the midnight hours in secret.

One story involved a loaded haywain whose wheel had become wedged between two stones in the farmyard.

As bad weather was forecast next day, the hay had to be unloaded with urgency but the efforts of the men, even with extra horses, failed to release the trapped wheel.

The only solution was to unload it – teem it in local speech – but the men were exhausted. They decided to leave the load intact until first light when it would be unloaded so the wheel could be released.

But as they slept the hob got to work. He extricated the wheel, drew the wain into the yard and unloaded the hay so that the wain was ready for the next load.

No-one had seen the hob at work, but there is one account of another of his efforts; it was related by an elderly lady.

This is her account in the dialect of the time. “Yah moonleet neet when they heeard his swipple gahin wiv a strange quick bat on t’lathe floor, yan o’ t’lads gat hissel croppen up agenst lathe-door and leeaked thruff a lahtle hole in t’booards. He seen a lathle brown man, a’covered in hair, spranging aboot wiv a fleeal like yan wad. He’d gatten hisself a dess o’sheeafs doon on’t floor and my wod, ommost afoor ye could tell ten, he had tonned oot t’straw and sided away t’coorn, and was rife for another dess.”

The Farndale hob upset the farmers where he worked and so the family decided to move to different premises – but he moved with them. The Runswick Bay hob was thought to cure children’s whooping cough in his cave that is still known as Hob Hole, while similar hobs lived in caves at Mulgrave near Whitby, as well as Hartlepool, Sunderland and Coniscliffe.

The precise number of hob stories in the north east is not known but it is odd that the hobs’ descriptions are so like the little hobbit of Fores. So how and where did our local stories really begin?

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)