English Fairy and Other Folk Tales

by Edwin Sidney Hartland - 1892

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THE BOGGART

T . Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, p. 307, quoting the Literary Gazette for 1825.

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 pot-ringers 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. 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 with Boggart) to put the shoe-born 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 sca you're leaving t'ould hoose at last?"--"Heigh, Johnny, my lad, I'm forced tull it; for that villain Boggart torments us soa, we can neither rest fleet nor day for't. It seems bike 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 bang 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"