Kobold (; kobolt, kobolde, cobold) is a generic name for a household spirit (hausgeist) in German folklore.
Kobolds are associated with both mischief and the performance of helpful tasks – especially household chores, such as washing dishes. The latter are often performed in exchange for offerings. On the other hand, they may cause damage when mistreated.
A (), meaning "little hat", is one subtype of kobold; this and other kobold sprites are known for their pointy red caps. Others, such as the niss (cognate of nisse of Norway) or puk (cognate of puck fairy) which are often said to be seen in Northern Germany, alongside drak, a dragon-type name, the sprite is sometimes said to appear as a shaft of fire with what looks like a head. There is also the combined form Nis Puk.
Hinzelmann, a house sprite, is a shapeshifter assuming many forms, such as a feather or animal. The name supposedly refers to it appearing in cat-form, Hinz[e] being an archetypical cat name. The similarly named Heinzelmännchen of Cologne (recorded 1826) is distinguished from Hinzelmann.
The Schrat is cross-categorized as a wood sprite and a house sprite, and some regional examples correspond to kobold, e.g., Upper Franconia in northern Bavaria. The kobold is sometimes conflated with the mine demon kobel or Bergmännlein/Bergmännchen, which Paracelsus equated with the earth elemental gnome. It is generally noted that there can be no clear demarcation made between a kobold and nature spirits.
The Klabautermann aboard ships are sometimes classed as a kobold.
Overview A kobold is known by various names. As a household spirit, it may perform chores such as tidying the kitchen. It can also be prankish, and when mistreated, it can resort to retribution, sometimes of the utmost cruelty. It is often said that a household must put out sweet milk (and bread or bread soup) as an offering to keep it on good behaviour.
The legend of the house sprite's retribution is quite old. The tale of the hütchen (or hodekin in Low German, meaning "little hat") is set in the historical background after c. 1130 and attested in a work c. 1500 (later retold as Grimms Deutsche Sagen No. 74). The sprite that haunted the castle of the Bishop of Hildesheim retaliated against a kitchen boy who splashed filthy water on it (Cf. fig. top right), by leaving the lad's dismembered body cooking in a pot. Similarly, according to an anecdote recorded by historian Thomas Kantzow (d. 1542), in 1327, the resident of Mecklenburg Castle allegedly chopped up a kitchen boy into pieces after he took and drank the milk offered to the sprite.
The story of the "multi-formed" Hinzelmann (Grimms DS No. 75) features a typical house sprite tidying the kitchen and repaying insolence. Though normally invisible, it is a shapeshifter as its name suggests. When the lord of Hudemühlen Castle fled to Hanover, the sprite transformed into a feather to follow the horse carriage. It also appeared as a marten and serpent after attempts at expelling it.
A kobold by the similar name Heintzlein (Heinzlein) was recorded by Martin Luther. Although a group of house sprite names (Heinz, Heinzel, Heinzchen, Heinzelman, Hinzelman, Hinzemännchen, etc.) are considered to derive from the diminutive pet name of "Heinrich", the name Hinzelmann goes deeper, and alludes to the spirit appearing in the guise of a cat, the name Hinz[e] being an archetypical name for cats. Also Hinzelmann and Heinzelmänchen of Cologne are considered different house sprites altogether with the latter categorized as one of "literary" nature. The house sprite names Chim, Chimken, Chimmeken, etc. are diminutive informal names of Joachim.
The true form of a kobold is often said to be that of a small child, sometimes only confirmed by the touch of the hand, but sometimes a female servant eager to see it is shown a dead body of a child (cf. Hinzelmann). It was believed in some regions, e.g. Vogtland, that the kobold was the soul of a child who died unbaptized. The Grimms (Deutsche Sagen) supported the notion of "kobold" appearing as a child wearing a pretty jacket, but Jacob Grimm (Deutsche Mythologie) stated contrarily that kobolds are red-haired and red-bearded, without examples. Later commentators noted that the house sprite Petermännchen has a long, white beard. The Klabautermann is red-haired and white-bearded according to a published source.
The kobold often wears red, pointed hats, a widely disseminated mark of European household spirits under other names such as the Norwegian nisse; the North or Northeastern German kobolds named Niss or Puk (cog. puck) are prone to wearing such caps. The combined form Nis Puk is also known. In the north, the house sprite may be known by the dragon-like name , said to appear in a form like a fire shaft.
Sometimes household sprites manifest as noisemakers (poltergeists). They may first rattle, then speak invisibly, and then do chores, gradually making their presence and personality more clear (see Hintzelmann tale). In some regions, the kobold is held to be the soul of a prematurely killed child ().
They may be hard to eradicate, but it is often said that a gift of an article of clothing will cause them to leave.
The Klopfer is a "noisemaker" or poltergeist type of kobold name, while the poppele and butz (which Grimm and others considered to be noise-inspired) are classed as names referring to a doll or figurine.
The name kobold itself might be classed in this "doll" type group as the earliest instances of use of the word kobold in 13th-century Middle High German refer jokingly to figurines made of wood or wax,Lexer (1878). "", Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch and the word presumably also meant "household spirit" in MHG and certainly something of a "household deity" in the post-medieval period (gloss dated 1517).
The etymology of kobold that Grimm supported derived the word from Latin cobalus (Greek , ), but this was also Georg Agricola's Latin/Greek cypher for kobel syn. denoting mine spirits, i.e. gnome. This Greek etymology has been superseded by the Germanic one explaining the word as the compound kob/kof 'house, chamber' + walt 'power, authority' (cf. cobalt#etymology).
The gütel has a variant , a hayloft or stable kobold, which tampers with horses.
Nomenclature
The "kobold" is defined as the well-known household spirit, descended from household gods and hearth deities, according to Grimm's dictionary.
However, Middle High German "" is defined as "wooden or waxen figures of a nixie-ish (neckische) house spirit", used in jest.Lexer, Max (1872) Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch s.v. ""
Kobold as generic household spirit
The term "kobold" was used as a general or generic term for "house spirit" known by other names even before Grimm, e.g., Erasmus Francisci (1690) who discusses the hütchen tale under the section on "Kobold". The book Hintzelmann (published 1701, second edition 1704) was an expanded work on the topic by an anonymous author, based on the older-dated diaries of Pastor Feldmann (fl. 1584–1589) which also used "kobold" and "poltergeist" in commentary, And Cap. II, p. 27, where "Feld-Teufel.. Kobolte" are mentioned. but this cannot be considered an independent source since the book also cites Erasmus Francisci elsewhere. Both these were primary sources for the kobold tales in Grimms' Deutsche Sagen, No. 74, 75.
Praetorius (1666) discussed the household spirit under such names as (dat. pl. ), kobold, gütgen, and Latin equivalents.;
Glossed sources A relatively late vocabularius by Trochus (1517) gives kobelte glossed as the common "vulgar" term for the Roman house and hearth deities "Lares" (and Penates). A later work by Kaspar von Stieler (1705) glosses "kobold" as "", i.e., "household spirit".
While the term "kobold" is attested in Middle High German glossaries, they indicate the word was not necessarily used strictly in the sense of "house spirit". The terms together with to gloss (≈incubus) in Diefenbach's source (Breslauer's Vocabularius, 1340) may (?) suggest "kobold" being regarded more like an alp and mare which are dream demons.
But indications are that these Germanic household deities were current in the older periods, attested by Anglo-Saxon cofgodu (glossed "penates") and Old Frankish and for house or hearth deities also glossed as penates.
Middle High German location spirit stetewalden There is an attestation to a kobold-like name for a house or location spirit, given as by Frater Rudolfus of the 13th century,Franz, Adolf ed. (1906), Frater Rudolfus (c. 1235-1250) , p. 428 meaning "ruler of the site" ().
Ur-origins Otto Schrader (1908) also observed that the "cult of the hearth-fire" developed into "tutelary house deities, localized in the home"; he also reckoned that the German kobold and the Greek agathós daímōn both followed this evolutionary path.
Kobold as doll There are no attested uses of the word "kobold" (Middle High German: kobolt) prior to the 13th century. Grimm opines that earlier uses may have existed but remain undiscovered or lost.: "possibly earlier, if only we had authorities". Cf. note 4.
The earliest known uses of the word kobold in 13th century Middle High German refer jokingly to figurines made of wood or wax. The exemplum in Konrad von Würzburg's poem (<1250) refers to a man as worthless as a kobold doll made from boxwood.
This use does not directly support the notion of the kobold being regarded as a spirit or deity. The scenario conjectured by Grimm (seconded by Karl Simrock in 1855) was that home sprites used to be carved from wood or wax and set up in the house as objects of earnest veneration, but as time progressed, they degraded into humorous or entertaining pieces of décor. "for fun"; and notes, vol. 4,
Stringed puppet The kobolt and Tatrmann were also boxwood puppets manipulated by wires, which performed in puppet theater in the medieval period, as evident from example usage., citing Wahtelmaere 140, "rihtet zuo mit den snüeren die tatermanne" alludes to it being "guid[ed].. with strings". The traveling juggler () of yore used to make a kobold doll appear out of its coats and make faces with it to entertain the crowd.
Thomas Keightley comments that legends and folklore about kobolds can be explained as "ventriloquism and the contrivances of servants and others".
The 17th century expression to laugh like a kobold may refer to these dolls with their mouths wide open, and it may mean "to laugh loud and heartily".: lachen als ein kobold, p. 424 "koboldische lachen"; "laugh like a kobold", p. 512 tr. as "goblin laughter".
Dumb doll insult There are other medieval literary examples using kobold or tatrmann as a metaphor for mute or dumb human beings.
Note that some of the kobold synonyms are specifically classified as Kretinnamen, under the slander for stupidity category in the HdA, as aforementioned.
Etymology The kobalt etymology as consisting of kob "chamber" + walt "ruler, power, authority", with the meaning of "household spirit" has been advanced by various authors, as early as (1861–1864) who postulated a form , quoted in Grimms' dictionary. Other writers such as Müller-Fraureuth (1906) also weighed in on the question of its etymology.
Other linguists, such as Schrader (1908) suggested ancestral (Old High German) "the one who rules the house". Dowden (2002) offers the hypothetical precursor .
The kob/kub/kuf- root is possibly related to Old Norse/Icelandic: kofe "chamber", or Old High German: chubisi "house", and the English word "cove" in the sense of 'shelter'.
This is now accepted as the standard etymology. Even though the Grimm brothers were aware of it, Jacob Grimm seemingly endorsed a different etymology (), though this eventually got displaced.
Grimm's alternate etymology