And sometimes makes the drink to bear no barm,
Misleads night wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hob-Goblin call you, and sweet Puck;
You do their work, and they shall have good luck."
In the "Jests of Robin Goodfellow," first printed in Queen Elizabeth's reign, the tricks which this creature is said to have played are told in plenty. Here is one of them:—Robin went as fiddler to a wedding. When the candles came he blew them out, and giving the men boxes on the ears he set them fighting. He kissed the prettiest girls, and pinched the ugly ones, till he made them scratch one another like cats. When the posset was brought he turned himself into a bear, frightened them all away, and had it all to himself.
The Boggart was another form of Robin Goodfellow. Stories of him are to be found amongst Yorkshire legends, as of a creature—always invisible—who played tricks upon the people in the houses in which he lived: shaking the bed-curtains, rattling the doors, whistling through the keyholes, snatching away the bread-and-butter from the children, playing pranks upon the servants, and doing all kinds of mischief. There is a story of a Yorkshire boggart
