I do not find that in Yorkshire the Bogle bears the peculiar character of a minister of retribution here assigned him. At least the following story, communicated by Mr. Robinson, does not represent him in exactly that light. In a village in Arkingarthdale a house had long been haunted by a Bogle, and various means had been resorted to in order to drive him out. At last the owner adopted the following plan. Opening his Bible he placed it on a table with a lighted candle and said aloud to the Bogle, “Noo, thoo can read or dance, or dea as ta likes.” He then turned round and walked up stairs. The Bogle, in the form of a grey cat, flew past him and vanished into the air. Years passed without its being seen again. However one day as the man was going to work the thing met him on the stairs. He turned back, told his mother of the apparition, went out again, and was killed that day in the mines. A Bogle, or something akin to one, appears however in the following narration as the protector of a poor widow. At the village of Hurst, near Reeth, lived a widow who had been wronged out of some candles by a neighbour. This neighbour saw one night a figure in his garden, so he brought out his gun and fired it, on which the figure vanished. The next night while he was in an out-house the figure appeared in the doorway and said, “I’m neither bone, nor flesh, nor blood, thou canst not harm me. Give back the candles, but I must take something from thee.” So saying he pulled an eyelash from the thief’s eyelid and vanished. The candles were promptly restored the next morning, but the thief “twinkled” ever after.
Of the good old Brownie, that faithful ally of the Scottish household, I have little new to tell. He seems a denizen of the Shetland Islands, the Highlands of Scotland, and the Western Isles, as well as of the Borderland. I must warn you, however, not to confound him with the Dobie, a creature of far less sense and activity. In fact, the Dobie was what I have heard a poor woman called her husband’s ghost, “a mortal heavy sprite;” and hence the common border phrases, “Oh ye stupid Dobie!” or “She’s but a senseless Dobie.”[1] The Brownie was therefore
- ↑ Sir Walter Scott seems unaware of this peculiar character of the Dobie. He considers it merely another name for the Barguest, of whom more hereafter;
