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Difference between revisions of "Spriggan"

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[[Category:Fairy creatures]]
[[Category:Fairy creatures]]
[[Category:British mythology]]
[[Category:English mythology]]
[[Category:Scottish mythology]]
[[Category:Goblins]]
[[Category:Goblins]]

Revision as of 22:36, 18 December 2007

Spriggan is a fairy creature from Cornish and British folk tales.


Description

Spriggans were grotesquely ugly, usually skinny with wrinkled skins, sloping shoulders, and stick-legs with flat froglike feet. Their arms hung down to their knees and their havnds were huge with (often) six fingers or more. Their heads were large and misshapen, with bulging brows and glowing red or yellow eyes. Though usually small, they had the ability to swell to enormous size. There were spriggans of both genders and were known to propagate, because their used their offspring as changelings.


Behavior

They form part of the fairy bodyguard as described by Bottrell and Hunt. They caused mischief to those who offended them. They sent storms to blight crops, and sometimes stole away mortal children, leaving their ugly changelings in their place.


Place

Spriggans were found at old ruins and barrows guarding buried treasure and generally acting as fairy bodyguards. They were also said to be busy thieves. One of their common tricks was to lead lonely travellers into swamps or near to dangerous and crumbling cliffs, a factor they share in common with the Will o' the Wisp.


Powers

Spriggans are able to expand from their diminutive stature to giant sized proportions. Some people even believed them to be the ghosts of giants, which were once thought to have roamed Cornwall in the time before time.

How to Scare off a Spriggan

  • An old horseshoe fastened above the window will scare away stray Spriggans.
  • Shoo toads from your doorstep, lest they try to come in and bring bad Spriggans with them.
  • If a Spriggan should sneak in, any garment turned inside out will send him away. Throw it at him quickly -- but, first, mind it's turned all the way inside out.


Popular culture

  • Middle-Grade novel - The Revenge of the Shadow King
  • Lawrence Watt-Evans novel The Spriggan Mirror, as well as other books in the Ethshar series
  • Spriggans appear in the Elder Scrolls series of RPGs in the Bloodmoon expansion of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and in the The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion games, but here they represent dryads and wood spirits rather than fairies. In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for example, Spriggans can summon bears and other woodland creatures.
  • Spriggan is a manga series and 1998 anime movie.
  • Appears in Chrono Cross as a playable character named Sprigg, who has the ability to transform into many enemies she's defeated. She is named "Spriggan" in the Japanese version but her name was reduced due to the 6 character space restraint.