"Goblin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ebbed away, showing itself to have been no fructifying Nile but a destructive lava stream, leaving the country charred and desolate after its passage. The gold that only yesterday had poured through greedy fingers, had turned to-day to ashes and withered leaves like the goblin gold of a fairy tales. Diminished inclination for work, an insanely increased demand for the luxuries of life, the accepted ideas of morality shaken to their foundations by scandalous examples of triumphant vice and villainy—these were the blessings that remained after the so-called ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... dark eyes full of hunger— Thus she spoke and thus besought him: "Tell me, O my silent Panther, Tell me, O beloved husband, What has made you sad and sullen? Have you met some evil spirit— Met some goblin in the forest? Has he put a spell upon you— Filled your heart with bitter waters, That you sit so sad and sullen, Sit and smoke, but never answer, Only when the storm is ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... what weird, and fantastic, and goblin-like shapes the comets assume under the telescope. Look at the representation on page 137, from Guillemin's work,[1] of the appearance of the comet of 1862, giving the changes which took place in twenty-four hours. If we will imagine one of these ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... smoothly, and to multiply resources to meet the demands of rapidly-increasing multitudes: but it is in danger of becoming a conquest of matter over us; for the agencies we have called into almost fearful activity threaten, like Frankenstein's miscreated goblin, to beat us down to the same level. ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... There seemed to be nothing else audible in the house, in spite of the large party it contained. Amid the general hush, unbroken by a voice or a laugh, the "funny bits" that Peter was defiantly thumping or whistling made a kind of goblin chorus round a crushed and weary man, as he pushed past the door of the drawing-room to ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that fain would strut for spire On the formal little church is not yet green Across the water: but the house-tops nigher, The corner-lines, the chimneys—look how clean, How new, how naked! See the batch of boats, Here at the stairs, washed in the fresh-sprung beam! And those are barges that were goblin floats, Black, hag-steered, fraught with devilry and dream! And in the piles the water frolics clear, The ripples into loose rings wander and flee, And we—we can behold that could but hear The ancient ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... probable derivation is from a Low German das daus, i.e. the "deuce" in dice, the lowest and therefore the most unlucky throw. The personification, with a consequent change of gender, to der daus, came later. The word has also been identified with the name of a giant or goblin in Teutonic mythology. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... and plain faces of rock, destitute of minor finish and of color. They had their horrible decorations; they showed the ingenuity and the artistic force of the Afreets who had fashioned them; they were wrought and tinted with a demoniac splendor suited to their magnitude. It seemed as if some goblin Michel Angelo had here done his carving and frescoing at the command of the lords of hell. Layers of brown, gray, and orange sandstone, alternated from base to summit; and these tints were laid on with a breadth of effect which was prodigious: a hundred feet in height and miles ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... say I here behold storm-tossed in rocky fetters? Of what trespass is the retribution destroying thee? Declare to me into what part of earth I forlorn have roamed. Ah me! alas! alas! again the hornet[46] stings me miserable: O earth avert[47] the goblin of earth-born Argus:[48] I am terrified at the sight of the neatherd of thousand eyes, for he is journeying on, keeping a cunning glance, whom not even after death does earth conceal; but issuing forth from among the departed he chases me miserable, and he makes me ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... Narayana, and falling constantly everywhere, destroyed the Daityas and the Danavas by thousands. Sometimes it blazed like fire and consumed them all; sometimes it struck them down as it coursed through the sky; and sometimes, falling on the earth, it drank their life-blood like a goblin. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... after the Shinto rite,—is religious defilement. The ancient legend of Izanagi's descent to the nether world, in search of his lost spouse, illustrates the terrible beliefs that once existed as to goblin-powers presiding over decay. [41] Between the horror of death as corruption, and the apotheosis of the ghost, there is nothing incongruous: we must understand the apotheosis itself as a propitiation. This ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... daylight fail; Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, With stories told of many a feat, How faery Mab the junkets eat; She was pinched and pulled, she said; And he, by Friar's lantern led, Tells how the drudging goblin sweat, To earn his cream-bowl duly set, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten day-labourers could not end; Then lies him down, the lubber-fiend, And, stretched out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength, And crop-full out ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... found, this strange story was well known; that the house was regularly set down as "haunted" all the country round, and that the spirit, or goblin, or whatever it was that was embodied in these appearances, was familiarly known by the name ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... Tavia, "I do need so much a little Brownie or a goblin to help me with my housework. Fancy going home with a dear little Jackanapes to carry my 'dinner pail'!" and at this suggestion every one seemed to enjoy the grotesque idea that ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... destroyers, but we can look as near it as we can. Let me explain to you, Sir, that the stern of a Thorneycroft boat, which we are not, comes out in a pretty bulge, totally different from the Yarrow mark, which again we are not. But, on the other 'and, Dirk, Stiletto, Goblin, Ghoul, Djinn, and A-frite—Red Fleet dee-stroyers, with 'oom we hope to consort later on terms o' perfect equality—are Thorneycrofts, an' carry that Grecian bend which we are now adjustin' to our arriere-pensee—as the French would put it—by means ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... bell-shaped flower, curious little figures shot up their heads, peeped at me, and drew back. They seemed to inhabit them, as snails their shells but I was sure some of them were intruders, and belonged to the gnomes or goblin-fairies, who inhabit the ground and earthy creeping plants. From the cups of Arum lilies, creatures with great heads and grotesque faces shot up like Jack-in-the-box, and made grimaces at me; or rose slowly and slily over the edge of the cup, and spouted water ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... interesting and kind letter, in which you do me the honour to ask my opinion respecting the pedigree of your island goblin, le feu follet Belenger; that opinion I cheerfully give, with a promise that it is only an opinion; in hunting for the etymons of these fairy names we can scarcely expect to arrive at ...
— Letters to his mother, Ann Borrow - and Other Correspondents • George Borrow
... consequence of such a tragedy. Indeed, its visits became so frequent, that a clergyman of eminence was employed to exorcise it. After a contest of twenty-four hours, the man of art prevailed so far as to confine the goblin to the Massy More of the castle, where its shrieks and cries are still heard. A part, at least, of the spell, depends upon the preservation of the ancient black-lettered bible, employed by the exorcist. ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... in quest of the goblin Sal, but she saw nothing save an idiotic face with bushy tangled hair; and nose flattened against the window pane. In terror Mary clung to Mr. Knight, and whispered, as she pointed towards the figure, which was now laughing hideously, "What ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... Resenting the insult, his heels flew high. The "pony dot" flew higher and jangled and screeched with accumulating vindictiveness. To what fearsome figure had this hasty flight transformed the mean little emblem of rusticity? A tipsy goblin? No—rather a limping aeroplane of the Stone Age; and it rattled like a belfry under the shock of bombardment. Could there be any crueller device to tie an unsophisticated horse to, and a horse whose single thought had been a merry morning? It would, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... scare-fires rest ye free, From murders Benedicite. From all mischances that may fright Your pleasing slumbers in the night, Mercy secure ye all, and keep The goblin from ye while ye sleep. Past one o'clock, and almost two! My masters ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... winnowing the corn, remembers Demeter Courotrophos, the mother of corn and children alike, and makes it a little coat out of the dress worn by its father at his initiation into her mysteries. Yet she is an angry goddess too, sometimes—Demeter Erinnys, the goblin of the neighbourhood, haunting its shadowy places. She lies on the ground out of doors on summer nights, and becomes wet with the dew. She grows young again every spring, yet is of great age, the wrinkled woman of the Homeric hymn, who becomes the nurse of Demophoon. ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... Mr. Stoddart was always rhyming of goblin, ghost, fairy, and all Sir Walter's themes. At Edinburgh University he was a pupil of Christopher North (John Wilson), who pooh-poohed The Death-Wake in Blackwood. He also knew Aytoun, Professor ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... Prof. A.S. Napier's Old English Glosses (1900), 191, where in a list of glosses of the eleventh century to Aldhelm's Aenigmata occurs "larbula [i. e. larvula], puca." Prof. Napier notes that O.E. puca, "a goblin," whence N.E. Puck, is a well authenticated word. Dr. Bradley suggests that the source might be a British word, from which the Irish puca would be borrowed; this word pooka, as well as the allied poker, ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... As though forgotten, light and dull. From the sacred heights the green sky spills Still water on the city. Glazed cobblers' lamps shine. Empty bakeries are waiting. People in the street, astonished, stride Towards a miracle. A copper red goblin runs Up towards the roof, up and down. Little girls fall, sobbing From the poles of ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... of its victim; 2dly, that if even here he were mistaken, for public opinion was not always righteous, what was public opinion after all?—"A breath—a puff," cried Dr. Riccabocca—"a thing without matter—without length, breadth, or substance—a shadow—a goblin of our own creating. A man's own conscience is his sole tribunal, and he should care no more for that phantom 'opinion' than he should fear meeting a ghost if he cross the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... the wild ducks, low flying, drove like a flight of witches through the dusk; and unseen herons called from their heronry, fainter, fainter till their goblin yelps died out in the swelling murmur of a million ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... again the learned were in disagreement. Some were as generous in their estimate as an income-tax assessor, others applied a species of higher criticism to the submerged treasure chests, and debased their contents to the currency of goblin gold. Of the former school was ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... with ghosts on a stormy shore, And spoke in a tongue which men speak no more; Living in wild and wondrous ways, In the ancient giant and goblin days." ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... at his belt as we went to meet him, "I love him best in buff and steel, though he'll ever be my cap'n, pal. There aren't what you'd call a lot of him, neither, but what there is goeth a prodigious long way in steel or velvet. Talk o' glory! Talk o' fame! Pal, glory's a goblin and fame's a phantom compared wi' Cap'n Sir Adam Penfeather, and you can keel haul, burn and hang ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... certainly was not going to tolerate banjos and bones. This decision was a great disappointment to Benny Mallow, who had been selected by the managers to perform upon the tambourine, but in the revision of the programme Benny was assigned to duty in a tableau as a little fat goblin, and this so tickled his fancy that he did not ...
— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a fortune- teller, an old negro woman by the name of De Squak, whose house was much frequented by sailors; and how she had two black cats, with remarkably green eyes, and nightcaps on their heads, solemnly seated on a claw-footed table near the old goblin; when she felt his pulse, to tell what was ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Bulgarians, and Roumanians observe a similar ceremony, but on the confines of Russia so intense is the belief in the superstition of the water goblin that in times of long drought a traveller journeying along the road has often been seized by the ruthless hands of the villagers and ceremoniously flung into a rivulet—a sacrifice to appease the spirit that lay in the waters. In Ireland the fairy-tale of Fior Usga—Princess Spring-water—has ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... pretty idea," mused the Minor Poet. "I shall see them in the twilight: pathetic little round-eyed things of goblin shape, dimly luminous against the darkening air. Whence come you, little tender Thought, tapping at my brain? From the lonely forest, where the peasant mother croons above the cradle while she knits? ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... or a goblin come, smear his forehead with this salve, put it on his eyes, cense him with incense, and sign him frequently with ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... loose him from his thrall, And lead him into the light? 'Ah me!' he murmured, 'I dare not call, Lest she may doubt it a goblin's waul, And leave me in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... he slackened his pace again, And to the goblin cried: "What ho, Sir Page, what luckless chance Hath buckled thee ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... goblin went, As it had done before; Her strength and resolution spent, She fainted ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... informed that a mill near to Loch Lomond had formerly been haunted by the goat demon, and that the miller had suffered much from its mischievous disposition. It frequently let on the water when there was no grain to grind. But one night the miller watched his mill, and had a meeting with the goblin, who demanded the miller's name, and was informed that it was myself. After a trial of strength, the miller got the best of it, and the spirit departed. After hearing this, I remembered that the same story, under a slightly ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... England there is a hillock in the midst of a dense wood. Thither in old days knights and their followers were wont to repair when tired and thirsty after the chase. When one of their number called out, "I thirst!" there immediately started up a Goblin with a cheerful countenance, clad in a crimson robe, and bearing in his outstretched hand a large drinking-horn richly ornamented with gold and precious jewels, and full of the ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... revenge thyself on yonder slave[535], 'Snails, still prevented? this same Redcap rogue Runs like hob goblin up ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... listen and turns back in alarm for he fancies a goblin in yonder Bakula tree. The goblin turns out a starling. The courtier remarks, "she says, give the Brahman something to eat." The king observes, "something to eat is ever the burden of the glutton's song. Come, say truly, what does she utter. The friend ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... were mountain goblins. I don't want one, thank you, sir! water nixies and pixies are as much as I can bear in the goblin line." ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... hum The Elfin army's goblin drum To pigmy battle sound; And now, where dripping dew-drops plash On waving grass, their bucklers clash, And now their quivering lances ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... spirit, she built a fire, put on water to heat, attended capably to innumerable details. Rose was a woman of sound experience. She had been with others at such times. It held no goblin terrors for her. Had it not been for Martin's heartlessness, she would have felt wholly equal to the occasion. As it was, she made little commotion. Dr. Bradley, gentle and direct, had been the Conroys' family physician for years. Nellie, who arrived in an hour, had been through ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... Principality. Two of his ancestors, Sir Roger Vaughan and Sir David Gam, fell at Agincourt. It is said that Shakspeare visited Scethrog, the family castle in Brecknockshire; and Malone guesses that it was when there that he fell in with the word "Puck." Near Scethrog, there is Cwn-Pooky, or Pwcca, the Goblin's valley, which belonged to the Vaughans; and Crofton Croker gives, in his Fairy Legends, a fac-simile of a portrait, drawn by a Welsh peasant, of a Pwcca, which (whom?) he himself had seen sitting on a milestone,[45] ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... had strange dreams. Sometimes he thought he was in the Hodoo Region, or Goblin Land, the abode of evil spirits, where he saw every kind of fantastic beast, bird, and reptile, and no end of spectral shapes in the winding passages of a weird labyrinth on a far-off island. Then his dreams were of ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... the hoot of the owl, the kouku, which in Malay is the ghost-bird, the burong-hantu, seemed to deepen the silence. Does not that word hantu, meaning in Malay an evil spirit, have some obscure connection with our American negro "hant," a goblin or ghost? Certainly the bird's long and dismal "Hoo-oo-oo" wailing through the shuddering forest evoked dim and chilling memories of tales told by candlelight when I was ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... lull sighs and moans As barriers dank, flee their fold, Betrayed by crystals on a crest That ride this kingdom's batter'd gnomes, A fitful syrinx stills all groans As chasms roar with devils' glee. Then fancies greet each goblin's eye, Each donga's depth and mount unsunned: A quire's rune, in onyx dress, And black-linkt harps with eyes that see Each blood-set jazel in a sky, Where heights eternal reign unstunned, Pierce sylvan airs that wizards bless. Come from ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... he shook the moisture from his clothes, he was not without a wish that the day would dawn, and that he might be preserved on a road which his imagination beset with greater perils than the raging river; for his superstitious feeling let loose upon his path elf and goblin, and the current traditions of the district supplied very largely to his apprehension the ready ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... him. The painter started, stared, rubbed his eyes, thought it was another spectral illusion, and was on the point of yielding to his terror, when Karl rose, and approached him with a smile. The healthy, sunshiny countenance of Karl, let him be ghost or goblin, could not fail to produce somewhat of a tranquilizing effect on Teufelsbuerst. He took his offered hand mechanically, his countenance utterly vacant with ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... that it is charming. It makes one wish that it were in Mr. James's way to paint in some story the present phase of change in England. A titled personage is still mainly an inconceivable being to us; he is like a goblin or a fairy in a storybook. How does he comport himself in the face of all the changes and modifications that have taken place and that still impend? We can hardly imagine a lord taking his nobility seriously; it ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... we have been thinking you were a goblin—a devilkin! However, I see how it is: you are a sap-engro, a chap who catches snakes, and plays tricks with them! Well, it comes very nearly to the same thing; and if you please to list with us, and bear us pleasant company, we shall be glad of you. I'd take ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... disk, appeared a marsh-owl. He was coming to look at me. What was I that dared remain abroad in the marsh after the rising of the moon? that dared invade this eery realm, this night-spread, tide-crept, half-sealand where he was king? How like a goblin he seemed! I thought of Grendel, and listened for the splash of the fen-monster's steps along the edge of the bay. But only the owl came. Down, down, down he bobbed, till I could almost feel the fanning of his wings. How ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... grandfather, we should not have ventured to come in contact with you; but you are only the heir of the pit of darkness, you dirty hell-dog! You are scarcely worthy of a night's lodging," added he, "and yet we'll grant you some nook, wherein to await the dawn;" and with that word the goblin with his pitchfork, gave him more than thirty tosses in the fiery air, until he at length cast him into an abyss out of sight. "That may do," said the other, "for a squire of half blood, but I hope you will behave better to a knight, who has had ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... thou a spirit of health or goblin damned, Bringing with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable? Thou com'st in such a questionable shape That ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... the timber stooped and faltered and came down in a cataract of noises. And the fire, finding passage, went up with a spout like a fountain. It stood far up among the stars for an instant, a blazing pillar of brass fit for a pagan conqueror, so high that one could fancy it visible away among the goblin trees of Burnham or along the terraces ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... settlement [1647, May 30th]; but the circumstances are not known, and the fact has been doubted. A year later, one Margaret Jones, of Charlestown in Massachusetts, and it has been said, two other women in Dorchester and Cambridge, were convicted and executed for the goblin crime. These cases appear to have excited no more attention than would have been given to the commission of any other felony, and no judicial record ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... sunshine holiday, Till the livelong daylight fail: Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, With stories told of many a feat, How Faery Mab the junkets eat. She was pinched and pulled, she said; And he, by Friar's lantern led, Tells how the drudging goblin sweat To earn his cream-bowl duly set, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten day-labourers could not end; Then lies him down, the lubber fiend, And, stretched out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength, And ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... often heard therein after sunset; wolves haunt these glades, and Danish warriors infest the country; worse things are talked of; you might chance to hear, as it were, a child cry, and on opening the door to afford it succour, a greet black bull, or a shadowy goblin dog, might rush over the threshold; or, more awful still, if something flapped, as with wings, against the lattice, and then a raven or a white dove flew in and settled on the hearth, such a visitor would be a sure sign of misfortune to the house; therefore, heed my ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... the other family—who live in an American hurry and eat by steam—was the goblin diner of whom a friend told me in accents of awe. One day, at the St. Charles, a resident stopped him on the way ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... hundred spears and three. Through Douglas burn, up Yarrow stream, Their horses prance, their lances gleam. They came to St. Mary's Lake ere day; But the chapel was void, and the Baron away. They burned the chapel for very rage, And cursed Lord Cranstoun's goblin-page." ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... wearing a huge pink hat. She seemed to be gazing at him, and her large lips parted in a smile. In an instant she was gone. But Claude could not forget her. In his excitement and fatigue he thought of her as a great goblin woman, and her smile was a terrible grin of bitter sarcasm stretching across the world. Charmian and Alston were talking unweariedly. Claude did not hear what they were saying. He saw snowflakes floating down between the lights, strangely pure and remote, lost wanderers from some delicate ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... the plate of pancakes in his hand he glanced into every green thicket that he passed, half hopeful, and half fearful that he might find a tiny creature hidden in the leaves. Not a glimpse of fairy or goblin did he see, but when he came to the blackberry bushes where the sweetest berries grow something seemed to whisper to him: "Stop, Karl, ...
— The Story-teller • Maud Lindsay
... crafty. When I greeted the woman, she answered in Romany, and said she was a Stanley from the North. She lied bravely, and I told her so. It made no difference in any way, nor was she hurt. The brown boy, who seemed like a goblin, umber-colored fungus, growing by a snaky black wild vine, sat by her and stared at me. I was pleased, when he said tober, that she corrected him, exclaiming earnestly, "Never say tober for road; that is canting. Always say drom; ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... his explanations as calmly as if the matter were one of every-day significance. "You are looking for the windows," he remarked. "They are behind those goblin faces you see outlined on the tapestries under the ceiling. As for the door, if you had looked to the left when you entered, you would have detected the edge of a huge steel plate hanging flush with the casing. This plate can be made to slide across that opening in an instant just by the ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... act we are introduced to Puck-hairy, who laments his lot as the familiar of the malignant witch in whose service he has now to 'firk it like a goblin' about the woods. Meanwhile Karol meets Douce in the dress of Earine, who, however, runs off on the approach of Aeglamour. The latter fancies she is the ghost of his drowned love, and falls into a 'superstitious commendation' of her. His delusions are conceived ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... groups of idle soldiers, we turned off by a gate, which this She-Goblin unlocked for our admission, and locked again behind us: and entered a narrow court, rendered narrower by fallen stones and heaps of rubbish; part of it choking up the mouth of a ruined subterranean passage, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... thus vaulting, the rogues in great astonishment said to one another, By cock's death, he is a goblin or a devil thus disguised. Ab hoste maligno libera nos, Domine, and ran away in a full flight, as if they had been routed, looking now and then behind them, like a dog that carrieth away a goose-wing in his mouth. Then ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the flickering flame of the lamp, which she lighted at last and placed upon the mantel, was able to dispel, for the shadows grew darker, folding themselves around her heart, until she covered her eyes with her hands, lest some goblin shape should ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... the immeasurable sands, will muck you with their brooding silence, with their dim and sombre repose. The brown children of the Nile, the toilers who sing their antique songs by the shadoof and the sakieh, the dragomans, the smiling goblin merchants, the Bedouins who lead your camel into the pale recesses of the dunes—these will not trouble themselves about your deep desires, your perhaps yearning hunger of ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... closed the door behind her she was conscious of a sense of oppression. It was not fear, which is a simple, concrete emotion, easily understood; it was not even so subtle as dread of any abstract thing, ghost or goblin damned. She gave her shoulders a little shake, as if the sensation were some tangible thing to be thrown off, and laying aside her hat and gloves she went through to the buffet kitchen and put the kettle on. She returned ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... thing that walks by night, In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine, Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity. 797 MILTON: ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... not appearing Makes a book fit for revering; To distinguish and divide 'Twixt the form and soul inside; That a book is more than boards, Leaves and words in gathered hordes, Which no greater good can do man Than the goblin hollow woman, Or a pump without a well, Or priest without an oracle. Form is worthless, save it be Type of an infinity; Sign of something present, true, Though unopened to the view, Heady in its bosom ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... whether he were man or shade, Or goblin damned to everlasting woe, As soon as he beheld my dear-loved maid, Like falcon, who, descending, aims its blow, Sank in a thought and rose; and soaring, laid Hands on his prize, and snatched her from below. So quick the rape, that all appeared ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... Britain while the struggle went on, it was impossible that such a man could be a mere destroyer. War in fact was no sooner over than the warrior settled down into the farmer, and the home of the ceorl rose beside the heap of goblin-haunted stones that marked the site of the villa he had burned. The settlement of the English in the conquered land was nothing less than an absolute transfer of English society in its completest form to the soil of Britain. The slowness of their ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... heard much of Peg's pets and now we saw them. Six cats occupied various cosy corners; one of them, the black goblin which had so terrified us in the summer, blinked satirically at us from the centre of Peg's bed. Another, a dilapidated, striped beastie, with both ears and one eye gone, glared at us from the sofa in the corner. A dog, with only three ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... almost toppling across the narrow winding streets. So that, entering it, one seems to have stepped suddenly into some such fairy town as exists in the pages of Grimm or Hans Andersen; and, half ashamed, one peers curiously at the dwellers in this goblin town, as though expecting to find that they have pointed ears and narrow elfin feet. They never seem to move about, and, sitting at almost every doorstep, watch one intently from weird nooks and crannies. Hurry and bustle are here unknown, and though they will reply to you in the ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... involuntarily half-superstitious thoughts. He recalled all those mysterious beings of whom he had ever heard whose occupation was to haunt the seats of old families. He thought of the White Lady of Avenel, the Black Lady of Scarborough, the Goblin Woman of Hurst, and the Bleeding Nun. A second glance served to show him, however, that she could by no possibility fill the important post of Family Ghost, but was real flesh and blood. Yet even thus she was scarcely less impressive. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... of the length Of time's uncertain wing, It goads me, like the goblin bee, That will ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... She had told Eunice to go to bed, but the child refused. She still sat huddled up on the foot of the bed, watching her mother's face intently. Naomi appeared to sleep. The candle burned long, and the wick was crowned by a little cap of fiery red that seemed to watch Eunice like some impish goblin. The wavering light cast grotesque shadows of Sarah Spencer's head on the wall. The thin curtains at the window wavered to and fro, as if ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of a notable sword.... The fragments of it are preserved by a wise smith, for he knows that with the Wotan-sword alone an intrepid stupid boy, Siegfried, shall destroy the dragon." He rubs his hands in goblin glee. "Am I, dwarf, in the second instance still to retain my head?" Wanderer, with a laugh for his antics, felicitates him: "The most keen-witted are you among the wise; who can equal you in acuteness? But seeing you are so cunning as to use the boyish hero ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... an aged fisherman sat mending his nets by his cottage door, in front of a lovely lake. Behind his dwelling stretched a sombre forest, reputed to be haunted by goblin creatures. Through this gloomy solitude the pious old fisherman frequently passed, religiously dispelling all terrors by singing hymns as he went with his fish to a town near the border of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Foxglove is known as the Great Herb, and Lusmore, also the Fairy Cap; and in Wales it is the Goblin's Gloves; whilst in the North of Scotland it is the Dead men's Bells. We read in the Lady of the Lake ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... I cut,' the lank goblin replied, With voice that was hollow and shrill; 'I have cheated, and bullied, and swindled, and lied, Sedition and falsehood I've spread far and wide, And in mischief I never ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... coincidence should have been observed and registered, and that omens of the most absurd kind should be trusted in. In the west of England, half a century ago, a particular hollow noise on the sea-coast was referred to a spirit or goblin, called Bucca, and was supposed to foretell a shipwreck: the philosopher knows that sound travels much faster than currents in the air, and the sound always foretold the approach of a very heavy storm, which seldom takes place on that wild ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... me, and The self-same wind that makes the young lambs shrink Makes me a-cold. My fear says I am mortal. Yet I hare heard (my mother told it me, And now I do believe it) if I keep My virgin flower uncropt, pure, chaste, and fair, No goblin, wood-god, fairy, elf, or fiend, Satyr, or other power, that haunts the groves, Shall hurt my body, or by vain illusion Draw me to wander after idle fires, Or voices calling me in dead of night To make me follow, and so tempt me on Through ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford
... Smith, started to move, came back and took his torch, made a violent gesture with it which drenched the weeds with goblin light. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... features as I spoke. O Mr. Lockwood, I cannot express what a terrible start I got by the momentary view! Those deep black eyes! That smile and ghastly paleness! It appeared to me not Mr. Heathcliff, but a goblin; and in my terror I let the candle bend toward the wall, and it left me ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... distinct consciousness, for the moment, of seeing herself crouched down there under the aspens and the shadow, a humpbacked white creature, with distorted face and wide eyes. She remembered a picture she had somewhere seen of a little chattering goblin in a graveyard, and was struck with the resemblance. Distinctly, too, she heard herself saying, with a laugh, she thought, "I might have known it; ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... Lorry became aware, from where he sat, of a most remarkable goblin shadow on the wall. Tracing it to its source, he discovered it to be caused by a sudden extraordinary rising and stiffening of all the risen and stiff hair ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... goblin had come unbidden into their home: Discontent. He had learned to seek and always found the wistful look with which she regarded their callers' pretty gowns or heard tales of jolly dinners at the club. (Months ago the club had been dropped.) ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... and pussy had the warm hearth all to herself. If any late wanderer had looked in at midnight, he would have seen the fire blazing up again, and in the cheerful glow the old cat blinking her yellow eyes, as she sat bolt upright beside the spinning-wheel, like some sort of household goblin, guarding the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... for his horse. But his great size made him an easy mark. He was shot through the head as he ran. The man who shot him had loaded his pistol with a silver button torn from his vest. That was sure death to any goblin on whom neither lead nor steel would bite, and it killed the governor all right. The place is marked to this day in the pavement of the main street as the spot where fell the only tyrant who ever ruled the island ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... been carried home to some one with more power than little Trotty to give it effect. What was the good of convincing that kindly old soul that the people of his own class had warm hearts? He knew it very well. Take from the book the fine imaginative description of the goblin music that leaps into life with the ringing of the bells, and there remain the most excellent intentions—and not ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... could not hear themselves speak. Then Little Toomai would climb up to the top of one of the quivering stockade posts, his sun-bleached brown hair flying loose all over his shoulders, and he looking like a goblin in the torch-light. And as soon as there was a lull you could hear his high-pitched yells of encouragement to Kala Nag, above the trumpeting and crashing, and snapping of ropes, and groans of the tethered elephants. "Mael, mael, Kala Nag! (Go on, ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... wavering, undulating, and creeping its slow way up the sides of the gorge. Now it hid a tuft of foliage, and now it wreathed itself around a horned clump of aloes, and, streaming far down below it in the dimness, made it seem like the goblin robe of some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... prizes. Perhaps they also found the decision too hard, for they chose a dozen of the best, put them to the public vote and counted the shows of hands. Gwen Hesketh, a member of the Sixth, in a marvelously contrived Chinese costume, was first favorite; little Cyntha West, as a delightful goblin, secured second prize, while the kangaroo, to the satisfaction of the Transition, was awarded the third. The gold wristlet watch was of course a myth, and the rewards were mere trifles, but the principals had risen ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... at the southern gate of the Hudson Highlands, is a wooded eminence, chiefly populated by a crew of imps of stout circumference, whose leader, the Heer, is a bulbous goblin clad in the dress worn by Dutch colonists two centuries ago, and carrying a speaking-trumpet, through which he bawls his orders for the blowing of winds and the touching off of lightnings. These orders are given in Low Dutch, and are put into execution by ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... a moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath passed across his mind, for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty fears; the goblin was hard on his haunches; and (unskillful rider that he was!) he had much ado to maintain his seat; sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's backbone, with a violence that he verily ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... the cliff she looked back, and saw that he was still standing—a squat, fantastic figure like a goblin out of a fairy-tale—outlined against the shining sea behind him, a blot ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... Felix moved forward into the pool of sunlight that blazed upon the faded carpet pattern. It was composed of round, fat trees, this pattern, with birds like goblin peacocks flying in mid-air between them. The sunshine somehow lifted them, so that they floated upon the quivering atmosphere; the pattern seemed to hover between him and the carpet. And he too felt himself lifted—in mid-air—part of ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... maxims for posterity. I read about his frugality, his love of the moon and a little music, his somewhat embittered complaints against the folly of men who spend their lives in rushing about swamped in petty affairs, and the sad story of the old priest who was attacked by a goblin-cat when he came home late at night from a pleasant evening spent in capping verses. I read with special pleasure his seven Self-Congratulations, in which he records seven occasions when he felt that he had really done himself justice. The first of these ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... more of the tale. In spite of minute examinations and close search, no solution of the mystery of the noises, on this or any other occasion, was ever found. The natives, of course, attributed the disturbance to the Pezazi, or goblin. No one, perhaps, has asserted that the Aztecs were connected by ties of race with the people of Ceylon. Yet, when the Spaniards conquered Mexico, and when Sahagun (one of the earliest missionaries) collected the legends of the people, he found them, like the Cingalese, strong believers ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... sorts of flying nocturnal creatures. The side walls had been covered with gorgeous autumn foliage, palms and potted rubber plants stood all about, and last, but by no means least, there was a long table laden with goodies and more pumpkin decorations. The room was a fitting scene for goblin's revels. ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... had the spirit of a true inquisitor. Even so dealt Titelmann with his heretics writhing on the rack or in the flames. Cotemporary chronicles give a picture of him as of some grotesque yet terrible goblin, careering through the country by night or day, alone, on horseback, smiting the trembling peasants on the head with a great club, spreading dismay far and wide, dragging suspected persons from their firesides or their beds, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... rate not to what you have to say, you goblin!" he exclaimed vehemently. "Your voice is hateful to me, and if I meet you again by the well I will drive you ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a youth presented himself who, more courageous or more tipsy than his fellows, or more helplessly paralysed with horror than they, did not decline the proffered caress, and suffered himself to be drawn within the goblin's accursed embrace. Valiant or pot-valiant, great was his relief at finding himself clasped, instead of by a loathsome spectre, by a silver-haired man of noble presence, yet with a ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... crusty with a fellow," replied the goblin. "I merely looked in to wish you the compliments of the season. Talking of crust, by the way, what sort of a tap is it you're drinking?" So saying, he took up a flask of the baron's very best and poured out about half a glass. Having ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... The kind of goblin, young lady, which is likely to get us business men if we don't watch out—financial trouble. The firm of Hamilton and Company has not kept abreast of the times, that's all. For years they did a good business and then some new competitors with up-to-date ideas came to town and—puff!—good-by ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... scare-fires rest ye free From murders, Benedicite; From all mischances that may fright Your pleasing slumbers in the night Mercy secure ye all, and keep The goblin from ye, while ye sleep. —Past one a clock, and almost two,— My masters all, ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... a derisive goblin or a piteous, ineffective human soul, according as you are a laughing or a weeping philosopher. It expresses everything in the Street that is pictorial and dramatic; but Wall Street is first and last a realm of business. It ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... to his extreme terror, saw standing beside him a being whom he could only suppose to be a goblin. He was not more than four feet high, with very bow legs, as though from a constant habit of tucking them up on a tailor's shop board; his clothes, fashioned from odd bits of velvet and cloth such as tailors call "cabbage," or, ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... Red-Cap was a brave goblin, but he was rather frightened when the White Thing began to roll so fast. He wondered if it would ever stop, when—Bump! Splash!—he found he was in the water, and something big with a smooth coat was close beside him. It was a kind water-rat who had seen the poor little goblin ...
— The Story of the Three Goblins • Mabel G. Taggart
... gardens that are always June, To sit within the shadow of a rose, And strum and sing your every fragile tune. For all we meet you where the great world rides, You have no league with anything we are: Your life is all entangled in the tides Of goblin moons and musics ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... am thy genius; and conduct thee to wealth, fame, and honour; what thou comest to do, do boldly; fear not; with this rod I charm thee; and neither elf nor goblin now can ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... hour of this vain pursuit Sir William Elphiston and his companions had gone a long way in the southwest direction of the pit, and began to think they really had to do with an impalpable being. Just then it seemed as if the distance between the goblin and those who were pursuing it was becoming less. Could it be fatigued, or did this invisible being wish to entice Sir William and his companions to the place where the inhabitants of the cottage had perhaps themselves been enticed. It was hard ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... produced at the Garrick, showing the terrible adventures of two visitors to a lunatic asylum, the inmates of which had overpowered their keepers. This was very powerful and horrible, and perhaps would have given a shiver to the hero of a famous tale in the collection of goblin stories by the ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... mine. There is a wild horse of Tartary; and here, most strange of all—is a land of ice and snow, without green fields, woods, or gardens. In this land, they found some mammoth bones: there are no mammoths now. You don't know what it was; but I can tell you, because Graham told me. A mighty, goblin creature, as high as this room, and as long as the hall; but not a fierce, flesh- eating thing, Graham thinks. He believes, if I met one in a forest, it would not kill me, unless I came quite in its way; when it would trample me down amongst the bushes, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... between them whatever. I then asked the smiling Maniac for balls. He brought me a selection of large red globes nearly as big as Dutch cheeses. I said, 'Are these tennis-balls?' He said, 'Oh did you want tennis-balls?' I said Yes—they often came in handy at tennis. The goblin was however quite impervious to satire, and I left him endeavouring to draw my attention to his wares in general, particularly to some zinc baths which he seemed to think should form part of ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... array Flickering on the wind, as quivers Trailing weed in running rivers; And others, in far prospect seen, Newly loosed on this terrene, Shot in piercing swiftness came, With hair a-stream like pale and goblin flame. As crystelline ice in water, Lay in air each faint daughter; Inseparate (or but separate dim) Circumfused wind from wind-like vest, Wind-like vest from wind-like limb. But outward from each lucid breast, When some passion left its haunt, Radiate surge of colour came, Diffusing ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... part where you think you have done with the goblins and they come back," breathed Helen, as the music started with a goblin walking quietly over the universe, from end to end. Others followed him. They were not aggressive creatures; it was that that made them so terrible to Helen. They merely observed in passing that there was no such thing as splendour or heroism in the world. After the interlude ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... uprooting of them. If the Roman Jupiter was a Christian daemon, his existence at all events was recognised. But even this negative way of adopting the old beliefs gave way as the Church spread further. The tribe of daemons soon included the popular fairy, elf, and goblin. And then came the positive adoption of pagan customs. Gibbon describes how the early Christians refused to decorate their doors with garlands and lamps, and to take part in the ceremonial of lifting the bride ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... shadow, naked as on his natal morn, landing springily on his bent knees, and like a shadow leaping along the run-way. It was hard for them to realize that it was a man, for he seemed a weird jungle spirit, a goblin of the forest. Only Binu Charley was not perturbed. He flung his poisoned spear over the head of the captive at the flitting form. It was a mighty cast, well intended, but the shadow, leaping, received ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... the traveller; "what, I have discovered the goblin that has scared you?—Come along—come along—I will make you acquainted with him." So saying, he dragged him towards Lord Etherington; and before the divine could make his negative intelligible, the ceremony of introduction had taken place. "My Lord ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... a land of ice and snow without green fields, woods, or gardens. In this land they found some mammoth bones; there are no mammoths now. You don't know what it was; but I can tell you, because Graham told me. A mighty goblin creature, as high as this room, and as long as the hall; but not a fierce, flesh-eating thing, Graham thinks. He believes if I met one in a forest, it would not kill me, unless I came quite in its way; when it would trample me down amongst the bushes, as I might tread ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... an old book shop, I found a collection of Goblin Poetry in three volumes, containing many pictures of goblins. The title of the collection is Ky[o]ka Hyaku-Monogatari, or "The Mad Poetry of the Hyaku-Monogatari." The Hyaku-Monogatari, or "Hundred Tales," is a famous book of ghost stories. On the subject of each ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... eating a pineapple ice as peacefully as you please. All of a sudden I realized someone had stopped beside my chair; two someones by the way. One of them was Row-ena Quarrelena Fightena Scrapena; the other," Jerry paused impressively, "was our precious hob-goblin, ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... fields and blue seas of this enchanting region thinks that the Isles of the Blest could scarcely find on earth a more fitting image; nor can he realize, till experience proves it to him, that he is in the immediate vicinity of a weird and dreary region which might represent no less the goblin ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... Chinese of one of the wild tribes of Kwei-chau; and was told to Wallace of some of the Aru Island tribes near New Guinea, and to Bickmore of a tribe on the south coast of Floris, called Rakka (probably a form of Hindu Rakshasa, or ogre-goblin). Similar charges are made against sundry tribes of the New World, from Brazil to Vancouver Island. Odoric tells precisely Marco's story of a certain island called Dondin. And in "King Alisaunder," ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa |
