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Goblin   Listen
noun
Goblin  n.  An evil or mischievous spirit; a playful or malicious elf; a frightful phantom; a gnome. "To whom the goblin, full of wrath, replied."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Goblin" Quotes from Famous Books



... fierce heat vexed him despite of his melody. He was a strange ape, tall and lean and withered, with a wry shoulder like a gibbous moon and a wry leg like a stricken tree, and his face was as the face of a goblin, with a long, peaked nose, and loose, protruding lips, traitors to the few and evil teeth that interwalled his livid gums, and his ears stood out like bats' wings from his yellow, wrinkled cheeks. ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... bare, pine table shed only a small ring of light, and the goblin shadows danced away from the wide hearth into the corners of the room. In the darkest one stood an old four-post bed with a billowy feather mattress, covered by a tartan quilt. Beside it hung a quantity of rough ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... elf, dwarf, urchin; Puck, Robin Goodfellow; leprechaun, Cluricaune^, troll, dwerger^, sprite, ouphe^, bad fairy, nix, nixie, pigwidgeon^, will-o'-the wisp. [Supernatural appearance] ghost, revenant, specter, apparition, spirit, shade, shadow, vision; hobglobin, goblin, orc; wraith, spook, boggart^, banshee, loup-garou [Fr.], lemures^; evil eye. merman, mermaid, merfolk^; siren; satyr, faun; manito^, manitou, manitu. possession, demonic possession, diabolic possession; insanity &c 503. [in jest, in science] Maxwell's demon. [person possessed by a demon] demoniac. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... Such goblin-tales may curdle The veins of priest-rid women, fools, and children. They are not for the ears of ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... they ought to allow for the capriccios of what is, after all, but a better sort of goblin. The bath into which Ariel, the most delicate creation of Shakspeare's imagination, seduces our jolly friend Trinculo, was not of amber or rose-water. But no one shall find me rowing against the stream. I care not who knows it—I write for general amusement; and, though ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... a goblin come, smear his forehead with this salve, put it on his eyes, cense him with incense, and sign him frequently with the ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... not to be confused by her old playfellow's look. "I'm neither ghost, goblin nor evil spirit, nor anything worse than ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... chanced, through whim, to abscond from that quarter; for if he had not so disappeared, he might have died by the lead, if not by the silver. As it was, the bold peasant laid claim to the full glory of compelling this dreaded goblin ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... it was Mr. Loring who had hold of me until I looked around," she confessed, "and that frightened me just as much as the wickedest fairy or goblin could ever do." ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... ago 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 ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... 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

... 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 to ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... 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 ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green

... 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

... with the devil. At the foot of his praying-chair was always chained a little casket of ebony, bound with iron. In this he imprisoned a little yellow man, a demon of the most concentrated structure, hardly a foot long. This goblin ran through the air, on an errand or with a letter, about as fast as a stroke of lightning, and admirably filled the place of the modern telegraph. For each meal he took three seeds of hemp, which he loved to receive ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... the goblin, snapping her fingers. "What think you I care for them? Do I not tire of stooping to pick them up? for they are given me by my cousins, the gnomes, any day. No diamonds for me! Keep them and your gold. I ask but ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May

... into something too big for him, even with his fine new weapon—a hobthrush, or a bush-goblin, or another harpy. Or maybe he'd just gotten tired staying in one place, and had ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... played a thousand pranks about his hammock, for there is not one bed within his walls. Well, sir, he rang his bell, called up all his servants, got lights, and made a thorough search; but the devil a goblin was to be found. He had no sooner turned in again, and the rest of the family gone to sleep, than the foul fiends began their game anew. The commodore got up in the dark, drew his cutlass, and attacked ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... she said; "myself most of all. Do you never laugh at yourself? I expect not; you are very serious. I will tell you what it is like: a little goblin comes out of your head and stands in front of you; the goblin is you, a sort of you; the other part, the part people know, sits opposite, and the goblin laughs at it because it sees how ridiculous the other is, how grotesque and how futile. ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... customary to my musings, and other realities seem so to have gone aboard ship and floated away over the horizon, that, for aught I will undertake to the contrary, I am the enchanted son of the King my father, shut up in a tower on the sea-shore, for protection against an old she-goblin who insisted on being my godmother, and who foresaw at the font - wonderful creature! - that I should get into a scrape before I was twenty- one. I remember to have been in a City (my Royal parent's dominions, I suppose), and apparently not ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... came upon 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

... highly excited, readily accepted every sort of rumor about this mysterious automobile. It was said to be a supernatural car. It was driven by a specter, by one of the chauffeurs of hell, a goblin from another world, a monster escaped from some mythological menagerie, in short, the devil in person, who could defy all human intervention, having at his command ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne

... staying with the superintendent's wife, as you see. In the wilds among the ruins, like some house goblin. Drink! I felt sorry for her, you know, old man! I took pity on her, and, well, I am living here in the deserted bath-house, like a hermit. . . . I am well fed. Next week I am thinking of moving on. . . . I've had enough of ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... was laying out aloft. He ordered himself to do a thing and then, with the pent-up energy of a thousand devils, he did it. The years of degradation as navigating officer of the Maggie fell away from him, as he sprang, agile and half-naked, into the shrouds; a great, hairy demi-god or sea-goblin he lay out along the yards and sprang from place to place with the old exultant thrill of youth and ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... Goblin Pony An Impossible Enchantment The Story of Dschemil and Dachemila Janni and the Draken The Partnership of the Thief and the Liar Fortunatus and his Purse The Goat-faced Girl What came of picking Flowers The Story of Bensurdatu The Magician's Horse The Little ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various

... scene thus strangely lighted up by fire, lanthorn, and the reflection of Wolfert's red mantle, might have mistaken the little doctor for some foul magician, busied in his incantations, and the grizzled-headed Sam as some swart goblin, obedient to his commands. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... straight to the stable, where the sight of the dead calf told him all. Swearing loudly, he opened the door of the third stall quickly, and cried to his goblin servants to go and chase the fugitives. 'Bring them to me, however you may find them, for have them I must!' he said. So spake the old man, and the servants fled like ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... 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, as I might ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... a time I visited Fairy-land and spent a day in Goblin-town. The people there are much like ourselves, only they are very, very small and roguish. They play pranks on one another and have great fun. They are good natured and jolly, and rarely get angry. But if one does get angry, he quickly recovers his good nature and ...
— The Goblins' Christmas • Elizabeth Anderson

... 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 Hundred Best English Poems • Various

... 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 ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... 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 ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... another 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

... room with an expression upon her face of horror and unrest, which bore some resemblance to the look of one whose intellect was becoming unhinged. It seemed as if she were afraid that something might leap out upon her from the darkness, or as if goblin voices might at any moment mutter in her ear. For a long time she stood motionless in the middle of the room, her eyes staring, her hands hanging at her sides. Then she moved slowly to a writing-table, took a sheet of paper and a pen, and wrote ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... salamander, the burro, and the burro-boy, are to each other shades of noon-day sun: Happy, loving, generous, and free;— As happy as each other, and as free. We do what we please in Nature's realm, go where we please; No one's offended, no one ever wronged. No sentinels hath Nature, no police. But lo, a goblin as I sleep comes forth;— A goblin taller than the tallest poplar, who carries me upon his neck to the Park in far New York. Here women, light-heeled, heavy-haunched, pace up and down the flags in graceful gait. My roses these, I cry, and my orange ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... all askew, supporting each other and sometimes 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 ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... goblin's unsuspecting simplicity made me foolhardy; I would stuff him recklessly full of lies; rout him out o' field grandly, and stop his mouth from ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... heavy sea was breaking on the back of the house as on a sea-wall. The gasolier trembled, the floor throbbed, the little goblin dwelling pulsated as if it were alarmed. Only the continued calm of Mrs. Melville at her knitting and the coarse threads of music running through the sound persuaded him that this riot was the result of ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... of the Turks, however, there is a ghostly being with which she seems to have considerable affinity. This goblin is called Kara Conjulos. Kara Conjulos is a female, and lives at the bottom of a well in a certain part of Constantinople, from which she emerges every night and drives about the city in a cart drawn by two buffaloes. She is much in the habit of stopping at caravansaries, going ...
— The Story of Yvashka with the Bear's Ear • Anonymous

... Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd; Bring with thee airs from heav'n, or blasts from hell; Be thy events wicked or charitable; Thou com'st in such a questionable shape That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet, King, Father, Royal Dane. Oh I answer me. Let me not burst ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... them. One tub had come to pieces entirely and was no more than a heap of staves on a pile of spilt earth. And everywhere, everywhere was dust—the floor was an inch deep in dust and old plaster that muffled our footsteps, cobwebs hung like old dusters on the walls, a regular goblin's tatter of cobwebs draped the little bracket inside the door, and the wrought-iron of the hand-rail was closed up with webs in which not even a spider moved. The ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... myself!" he repeated, as he led the way out to the veranda. "I'll see what goblin scared my pusillanimous staff ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... maiden who has never lost the Eden secret of being naked and unashamed." Miss Oliver had said, "Put that into a poem, Walter," and he had done so, and read it to them the next day—just a short thing with goblin imagination in every line of it. Oh, how happy ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... and The self-same wind that makes the young lambs shrink, Makes me a-cold: my fear says I am mortal: Yet I have heard (my mother told it me) And now I do believe it, if I keep My virgin flower uncropped, 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 tole ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... pulsed within the meadow-mist Their hales, wavering thistledowns of light; The loon, that seemed to mock some goblin tryst, Laughed; and the echoes, huddling in affright, Like Odin's hounds, fled baying down the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... heard the clanking of chains faintly, in remote passages, and listened while the clanking grew nearer—while it wearily climbed the stairways, marking each move by the loose surplus of chain that fell with an accented rattle upon each succeeding step as the goblin that bore it advanced. I heard muttered sentences; half-uttered screams that seemed smothered violently; and the swish of invisible garments, the rush of invisible wings. Then I became conscious that my chamber was invaded—that I was not alone. I heard sighs and breathings about my bed, and mysterious ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... of 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

... 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 ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... that a boar does when from the sty he breaks loose. One came at Capocchio, and on the nape of his neck struck his teeth, so that dragging him he made his belly scratch along the solid bottom. And the Aretine,[2] who remained trembling, said to me, "That goblin is Gianni Schicchi, and rabid he goes thus maltreating others." "Oh," said I to him, "so may time other not fix his teeth on thee, let it not weary thee to tell who it is ere it start hence." And he to me, "That is the ancient soul of profligate ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... 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; I ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... above mentioned, from the campanulas, from the foxgloves, and every 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, ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... would say—"Horrors of men and women in oil-skins, smelling of petrol! No goblin ever seen in a nightmare could be uglier ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli

... like thyself. For what satisfaction hath a man, that he shall "lie down with kings and emperors in death," who in his life-time never greatly coveted the society of such bed-fellows?—or, forsooth, that "so shall the fairest face appear?"—why, to comfort me, must Alice W——n be a goblin? More than all, I conceive disgust at those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism, that "such as he now is, I must shortly be." Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... whirled round. This whirlpool is caused by rocks rising abruptly out of the water. The popular tradition is that this whirlpool is the abode of a very malicious and spiteful Wassernixe, Undine or Water Goblin, who delighted in drowning passengers. The scenery hereabouts is more wild and romantic than what we have hitherto passed and bears a great resemblance to the landscape on the Rhine between Mayence and Coblentz. Moelk is an Abbey and a very magnificent edifice it is, situated ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... remembrances from childhood grew gloomier and took the shape of the devil of Scripture, but the busy tempter who everywhere lies in wait for the life of man always retained for him something of the features of the mischievous goblin who secretly lurks about ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... that gloomy night Demon foul to urge the deed? Would he tremble at the sight If some horrid goblin sprite Came his ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... female slaves. Except the harp player all are seated: Cleopatra in a chair opposite the door on the other side of the room; the rest on the ground. Cleopatra's ladies are all young, the most conspicuous being Charmian and Iras, her favorites. Charmian is a hatchet faced, terra cotta colored little goblin, swift in her movements, and neatly finished at the hands and feet. Iras is a plump, goodnatured creature, rather fatuous, with a profusion of red hair, and a tendency to giggle on the ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... extraordinary fascination for Tims, poor step-child of nature! Now she stood looking at the reflection of Milly without noticing how in the background her own strange, wizened face peered dim and grotesque from the tarnished mirror, like the picture of a witch or a goblin behind the fair semblance of some princess in a ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... onions stood up green and tall as if some special rain-spirit watched over them. People wondered and shook their heads, but could not explain it, for Mother Lobineau was too infirm to carry much water up the steep path, and who would help her unless some of her own goblin friends did it? ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... the great bazaars of the city, and are sold to many a traveller at prices which, to put it mildly, bring to the sellers a good return. For in Egypt if one leave his heart, he leaves also not seldom his skin. The goblin men of the great goblin market of Cairo take all, and remain unsatisfied and calling for more. I said, in a former chapter, that no fierce demands for money fell upon my ears. But I confess, when I said it, that I had forgotten certain bazaars ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... thing, danced and shouted in the mountain caves; grinning ogres peeped out from the deep clefts and gorges; and the very air seemed full of ghost-like creatures. Then the wizard called by name a wise but wicked goblin, known among the Saracens as Ashtaroth; and the goblin came at once, riding in a whirlwind, and feeling very angry because he was ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin

... point where it was almost free of cloud, and were astonished to find it carved by the weather into the most fantastic shapes, rudely imitating the colossal figures of men and animals, or the towers and turrets of ruined castles. After the novelty of this goblin architecture had passed, however, its effect was somewhat dreary. The wind, moaning through the lifeless aisles and crannies of the dripping rocks, the rolling mist and shuddering pools of water, induced a sense of loneliness and depression. The revulsion ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... district blindfold, he wasted no time hunting for short cuts, but headed across the richer grazing-ground to the ford where Orde had died and been buried. The dusty ground deadened the noise of his horse's hoofs, the moon threw his shadow, a restless goblin, before him, and the heavy dew drenched him to the skin. Hillock, scrub that brushed against the horse's belly, unmetalled road where the whip-like foliage of the tamarisks lashed his forehead, illimitable levels of lowland furred with bent and speckled ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... have 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

... desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... 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, ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta

... Musketaquit, a goblin strong, Of shard and flint makes jewels gay; They lose their grief who hear his song, And where he winds is the day ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... the gourd first tasted its contents cautiously, then drained them to the very last drop. The wine was strong and the gourd capacious, so he also began to sing after a fashion, and soon I had the delight of feeling the iron grip of his goblin legs unclasp, and with one vigorous effort I threw him to the ground, from which he never moved again. I was so rejoiced to have at last got rid of this uncanny old man that I ran leaping and bounding down to the sea shore, where, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.

... all ye works of the Lord, bless Him, praise Him, and magnify Him together." There lingers about them a savour of the old monastic theory, that this earth is the devil's planet, fallen, accursed, goblin-haunted, needing to be exorcised at every turn before it is useful or even safe for man. An age which has adopted as its most popular hymn a paraphrase of the mediaeval monk's "Hic breve vivitur," and in which stalwart public-school boys are bidden in their chapel worship ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley

... goblin pirate crew, With not a soul to deplore him, He steers for the open verge of blue With the ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey

... as if his joints were loose; but as his body awoke and the blood surged through him he went faster and faster until he was fleeing like a wild animal. And as he ran his terror grew. He fell many times, goblin shapes pursued him or leaped forth from the shadows, but he knew that no matter how fast he fled he could never escape the thing he had met back there in the night. It was not the grisly sight of his murdered friend nor the bared ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... at the command of Rhoderic Dhu, from their concealment under the fern, and disappear again in an instant. The Lay of the Last Minstrel and Marmion are the first, and perhaps the best of his works. The Goblin Page, in the first of these, is a very interesting and inscrutable little personage. In reading these poems, I confess I am a little disconcerted, in turning over the page, to find Mr. Westall's pictures, which always seem fac-similes of the persons ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... imagine I have nothing to do but to provide you with a model? My time is fully occupied; I am engaged upon a mystical play, which is to be called The Spinster's Prayer or the Goblin Child's Mother, and take Paris by storm. A propos—yes, now I come to think of it, there is something in Comoedia there ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... 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 silent! His long legs hung limp, ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp

... of Scare-fires rest ye free, From Murders Benedicite. From all mischances, that may fright Your pleasing slumbers in the night; Mercie secure ye all, and keep The Goblin from ye, while ye sleep. Past one o'clock, and almost two, My Masters ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... Another goblin who frequently appeared to me, was the attendant of the pathetic room, who, being a faithful soul, was often up to tend two or three men, weak and wandering as babies, after the fever had gone. ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott

... you to the goblin of last night?" asked Count Schwarzenberg, noticing the castellan's wife ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... 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 ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... Pertinax, rising and drawing sword. "Now, be thou imp of Satan, fiend accursed, or goblin fell, come forth, and I with steel ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... not strange that the Canadian peasant dwells in a world charged with the supernatural. Night furnishes the opportunity for goblins to be abroad; the flickering lights on the marshes are goblin fires. Then, too, the vagrant dead wander about restlessly, sinful souls refused entrance to Heaven until they have sought and secured adequate prayers for their pardon and relief. To cross a cemetery at night ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... raging billows, through a frightful opening, appears PLUTO'S palace. Eight FURIES issue from it, and form the entry of the ballet, in which they show their delight at having kindled such dire wrath in the heart of the sweetest of divinities. A GOBLIN adds perilous jumps to their dances, and meanwhile PSYCHE, who, in obedience to VENUS, has come to the infernal regions, is seen crossing again in CHARON'S bark, holding the box given to her ...
— Psyche • Moliere

... the village rouses up the fire: While well attested, and as well believed, Heard solemn, goes the goblin story round, Till superstitious horror creeps o'er all. Or, frequent in the sounding hall, they wake The rural gambol. Rustic mirth goes round; The simple joke that takes the shepherd's heart, Easily pleased; the long, loud laugh, sincere; The kiss, snatched hasty from the ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... among the silvery foliage of an olive grove, pass before the eyes of their imagination. Dangers often appear greater at a distance than upon close examination; many a phantom of ghastly aspect proves upon inspection to be but a turnip-faced goblin after all: and we suspect that if some of the timorous would adventure themselves upon Spanish soil, they might find their precious persons far safer than they had anticipated; and discover that they were in the hands neither of Caffres nor cannibals, but amongst a courteous and generous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... 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 River singing as he goes New-mailed in morning to the ancient Sea. The gas burns ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley

... "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

... partnership of Hudge and Gudge is conscious or unconscious. I only know that between them they still keep the common man homeless. I only know I still meet Jones walking the streets in the gray twilight, looking sadly at the poles and barriers and low red goblin lanterns which still guard the house which is none the less his because he has never ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... usual kind. 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 ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... shall all the more easily join on the Giant mountains, Riesen-Gebirge, when we want them; but these are altogether higher, sterner, and not yet to be invaded; the nearer ones, through which our road lies, we might perhaps more aptly call the Goblin mountains; but that would be scarcely reverent to St. Elizabeth, nor to the numberless pretty chatelaines of towers, and princesses of park and glen, who have made German domestic manners sweet and exemplary, and have led their ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... in town, Mr. BLADAMS was upon his knees on the floor, tossing crackers from all directions on the carpet into his mouth, like a farinacious goblin, and nearly suffocating whenever he ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various

... the time when here he came To seek Sir Hugo, then our lord; A braver never drew a sword; A wiser never, at the hour Of midnight, spoke the word of power: The same, whom ancient records call The founder of the Goblin Hall. I would, Sir Knight, your longer stay Gave you that cavern to survey. Of lofty roof, and ample size, Beneath the castle deep it lies: To hew the living rock profound, The floor to pave, the arch to round, There never toiled a mortal arm - It all ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... Death is and has been ever since old Maui died. Then Pata-tai laughed loud And woke the goblin-god, Who severed him in two, and shut him in, So dusk of ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... before lunch, so nobody had seen him. But, deserted by his mistress, he sat up in the car to look for her, and the passers-by caught sight of him. Word went round that there was a strange monster, a cross between a monkey and a goblin, sitting in an automobile, and all the people of Hoorn poured into the street to see the show, just as they had poured to the harbor more than three hundred years ago when the ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... 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 Ferrier, De Quincey, Hartley Coleridge, and Hogg, and was one of the ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart

... priceless stones, And censers' fumes 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 ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque

... King sat down on a bank. His fayland eyes could see right into the ground. He saw the fat fleshy root like a little goblin, reaching its long white fingers down into the soil, picking out the magic crystals to pack away in its pockets; and he could see the tall stem like a wood-elf carrying them up, and spreading them upon its flat hands, so they could soak up the juices of the sun and ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... barbarous smile, ten times more terrific than the frown of any other being. Triumph, inhuman triumph, glistened in its eye, and, with relentless delight, it brewed the tempest, and hurled the destructive lightning. Edwin gazed upon this astonishing apparition, and knew it for a goblin of darkness. The heart of Edwin, which no human terror could appal, sunk within him; his nerves trembled, and the objects that surrounded him, swam in confusion before his eyes. But it is not for virtue to tremble; it is not for conscious innocence to fear the power of elves and goblins. Edwin ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... respectable hen that ever hatched out a brood of ducks was more puzzled what to do with them than was poor Mrs. Pennel when her adopted nursling came into this state. Was he a boy? an immortal soul? a reasonable human being? or only a handsome goblin sent ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... evil thing that walks by night, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn, unlaid ghost That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, No goblin, or swart faery of the mine, Hath hurtful power ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... large section of Time's Laughingstocks takes us to the old-fashioned gallery of some church, where the minstrels are bowing "New Sabbath" or "Mount Ephraim," or to a later scene where the ghosts, in whose melancholy apparition Mr. Hardy takes such pleasure, chant their goblin melodies and strum "the viols of the dead" in the moonlit churchyard. The very essence of Mr. Hardy's reverie at this moment of his career is to be found, for instance, in "The Dead Quire," where the ancient phantom-minstrels ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... having the name of the author. We have two other songs (probably more) bearing the same title of Tom of Bedlam; one beginning, "From the top of high Caucasus;" the other commencing, "From the hag and hungry goblin;" either of which are quite as likely to have been ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various

... to save numb toes. Now the air is dead under a smother of falling flakes that fluff up ankle deep, knee deep, till the sled plunges along behind, half buried, while the men wallow and invent ingenious oaths. Again the wind whirls it by in grotesque goblin shapes; wonderful storm beings, writhing, whipping, biting as they pass; erasing bank and mountain. Yet always there is that aching, steady tug of the shoulder-rope, stopping circulation till the arms depend numbly; and always the weary ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach

... "The robber, 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

... 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 International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... to her eyes and assented in a low voice. Abdul turned out of the sunshine into a narrow alley covered with a wooden roof. It was full of shadows and of squatting men, who held out brown hands to the Princess as she passed. But she was staring at the shadows and did not see the merchants of Goblin Market. Leaving this alley Abdul led her abruptly into a dense crowd of Arabs, who were all talking, gesticulating, and moving hither and thither, apparently under the influence of extreme excitement. ...
— The Princess And The Jewel Doctor - 1905 • Robert Hichens

... turkeys that, bewildered, ran headlong among us so that Tahoontowhee knocked over two with his rifle butt, and, slinging them to his shoulders, went forward buried in plumage like same monstrous feathered goblin of the forest. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... for your 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

... he ceased to have a sluggish and confused idea that such things were, companioning a host of others that were not; there are no dates or means to tell. But, awake and standing on his feet upon the boards where he had lately lain, he saw this Goblin Sight. ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens

... to thank Mr. William Rossetti for kindly allowing me to reproduce Dante Gabriel Rossetti's drawing of the authoress of Goblin Market; and thanks are also due to Mr. Lafayette, of Dublin, for the use of his photograph of H.R.H. the Princess of Wales in her Academic Robes as Doctor of Music, which served as our frontispiece last month, and to Messrs. Hills and Saunders, of Oxford, and Mr. Lord and Mr. Blanchard, ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... climbed, half tumbled down, bringing hat and wig with him, and, whether by design or accident, fell at his feet. "Will nothing content you but royal game?" he continued laughing, as Sir Christopher Wren helped him to resume his wig. "Why, what a shrimp it is! a mere goblin sprite! What's thy ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... 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

... connected with this idea. In Russia the domovoi (house spirit) is an important personage in folk-belief; he may object to certain kinds of animals, or to certain colours in cattle; and must, generally speaking, be propitiated and cared for. Corresponding to him we have the drudging goblin ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... "A goblin, your Majesty," responded Damanaka, "it seemed so, at least, to the good people of Brahmapoora. A thief had stolen a bell from the city, and was making off with that plunder, and more, into the Sri-parvata hills, when he was killed by a tiger. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... poetical name for the moon, to be found in the Prose Edda. It is given in the Glossary as one of the old names for the moon. Mr. Conway also says that there is a curious old Sanscrit word, glau or glav, which is explained in all the old lexicons as meaning the moon. Hence 'the ghost or goblin Glam (of the old legend of Grettir) seems evidently to have arisen from a personification of the delusive and treacherous effects of moonlight on ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... times his original size, and his eyes were like two gleaming fires. Even now I am not sure if it was the flesh-and-blood Baudrons or his ghost come to explain the mystery of his disappearance, and vent his displeasure at me for having taken him from his comfortable home. As I looked at the goblin cat my head reeled and ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... Smectymnuus! the goblin makes me start, I'th' name of Rabbi-Abraham, what art? Syriack? or Arabick? or Welsh? what skilt? Up all the brick-layers that Babel built? Some conjurer translate, and let me know it, 'Till then 'tis fit for a ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber



Words linked to "Goblin" :   hobgoblin, folklore, hob, evil spirit



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