#the hobyahs

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@the-blue-fairie @princesssarisa @themousefromfantasyland @thealmightyemprex

[enchantedfrogprince]

I'm currently in the process of writing some short DnD sidequests for my Feywilds campaign where the party gets to engage with some pretty wild fairytales I have picked out.

For something a bit more particularly scary and unsettling I am writing up some more dark folk horror type encounters for tales like:

-- Long Tom

-- The Hobyahs

-- Kate Crackernuts

I would also like to have the party come across an abandoned church based off of St. Trinian and let them defend it from a buggane attack during the middle of the night...

Are there any other obscure fairytales or folk horror you can think of that would make a fantastic DnD encounter?

[mudwerks]

(via The Hobyahs, A Scottish Nursery Tale - Wee White Hoose)

Once there was a old man and an old woman and a little girl, and they lived together in a hut made of birch bark. They had a wee dug called Tavish, and he was a good dug and barked a warning when anyone came near the hut.

One night, when the old man and the old woman were fast asleep, the hobyahs came creeping out of the darkness, crying, “Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hut, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!” but Tavish barked so long and so loudly that the hobyahs ran off.

The old man said to the old woman, “Wee dug Tavish barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live until morning I will cut off his tail!” And so it was that in the morning, the old man cut off poor Tavish’s tail.

The next night the hobyas came again and said, “Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hut, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!” but Tavish barked so long and so loudly that the hobyahs ran off. The old man said to the old woman, “Wee dug Tavish barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live until morning I will cut off one of his legs!” And so it was that in the morning, the old man cut off one of poor Tavish’s legs.

The next night the hobyas came again and said, “Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hut, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!” but Tavish barked so long and so loudly that the hobyahs ran off. The old man said to the old woman, “Wee dug Tavish barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live until morning I will cut off another of his legs!” And so it was that in the morning, the old man cut off another of poor Tavish’s legs.

The next night the hobyas came again and said, “Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hut, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!” but Tavish barked so long and so loudly that the hobyahs ran off. The old man said to the old woman, “Wee dug Tavish barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live until morning I will cut off his head!” And so it was that in the morning, the old man cut off poor Tavish’s head.

The next night the hobyas came again and said, “Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hut, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!” and when the hobyahs found that wee dug Tavish’s head was off, they tore down the hut, ate up the old man and old woman, and carried the little girl off in a bag.

When the hoyahs came to their home they hung up the bag with the little girl in it, and every hobyah knocked on top of the bag and said, “Look me! Look me!” and then they went to sleep until the next night, for the hobyahs slept in the daytime.

The litle girl cried a great deal, and a man with a big dug came by and heard her crying. When he asked her how she came there and she told him, he put the big dug in the sack and took the little girl safe to his home.

The next night the hobyahs took down the bag and knocked on the top of it and said “Look me! Look me!” and when they opened the bag…

…the big dug jumped out and ate them all up, so there are no hobyahs now. Good riddance!

This delightful little tale, despite having been published in More English Fairy Tales in the late 1800s, cannot be traced in England at all. It was collected by an American author, a Mrs S.V. Proudfit, for the Journal of American Folklore of April to June, 1891. She notes:

“When a child I used to hear the following story told in a Scotch family that came from the vicinity of Perth. I have spelled the word ‘hobyah’ as it was pronounced. The effectiveness of the story lies in a certain sepulchral monotone in rendering the cry of the hobyah, and his terrible ‘look me!’.”S.V.P

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the version I knew had “little dog Turpie”, rather than Tavish. I like Turpie better.