Hobs, hobbits, or tiny humans? Tales about our most mysterious creatures (From Darlington and Stockton Times)

Hobs, hobbits, or tiny humans? Tales about our most mysterious creatures

11:45am Friday 29th May 2009

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IN 2004 the fossilised remains of what appeared to be a very small human were discovered on the Indonesian island of Fores.

Experts disagreed about whether this was a human or perhaps an ape-like animal that walked upright.

The creature was about three feet (90cm) tall, with over-sized feet but was not a pygmy, so it is not surprising that it was nicknamed a hobbit due to its remarkable similarities to the fictional creations of JRR Tolkien in his book Lord of the Rings. Tolkien called his tiny characters hobbits and curiously, they also had large hairy feet.

The results of recent research into the remains have recently been published, but there is no definite conclusion as to whether the socalled hobbit was a human. Its brain was much too small in relation to the size of its body and its large feet did not have arches.

Arches in the feet are a characteristic of human beings. However, there is a theory that this small creature might have been a human of ancient times that suffered from a disease that stunted its growth. In other words, there is still some doubt.

Inevitably, the publicity surrounding these tiny human-like creatures has been linked to our native hobs.

Can there be a link between the hobs of the North York Moors and the Cauld Lad of Hilton Castle, the redcaps of Scotland, the leprechauns of Ireland or other brownies and goblins?

For centuries, hobs, under various names, have featured in the folk lore of the northern counties and the surviving tales suggest these were very small brown and dwarf-like men who lived solitary and secret lives on the farms or in the castles of the region.

They were described as being very ugly and having long hair that covered their bodies; some worked in secret on land and were inevitably naked. They sought no reward other than a word of thanks or perhaps a drink of fresh cream and were capable of long and sustained work that often required astonishing strength.

While they would work willingly for little or no reward, they did become mischievous and even dangerous when angry. Some, however, did not work on the land.

Nonetheless, surviving stories of the hobs do show remarkable similarities – and in many way correspond with the creature found upon the island of Fores.

Around the north of England, the names of locations remind us of our local hobs – they include names like hob-holes, hob garth, hob green, hob hill, hob moor and hob-truss hall.

There are stories of a hob in Glaisdale, the village where I was born and grew up. He was known as the Hob of Hart Hall, that being the farm where he lived and worked.

According to the local lore, he loved his work and did not stoop to mischief, but he always worked around the midnight hours in secret.

One story involved a loaded hay wain whose wheel had become wedged between two stones in the farmyard. As bad weather was forecast next day, the hay had to be unloaded with urgency but the efforts of the men, even with extra horses, failed to release the trapped wheel.

The only solution was to unload it – teem it in local speech – but the men were exhausted. They decided to leave the load intact until first light when it would be unloaded so that wheel could be released.

But as they slept the hob got to work. He extricated the wheel, drew the wain into the yard and unloaded the hay so that the wain was ready for the next load. No-one had seen the hob at work, but there is one account of another of his efforts; it was related by an elderly lady.

This is her account in the dialect of the time. “Yah moonleet neet when they heeard his swipple gahin wiv a strange quick bat on t’lathe floor, yan o’ t’lads gat hissel croppen up agenst lathe-door and leeaked thruff a lahtle hole in t’booards.

“He seen a lathle brown man, a’covered in hair, spranging aboot wiv a fleeal like yan wad. He’d gatten hisself a dess o’sheeafs doon on’t floor and my wod, ommost afoor ye could tell ten, he had tonned oot t’straw and sided away t’coorn, and was rife for another dess.’ The Farndale hob upset the farmers where he worked and so the family decided to move to different premises – but he moved with them.

The Runswick Bay hob was thought to cure children’s whooping cough in his cave that is still known as Hob Hole, while similar hobs lived in caves at Mulgrave near Whitby, as well as Hartlepool, Sunderland and Coniscliffe.

The precise number of hob stories in the north-east is not known but it is odd that the hobs’ descriptions are so like the little hobbit of Fores.

So how and where did our local stories really begin?

DURING the past few days, life in our garden has been hectic.

We have a family of house sparrows nesting under the tiles of the utility room. They have produced some chicks and I can’t see how many are in the nest but the parents chatter at us whenever we are working or relaxing nearby.

Blackbirds are nesting close to one of our sitting areas too and, while the female never objects to our presence and will even feed her chicks with us nearby, her mate objects and chatters noisily so we move elsewhere. With such persistent objections to our presence, we seem to be constantly changing places to keep our garden birds happy.

I suspect a robin is also nesting in the hedge near our pond, but a pair of pied wagtails certainly have a nest in that area, and they chatter at us if they think we are too close.

The biggest rumpus occurred when I was settling down to a quiet coffee.

Quite suddenly, several male blackbirds simultaneously raised a mighty din with their alarm calls – the reason was the arrival of a sparrow hawk that had settled on our garden wall. I know that even sparrow hawks must feed in order to live, but he flew off the moment I opened the door to shoo him away – and peace was restored.

Perhaps the most curious sight occurred in a field opposite our house.

One afternoon in bright sunshine I could see an animal sitting on the grass while a group of rabbits, more than a dozen, were also sitting around in a large circle watching the larger one.

I needed binoculars to identify the object of their interest and was amazed to see it was a fox. It was sitting there, quite unconcerned, in broad daylight as the rabbits looked on.

I rushed indoors to alert my wife so that she could witness this curious gathering, but when she emerged only seconds later, the fox had gone.

And so had the rabbits.

On the topic of wild life observations, I have received three reports of the cuckoo being heard in our region, not only once but on repeated occasions.

Two readers have referred to the cuckoo calling near Hawnby on the moors between Osmotherley and Helmsley. In one case, the observers were from Thirsk and they had heard the cuckoo at that same location exactly a year earlier.

They returned on the same Sunday this year – and the cuckoo obliged by welcoming them. They now call it Cuckoo Sunday!

TODAY is Oak Apple Day, variously known as Restoration Day, Nettle Day, Garland Day and even Chalky Back Day.

Within living memory, sprigs of oak leaves were worn to commemorate the Restoration of the Monarchy when Charles II entered London after England had been a republic under Oliver Cromwell. People who forgot to wear their oak leaves were either hit with nettles or smothered in white chalk.

May 29 was also the birthday of Charles II and the celebrations were to remind us that he had concealed himself in an oak tree at Biscobel in Shropshire after his defeat at Worcester. That tree became known as the Royal Oak, a name since perpetuated upon many of our inns.

In Yorkshire, children expected a day off school to celebrate and would chant: “Royal Oak Day, twenty ninth o’ May, if thoo dissn’t give us a holiday, we’ll all run away.”

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