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Spearhafoc — Goblin Pets

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Published: 2016-01-29 21:41:18 +0000 UTC; Views: 1888; Favourites: 27; Downloads: 3
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Goblin Week Day 6 (Bonus sketch) - Goblin Pets from The Princess and the Goblin (1872) by George MacDonald. 

“They were, of course, household animals belonging to the goblins, whose ancestors had taken their ancestors many centuries before from the upper regions of light into the lower regions of darkness. The original stocks of these horrible creatures were very much the same as the animals now seen about farms and homes in the country, with the exception of a few of them, which had been wild creatures, such as foxes, and indeed wolves and small bears, which the goblins, from their proclivity towards the animal creation, had caught when cubs and tamed. But in the course of time all had undergone even greater changes than had passed upon their owners. They had altered—that is, their descendants had altered—into such creatures as I have not attempted to describe except in the vaguest manner—the various parts of their bodies assuming, in an apparently arbitrary and self-willed manner, the most abnormal developments. Indeed, so little did any distinct type predominate in some of the bewildering results, that you could only have guessed at any known animal as the original, and even then, what likeness remained would be more one of general expression than of definable conformation. But what increased the gruesomeness tenfold was that, from constant domestic, or indeed rather family association with the goblins, their countenances had grown in grotesque resemblance to the human.“

"They were of one sort—creatures—but so grotesque and misshapen as to be more like a child’s drawings upon his slate than anything natural. They saw them only at night, while on guard about the house. The testimony of the man who first reported having seen one of them was that, as he was walking slowly round the house, while yet in the shadow, he caught sight of a creature standing on its hind legs in the moonlight, with its forefeet upon a window-ledge, staring in at the window. Its body might have been that of a dog or wolf, he thought, but he declared on his honour that its head was twice the size it ought to have been for the size of its body, and as round as a ball, while the face, which it turned upon him as it fled, was more like one carved by a boy upon the turnip inside which he is going to put a candle than anything else he could think of.”

“It was like a cat, with legs as long as a horse’s, Irene said, but its body no bigger and its legs no thicker than those of a cat”

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Comments: 11

grazatt [2016-09-19 05:34:28 +0000 UTC]

Those are awesome!
I saw the movie and I really like the idea of goblins keeping pets that are twisted versions of normal animals
Fantasy races having different domesticated animals than humans is an intriguing concept to me, but it is not one that authors have done very much with
Do you know of any other examples?

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Spearhafoc In reply to grazatt [2016-09-24 00:28:47 +0000 UTC]

I can't think of any, other than stories set on other planets where all the animals are fictional. 

But you're right, it is an interesting concept. The Princess and the Goblin even goes as far as saying there aren't any wild beasts in the Goblins' territory because they're so good at domesticating them. 

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grazatt In reply to Spearhafoc [2016-09-29 13:50:31 +0000 UTC]

I know that Dragon magazine had an article on the domesticated animals of demihumans
Elves had domesticated hawks and deer, and gnomes had a marsupial that was pretty much a tree-kangaroo

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KingsOfEvilArt [2016-01-30 12:32:29 +0000 UTC]

I'll have to read that book.!

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Spearhafoc In reply to KingsOfEvilArt [2016-01-30 23:15:36 +0000 UTC]

It's very much a kids' book, but it was apparently one of Tolkien's favourites. He read it to his kids. You can see the influence, especially in his treatment of goblins in The Hobbit. 

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KingsOfEvilArt In reply to Spearhafoc [2016-01-31 18:28:45 +0000 UTC]

Stil, it's quite an early example of fantasy literature.. Any other authors from that time period you could recommend?

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Spearhafoc In reply to KingsOfEvilArt [2016-01-31 23:02:58 +0000 UTC]

Well, I've been reading a lot of Lord Dunsany lately. He's a little later -  early 1900s - but he was hugely influential.  He was one of Lovecraft's favourite authors, and the Dream Cycle is almost a direct lift of his style. Lovecraft once wrote: "There are my 'Poe' pieces and my 'Dunsany' pieces—but alas—where are my Lovecraft pieces?" His first two books, The Gods of Pegana and Time and the Gods, present one myth cycle featuring indifferent gods and how they deal with mankind. There's a chief god named MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ who created the world and all the gods and then went to sleep - and if he ever wakes up, the universe will end (sound familiar?). His subsequent books mix the magical with the mundane, with characters taking train trips from London to the Edge of the World or a Dragon capturing a politician's daughter and taking her to the Lands of Romance. He also did some straight-up early Sword and Sorcery with stuff like "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Sacnoth". He was apparently also a big influence on Robert E. Howard. I would recommend starting with The Book of Wonder, which is from the middle of his career. 

There's also The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison, which I've done a lot of art based on. It's a weird book, definitely, with characters with silly names like Lord Spitfire spouting Elizabethan poetry, but it's definitely a fascinating work. It's very much inspired by Norse sagas in its morality, and not all of it lines up with modern-day thinking. It has epic quests, exciting tales of derring-do, monsters, and morally grey heroes and villains. 

A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay is from 1920 and is far more science fiction than fantasy, but it's interesting and has a lot of cool monsters and creatures. It's largely a work about the positives and negatives of various philosophical systems, so don't expect the plot to be straightforward and literal. 

I just started reading William Morris, who was one of the first authors to write in completely invented worlds. He was an influence on Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. But I haven't read enough to know if I should recommend him or not. 

Let's see, what else? The Fareie Queene by Edmund Spencer is an Elizabethan epic poem about elves and such. I haven't read it yet, as it's extremely long (there's a 30 hour audiobook on Librivox), but it's on my list. 

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KingsOfEvilArt In reply to Spearhafoc [2016-02-01 17:25:47 +0000 UTC]

Woah, that's a lot of info. Thanks so much, I'll have to check those guys out, espiecially Lord Dunsany interests me as I am very fond of Dream Quest.

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juniorWoodchuck [2016-01-30 09:02:14 +0000 UTC]

I absolutely love those!

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Spearhafoc In reply to juniorWoodchuck [2016-01-30 23:16:00 +0000 UTC]

Thanks! 

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juniorWoodchuck In reply to Spearhafoc [2016-02-01 20:47:29 +0000 UTC]

You're most welcome

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