Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Goblin Fueled Rage Of Erlkings & Elverkongens Datters - A Very Different Goblin OSR Ecology -

Goblins are ubiquitous in Dungeons & Dragons & in B10 Dark's Dark Terror adventure they're some of the central antagonists. But where are they coming from?! Well I turned my attention back to Dark Albion & the Lion & Dragon rpg once again.
 


Each & every time a gate way to Fairyland opens along with the waves of unreality there are Chaos impregnated fungal spores that enter our local space time. These spores eventually grow into malevolent life forms that pick up the local psychic vibrations & dreams of nearby humans with abandon. The goblins  take on the characteristics of humans in a twisted & evil mockery of  humanity. They are the shock troops & cannon fodder of Chaos & of Elven kind beneath notice.




Wiki's goblin entry provides the fodder;

"Alternative spellings include gobblin, gobeline, gobling, goblyn, and gobbelin.
English goblin is first recorded in the 14th century and is probably from unattested Anglo-Norman *gobelin,[1] similar to Old French gobelin, already attested around 1195 in Ambroise of Normandy's Guerre sainte, and to Medieval Latin gobelinus in Orderic Vitalis before 1141,[2][3] which was the name of a devil or daemon haunting the country around Évreux, Normandy.
It may be related both to German kobold and to Medieval Latin cabalus, or *gobalus, itself from Greek κόβαλος (kobalos), "rogue", "knave", "imp", "goblin".[2][4] Alternatively, it may be a diminutive or other derivative of the French proper name Gobel, more often Gobeau,[5][6] diminutive forms Gobelet, Goblin, Goblot, but their signification is probably "somebody who sells tumblers or beakers or cups".[7] Moreover, these proper names are not from Normandy, where the word gobelin, gobelinus first appears in the old documents. German Kobold contains the Germanic root kov- (Middle German Kobe "refuge, cavity", "hollow in a rock", Dial. English cove "hollow in a rock", English "sheltered recess on a coast", Old Norse kofi "hut, shed" ) which means originally a "hollow in the earth".[8][9] The word is probably related to Dial. Norman gobe "hollow in a cliff", with simple suffix -lin or double suffixation -el-in (cf. Norman surnames Beuzelin,[10] Gosselin,[11] Étancelin,[12] etc.)
The Welsh coblyn, a type of knocker, derives from the Old French gobelin via the English goblin.[13][14]
The term goblette has been used to refer to female goblins"



There are far darker connotations of goblins in both golden age horror comics  & German folk lore in the form of the Erlking. For me the great Eighties film with David Bowie Labyrinth has far darker connections with German mythology. Jennifer Connelly's character has far more in common with the
Erlking's daughter then we see in the classic dark fantasy musical film.
According to Jacob Grimm, the term originates with a Scandinavian (Danish) word, ellekonge "king of the elves",[2] or for a female spirit elverkongens datter "the elven king's daughter", who is responsible for ensnaring human beings to satisfy her desire, jealousy or lust for revenge.[3][4] The New Oxford American Dictionary follows this explanation, describing the Erlking as "a bearded giant or goblin who lures little children to the land of death", mistranslated as Erlkönig in the late 18th century from ellerkonge.[5]
It has been suggested,[by whom?] that the term may derive not from "elf-king" but from the name of Herla, a figure in medieval English folklore, adapted as Herlequin, Hellequin in medieval French, in origin the leader of the Wild Hunt, in French known as maisnie Hellequin "household of Hellequin" (and as such ultimately identical with Woden), but recast as a generic "devil" in the course of the Middle Ages (and incidentally, in the 16th century also the origin of the Harlequin character). Sometimes also associated is the character of Herrequin, a ninth-century count of Boulogne of proverbial wickedness.[6]
Herla is cast in the role of a king of the Britons who ends up spending three centuries in the realm of the elves and thus missing the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in Walter Map's 12th century De nugis curialium. The origin of the name Herla would be erilaz ("earl", Old Saxon erl), also found in the name of the Heruli (so that German erl-könig would literally correspond to earl-king)
Alternative suggestions have also been made; in 1836, Halling suggested a connection with a Turkic and Mongolian god of death or psychopomp, known as Erlik Chan
Robert Howard often used the cult of Erlik Chan as the central villains behind many of his modern tales most dangerous outings.

What does this this all mean? It means that that there are far more to goblins & witch cults then might first appear. The Elf King's Daughter might well be a head of a coven or cult of chaos with an army of goblins backing her. Remember the name says it all ;

"female spirit elverkongens datter "the elven king's daughter", who is responsible for ensnaring human beings to satisfy her desire, jealousy or lust for revenge"
In my own 1904 New York City campaign the maisnie Hellequin "household of Hellequin" is a group of  murderous & necrotic Elven cults I developed using Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos & the  Amazing Adventures Companion




These cults are strongly connected with the other Le Fey sister from Arthurian literature and these familial ties weave their way from England all the way to the Kaiser's Germany. There's far more to the groves of druids & witches then at first one may think. And that lack of knowledge may get one killed!

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