THE GREEK GOBLIN

The writer Adam Roberts has posted an enjoyable piece on his blog comparing goblins in passages by HG Wells, George MacDonald and JRR Tolkien, but amongst all the goblins he has happened upon an etymological bugbear of mine. He repeats the view, widespread on the internet, not least on Wikipedia, that the English word goblin derives from the ancient Greek kobalos. This notion deserves to be questioned.

The idea that kobaloi were mischievous supernatural creatures in Greek myth has been widely propagated among folklorists. Its source appears to have been nineteenth-century Classical scholarship. Robert Brown’s The Great Greek Dionysiak Myth (1878) describes kobaloi as “impudent, thieving, droll, idle, mischievous gnome-dwarfs” (volume 2, pp230-231). HG Liddell and Robert Scott’s original Greek-English Lexicon (1843) glosses kobaloi as “mischievous goblins”. Similar conceptions can be found in Charles Du Fresne Du Cange, Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis, vol 2, p407 (1842), and Christian Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p1308 (1829).

This scholarship follows important Renaissance works. Natale Conti’s Mythologiae (1567), the standard Renaissance work on Classical mythology, characterises kobaloi as “evil and deceitful demons” (book V, chapter 13). Georgius Agricola’s earlier De Animantibus Subterraneis (1549 and 1556) calls them “weak demons” (p502 (538)) and equates them with Germanic kobolds.

However, all these documents refer to just two Greek sources. The first is the lexicon of the late grammarian Hesychius, who wrote in the 5th-6th centuries CE. This in no way supports the use of kobalos to describe supernatural creatures. Hesychius provides no fewer than eleven synonyms for kobalos, but none is a supernatural creature. Hesychius’ definitions accord to the normal use of the word in ancient Greek, to denote an untrustworthy person. Hence its primary definition is “an impudent rogue, arrant knave” in Liddell and Scott’s lexicon and, slightly less archaically, “scoundrel” in the Cambridge Greek Lexicon (2021).

The only instance in surviving Greek literature where the word kobalos is used of supernatural creatures is in Aristophanes’ comedic play The Knights (line 635) from the 5th century BCE. There Kobaloi are among a series of deities of deceit comically invoked by the Sausage-Seller character.

When I saw they believed what he was saying
and were falling for his lies and bull crap,
I said, “Come on, spirits of impudence,
you cheats, you boobies, you rogues [Kobaloi] and rascals,
and the Market, too, where I was brought up
as a child, give me boundless brazenness,
a salesman’s chatter, and a shameless voice.”
As I was saying this to myself, a man
whose arsehole had been buggered out of shape
let rip a fart to my right, an omen
from the gods for which I gave them thanks.

– Aristophanes, The Knights, lines 632-639, translated by Ian Johnston (2017)

It is clear that here Kobaloi are quite unlike creatures in the goblin tradition. They are gods to be called upon for aid. Moreover, they are spurious gods, invented for the purposes of a joke (“supposed deities” per the Cambridge Greek Lexicon). The entire passage is a parody of Greek religious practices. The invocation of gods mocks Greek prayers, and the fart lampoons the auspicious omen of thunder on the right. The Sausage Seller’s prayer to Kobaloi is no more an indication of the Greeks’ religious belief than the fart is of their augury.

There is a related point to address. Brown (op cit) equates kobaloi with other Greek supernatural creatures, the Kabeiroi and Kerkopes. There is no primary evidence to support this idea. It relies on Brown’s perception of similarities among the deities and in the case of Kabeiroi perhaps a superficial phonological resemblance. The argument from supposed similarity is circular, and Brown’s conception of kobaloi has already been shown not to be well founded. The argument from phonology fails to consider the precise sequence of sound change in Greek, and theories suggest Kabeiros may have a quite different etymology from kobalos.

There is therefore nothing to support the idea that kobaloi were seen by the ancient Greeks as creatures like goblins. Such a conception seems not to appear in print until almost two millennia later, in the 16th century CE. Importantly, this also means the notion apparently did not emerge until centuries after our earliest attestation of the word goblin in English, which dates to the 14th century CE. The supposed etymological connection between goblin and kobalos therefore deserves to be treated with scepticism. Kobaloi seem to have been no more than an ancient Greek joke.

A 2,500-year paper chase: Robert Brown, The Great Greek Dionysiak Myth, volume 2, pp230-231 (1878); HG Liddell and Robert Scott, Greek-English Lexicon (1843); Charles Du Fresne Du Cange, Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis, vol 2, p407 (1842); Christian Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p1308 (1829); Natale Conti, Mythologiae, book V, chapter 13 (1567); Georgius Agricola, De Animantibus Subterraneis , p502 (538) (1549 and 1556); Hesychius; Aristophanes, The Knights, lines 632-639 (424 BCE)

For more thoughts on the literary origins of goblins, see this post.

Title art used without permission. No challenge intended to the rights holders.

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