A spriggan is a

legendary creature A legendary creature (also mythical or mythological creature) is a type of fictional entity, typically a hybrid, that has not been proven and that is described in folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses ...

from

Cornish folklore Cornish mythology is the folk tradition and mythology of the Cornish people. It consists partly of folk traditions developed in Cornwall and partly of traditions developed by Britons elsewhere before the end of the first millennium, often sh ...

. Spriggans are particularly associated with

West Penwith West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

Etymology

''Spriggan'' is a dialect word, pronounced with the grapheme as /d͡ʒ/, sprid-jan, and not sprigg-an, borrowed from the Cornish

plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...

'' spyrysyon'' 'spirits'.

In folklore

Spriggans have often been depicted as grotesquely ugly, wizened old men with large childlike heads. They were said to be found at old ruins,

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...

s, and barrows guarding buried treasure. Although small in stature, they have often been considered to be the ghosts of giants and retained gigantic strength, and in one story collected by Robert Hunt, they showed the ability to swell to enormous size. Hunt associated these spirits with the hillfort known as

Trencrom Hill Trencrom Hill (or Trecrobben) is a prominent hill fort, owned by the National Trust, near Lelant, Cornwall. It is crowned by an univallate Neolithic tor enclosure and was re-used as a hillfort in the Iron Age. Cairns or hut circles can be seen ...

in Cornwall. Spriggans were notorious for their unpleasant dispositions, and delighted in working mischief against those who offended them. They raised sudden whirlwinds to terrify travellers, sent storms to blight crops, and sometimes stole away mortal children, leaving their ugly

changeling A changeling, also historically referred to as an auf or oaf, is a human-like creature found in folklore throughout Europe. A changeling was believed to be a fairy that had been left in place of a human (typically a child) stolen by other fairi ...

s in their place. They were blamed if a house was robbed or a building collapsed, or if cattle were stolen. In one story, an old woman got the better of a band of spriggans by turning her clothing inside-out (turning clothing supposedly being as effective as holy water or iron in repelling fairies) to gain their loot. On Christmas Eve, spriggans met for a midnight Mass at the bottom of deep mines, and passersby could hear them singing. However, it was not spriggans but the buccas or knockers who were associated with tin mining, and who played a protective role towards the miners. Based on the collections of Robert Hunt and William Bottrell, Katharine Briggs characterized the spriggans as

fairy A fairy (also fay, fae, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, English, and French folklore), a form of spirit, ...

bodyguards. ''

The English Dialect Dictionary ''The English Dialect Dictionary'' (''EDD'') is the most comprehensive dictionary of English dialects ever published, compiled by the Yorkshire dialectologist Joseph Wright (1855–1930), with strong support by a team and his wife Elizabeth Mar ...

'' (1905) compared them to the

troll A troll is a being in Nordic folklore, including Norse mythology. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human bei ...

s of Scandinavia.

Sculpture

A sculpture of a spriggan by

Marilyn Collins Marilyn Collins is a London-based sculptor, known internationally, who has exhibited in many parts of the world. She has several installations on display in public gardens in the UK, a notable example being the Spriggan set in a wall on the Park ...

can be seen in

Crouch End Crouch End is an area of North London, approximately from the City of London in the western half of the borough of Haringey. It is within the Hornsey postal district (N8). It has been described by the BBC as one of "a new breed of urban villag ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, in some arches lining a section of the

Parkland Walk The Parkland Walk is a linear green pedestrian and cycle route in London, which follows the course of the railway line that used to run between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace, through Stroud Green, Crouch End, Highgate and Muswell Hill. It ...

(a disused railway line). The sculpture was installed in 1993. If walking along the Parkland Walk from

Finsbury Park Finsbury Park is a public park in the London neighbourhood of Harringay. It is in the area formerly covered by the historic parish of Hornsey, succeeded by the Municipal Borough of Hornsey. It was one of the first of the great London parks ...

Highgate station Highgate is a London Underground station and former railway station in Archway Road, in the London Borough of Haringey in north London. The station takes its name from nearby Highgate Village. It is on the High Barnet branch of the Norther ...

, the ''Spriggan'' is to the right just before the disused railway platforms of the former Crouch End station. To the left, on the southside of the Parkland Walk is

Crouch Hill Park Crouch may refer to: Places * Crouch Island, Antarctica * Crouch, Swale, a hamlet within Boughton under Blean, Kent, England * Crouch, Tonbridge and Malling, near Sevenoaks, Kent, England * River Crouch, Essex, England * Crouch, Idaho, United St ...

where

Ashmount School This is a list of schools in the London Borough of Islington, England In 2000, CEA, a private firm, took over the running of Islington's state schools. The education service returned to the Council in 2011. Islington schools have improved rapidl ...

has been located since January 2013. The sculpture is sometimes mistaken for the

Green Man The Green Man is a legendary being primarily interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of new growth that occurs every spring. The Green Man is most commonly depicted in a sculpture, or other representation of a face which is ...

or Pan.

In popular culture

Spriggans have been featured as fey creatures in the

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...

roleplaying game since the 1980s. Additionally, Spriggans - in the style of the Parkland Walk sculpture - can be found in ''

The Elder Scrolls ''The Elder Scrolls'' is a series of Action role-playing game, action role-playing video games primarily developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The series focuses on Nonlinear gameplay, free-form gameplay in an ...

'' series of video games and they are portrayed as females.

Citations

General sources