DWARFS

This page covers one half of the spectrum of "little people". Listed here are the beings typified by the dwarf and goblin: usually male, often ugly, sometimes benign, other times mischevious or evil. A seperate page covering elves, fairies and similar creatures can be found here.

Astos -- Dark Elf -- Domovoi -- Dwarf -- Earth Elemental -- Far Darrig -- Goblin -- Goblin Cap -- Goblin Guard -- Goblin Prince -- Knocker -- Leprechaun -- Leshy -- Red Cap

DWARF

The dwarf is a popular figure in European folktales (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is probably the best-known dwarf story). They often have magical powers, and have a lot in common with folktale magicians - in fact, with their pointed hats and long white beards, stereotypical wizards look like taller versions of garden gnomes. The main difference is that dwarfs are usually benign (excepting variations such as the goblin and red cap), while magicians - especially witches - are often malevolent.

IMAGE: Disney's interpretation of the seven dwarfs

ASTOS, DARK ELF

Dark elves - the race that Astos is a member of, according to FF1 - originate in Norse mythology. I did some research and it appears that they are simply dwarves under a different name. In J.R.R. Tolkien's universe dark elves are elves with less connection to the gods (I think I'm a bit off here, I'm not really much of a Tolkien fan). In in Dungeons and Dragons, however, dark elves are evil, subterranian elves - of the three types of dark elf, these are most likely to have inspired the FF version. Astos' name is Latin for "tickery".

Vendetta adds: "Tolkien only has one Dark Elf, it's a term applied to an individual character in The Silmarillion, though the parallels between him and Astos aren't very strong."

IMAGE: A dark elf from D&D

DOMOVOI

In Russian folklore, every house has a domovoi - a spirit in the form of a small, completely hairy man, one of the house's previous owners, a cat, a dog or even a bale of hay - who keeps hidden during the day and looks after the house at night; but if one of the house's sleeping occupants were to lie in his path, the domovoi would cause trouble. To hear a domovoi cry is an omen of death.

GOBLIN, GOBLIN GUARD, GOBLIN PRINCE, GOBLIN CAP

Goblins are creatures from British folklore. They are sometimes said to be corporeal creatures (like dwarfs), other times spirits. The latter appears to be less popular, although, according to some sources, the word "goblin" is derived from "gobelin", the name of a ghost which reportedly haunted a 12th century French village. Other sources claim that it is derived from "Gob", the name that the alchemist Paracelsus gave to the gnome king. But then, Paracelsus held gnomes to be spirits, so it comes to the same thing. Shakespeare's Hamlet considers goblins not only to be spirits, but demonic spirits: at one point, he questions wheather the apparition of his late father is "a spirit of health, or goblin damned". Goblins are generally held to be mischevious rather than evil or "damned", but there is another famous exception to this rule: the goblins of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings novels. These creatures, also referred to as "orcs", were flesh and blood - and evil. These two variations on the goblin legend - a small, mischevious being and a savage, humanoid monster - came together in Dungeons and Dragons, which made goblins and orcs two seperate creatures, the latter closely resembling Tolkien's creations, the former being weaker versions. FF's feeble goblins are most likely based on D&D's, although the pixie-like FF2 incarnation appears to be a throwback to the original folktales. D&D also has goblin bodyguards and chiefs, which possibly inspired the goblin guards and goblin princes.

The goblin cap is either a reference to the red cap, or short for "goblin captain". The latter isn't as far-fetched as it might sound; in FF3 there were goblin-like monsters called captains coded into the game, although there was no way of actually fighting them.

Wolfmah sent me the following message regarding orcs, to correct a mistake I made elsewhere:
"The origins of the orcs came from mutilated enslave elves. Those elves (not nessecerlly dark elves) were put in cells and forgotten there for a very long time, so they became in the long run orcs. This kind of results was not intend by the man (Morgoth) who put them there, but when he see what had happen to them, he decide to breed them and create an army."

IMAGE: A D&D goblin

LEPRECHAUN

Leprechauns, probably the most well-known creatures of Irish folklore, are commonly held to resemble small, red-bearded men dressed in green. Various traits are attributed to them, such as the ability to make shoes (but only one for a single person) and turn milk sour, but the most popular belief is that each leprechaun has a pot of gold hidden somewhere. Should you catch a leprechaun, he would be forced to lead you to his treasure - unless you looked away from him, otherwise he would disappear.

IMAGE: Clipart showing a common idea of what leprechauns look like

LESHY

The leshies of Slavonic mythology were green-bearded forest spirits (the beard appears to be mentioned invariably in descriptions, implying that, unlike in FF4, all leshies are male) that vary in size - on the outskirts of their forests they are tiny dwarfs; at the centres, they become giants. They are malicious towards humans trespassing in their forests, taking them captive and tickling them (no, I'm not kidding).

FAR DARRIG, KNOCKER, RED CAP

These are some more obscure creatures of fairy lore. The Irish Far Darrig is said to be similar to a leprechaun in appearence, with the exception that he dresses in red - in fact, his name is Gaelic for "red man". He plays tricks but doesn't cause any real harm, although his pranks are crueller than similar creatures as he creates terrifying hallucinations (such as a hag roasted on a spit), rather than simply souring milk. Knockers are Cornish dwarfs that live in mines and guide miners to veins of metal by knocking on the walls. Red caps, however, are much more malevolent. They live in ruins on the border between Scotland and England, and murder those who stay in their homes. They get their name from the fact that they dye their hats with the blood of their victims.

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