“Close my eyes.  Spin me around.  Show me the elf.  I look in the water and see…myself?”

These words are from a short play about the origins of Brownies that is sometimes performed during Girl Scout ceremonies.  The mother in the play tells her lazy children that all the bad things that have been happening to them (broken toys, lost shoes, etc.) are because a boggart has moved into the house and he must be changed back into a brownie again or things will only get worse.

A boggart is a small fairy creature found in legends all over Britain.  Their main occupation in life seems to be causing household mischief such as spoiling food, misplacing things, and knocking things over.  A boggart chose a victim and attached himself to the unlucky person, following them and basically making their lives as difficult as possible.  The boggart was also very hard to get rid of.

John and Caitlin Matthews give a good example of this in their The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures:

A Yorkshire farmer called George Gilbertson got on the wrong side of a boggart which attached itself to his household.  The boggart spread mischief all over the house, snatching food from the children’s mouths, throwing porridge into cupboards – all invisibly.  One day, one of the children discovered an elf-bore or knothole in the wood of a cupboard.  He started to play with it, thrusting the point of a shoe-horn into the hole.  Immediately, the shoe-horn popped out and struck him on the forehead.  The boy had discovered the boggart’s hiding place.  Daily the children played this game with their new friend, but the adults found the disorder and upset that the boggart caused about the place too much to bear, so they decided to move.  As they were loading up a neighbor came along to ask why they were moving.  ‘I’m forced to because of that damned boggart.  It’s worried my good wife nearly to death and that’s why we’re flitting.’  From the depths of a churn upon the cart came an echoing voice, ‘And that’s why we’re flitting!’  It was the boggart.  George started to unload the cart saying to his wife, ‘If I’d known, we needn’t have gone to all this trouble.  Still, better to be tormented in the old house as be tormented in a house we don’t know.’  And so they returned, waiting for the time when the boggart was tired of his tricks.

Boggarts were considered upset brownies.  A brownie was a sort of shaggy, shy, little fairy (sans wings, more like a beardless garden gnome) that adopted a household and cared for it.  Their main goal in life was to do housework chores.  They were about 3ft tall and wore brown.  It was very hard to catch sight of one, as they were known to be very aware of their surroundings and secretive.

But brownies sometimes took one person in a household as a particular favorite.  They would show themselves to this person and become the person’s confidant, often giving very good advice.  In more than one legend, a brownie becomes fond of the lady of the house to the point where he will summon a midwife or doctor to her aide.

How, then, did such a helpful sprite become the mischievous, slightly malicious boggart?  Brownies expected to be paid for their work.  They took their wages in bread or cream and could turn on an ungrateful household that omitted his reward or a forgetful household that offered him water or meat.  They also despised lying and meanness.

A brownie turned boggart’s wrath could be unending, as we have seen, but there were a few ways of getting rid of one.  Presenting the boggart with gifts of cream and bread might turn him back, though it was unlikely, a bit of too little too late.  Some legends talk about gifting the boggart with a tiny suit of clothes as a means of getting him to leave.  Others suggest that a holy water dousing could cause the boggart to disappear forever.

The mother in the Girl Scout play tells her children to leave a bowl of milk and bread out for the boggart.  She also says if they want to see him as a brownie, they must not stay up to see him working but go to the local pond, recite the charm, and look in the water.  The children disobey their mother and stay up all night to see the brownie in action.  He never comes.  The children get nervous that their mother will know in the morning that they stayed up because the brownie didn’t come and clean up the house.   They frantically clean the house and leap into bed.  The next day they go to the pond and recite the charm.  When they look into the water, they see their own reflections and realize that they were both the boggart and the brownie all along.

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