Boggart

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For boggarts from the Harry Potter novels, see boggart (Harry Potter).

In Celtic mythology, a boggart (or bogart, bogan, bogle or boggle) is a household spirit, sometimes mischievous, sometimes helpful. In Northern England, at least, there was the belief that the boggart should never be named, as when the boggart was given a name, it would not be reasoned with or persuaded and become uncontrollable and destructive.

It is said that the boggart crawls into people's beds at night and puts a clammy hand on their faces. Sometimes he strips the bedsheets off them. Sometimes a boggart will also pull on a person's ears. A horseshoe hung on the door of a house will keep a boggart away.

It is also an agricultural goblin, responsible for missing implements on the farm. This is why today the word boggart is a verb meaning to steal, to take more than one's fair share, or to refuse to share.

There is a large municipal park called 'Boggart Hole Clough,' which is bordered by Moston and Blackley in Manchester, England. Clough is a northern dialect word for a steep sided, wooded valley; a large part of Boggart Hole Clough is made up of these valleys and are said to be haunted by Boggarts. Supposed mysterious disappearances over the years, particularly in the early 19th century, were often attributed to the Boggart of the Clough.

Boggarts crop up regularly as a term for a ghost in the North West of England - for instance, the Clegg Hall boggarts, ghosts of two children at a ruined hall to the East of Manchester.

Boggles are evil creatures in the Chronicles of Narnia, a series of fantasy novels by C. S. Lewis.

On Puck, a moon of Uranus, there is a crater named "Bogle," in deference to the system of nomenclature on this satellite, whose features are all named after various mischievous spirits.

Hairy Boggart is in the Monster in My Pocket series. He is very skinny, hairy, and carries a scythe, as per a particular folktale in which a human farmer steals the Boggart's land and comes up with various ways to keep the Boggart from farming it[1].

Tasha Tudor's Corgi-related picture books feature friendly Boggarts.