Redcap

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For other uses, see Redcap (disambiguation).

A Red Cap or Redcap, also known as a powrie or dunter, is a type of malevolent murderous goblin, elf or fairy found in British folklore. They inhabit ruined castles found along the border between England and Scotland. Redcaps are said to murder travelers who stray into their homes and dye their hats with their victims' blood (from which they get their name).^[1] Indeed, redcaps must kill regularly, for if the blood staining their hats dries out, they die. Redcaps are very fast in spite of the heavy iron pikes they wield and the iron-shod boots they wear. Outrunning the buck-toothed little daemons is quite impossible; the only way to escape one is to quote a passage from the Bible. They lose a tooth on hearing it, which they leave behind.

The most infamous redcap of all was Robin Redcap. As the familiar of Lord William de Soulis, Robin wreaked much harm and ruin in the lands of his master's dwelling, Hermitage Castle. Men were murdered, women cruelly abused, and dark arts were practiced. So much infamy and blasphemy was said to have been committed at Hermitage Castle that the great stone keep was thought to be sinking under a great weight of sin, as though the very ground wanted to hide it from the sight of God.

Yet Soulis, for all the evil he wrought, met a very horrible end: he was taken to the Nine Stane Rigg, a circle of stones hard by the castle, and there he was wrapped in lead and boiled to death in a great cauldron.

[edit] Redcaps In Popular Culture

Red Cap is Monster in My Pocket #25. They appear in the video game, sliding down diagonal girders in the stage 4 construction site.

Mike Mignola, the author of the Hellboy comic book series, includes a short story entitled "Iron Shoes" which depicts Hellboy investigating an old abandoned castle in Scotland inhabited by a canabilistic goblin who wears iron shoes and hurls iron spears at Hellboy. This story can be found in Mignola's third hellboy trade paperback volume "The Chained Coffin and Other Tales" following the story "The Corpse".

Redcaps are mentioned in the Harry Potter series by British author J. K. Rowling.

Redcaps are enemies which match their original description of goblins in the MMORPG City of Heroes.

Redcaps are one of the basic Kiths of Kithain in Changeling the Dreaming, the RPG by Whitewolf. Red caps (aka powries) are also some of the monsters in R.A. Salvatore's DemonWars series.