Fairies of New England: The Little People of the Hills and Forests

I recently wrote about Hob’s Hole outside Hartford, Connecticut, and the possibility that its name, which arose sometime in the seventeenth century, derived from a supernatural being called a hob.

In that post, I explained that the English tradition of incorporating the word hob into the names of natural formations (such as holes, caves, and tufts of grass) was a reference to the goblin or spirit that lived inside them. This spirit was known to become attached to farming households, performing helpful tasks or creating mischief, as the case may be. The New England Puritans evidently introduced this onomastic tradition to North America, although whether they connected these names with more elaborate folklore about fairies remains unclear.

Another Hob’s Hole,¹ found in Plymouth, Massachusetts, has borne that name since the seventeenth century. First mentioned in 1623 (three years after the Pilgrims landed) and again in 1629 (when settler Abraham Pierce sold “one acre of ground abutting on Hobbs Hole” to a man called Thomas Clark), this Hob’s Hole is even older than the one at Hartford. (Hartford’s was first recorded in 1709 but was probably named much earlier).

Plymouth’s Hob’s Hole lies one mile south of the city’s downtown in a watery meadow or salt marsh beside the ocean. Unlike Hartford’s Hob’s Hole, this one remains intact and appears to be much the same as it was in 1883 when historian William T. Davis described it as follows:

A large wet meadow with small pools of standing water scattered among comparatively dry tussocks of grass difficult to cross except by jumping from one tussock to another and thus avoiding the muddy channels in between. These tussocks are described in dictionaries as “hobs.”

As you can see, Davis was unaware of the word’s earlier meaning of a goblin or household spirit, opting instead to highlight the mundane (and secondary) meaning of a grassy tussock.

One hundred years later in 1986, late historian Jane Cooper Baker was well aware of the name’s double meaning. She referred to the “ancient legendary elf called Hob” who inhabited Runswick Bay in England while also remembering her interactions with the meadow’s grassy tussocks as a child:

I can remember jumping from hob to hob across a foot or two of water. It was an exciting thing to do because, as children, we believed that if you missed the hob and landed in the water, you would immediately be swallowed up by quicksand.

As for Plymouth Colony’s seventeenth-century settlers, they would most likely have been familiar with both the supernatural and mundane significance.

The grassy tussocks and muddy channels of Hob’s Hole today.

A mischievous fairy called Hob

Unfortunately, no stories about hobs from seventeenth-century New England have survived. This doesn’t mean that the Puritans didn’t tell stories about them or that they didn’t know what a hob was; such hearth-side tales or folk beliefs may simply not have been considered worthy of recording. Nevertheless, it isn’t until the mid-to-late twentieth century that we find evidence of stories about a mischievous hob inhabiting Hob’s Hole.

In June 1967, a Boston Globe article described the hob that haunted the Hole in the following terms:

a mischievous fairy called Hob whose legendary presence was recounted by Pilgrim parents to their children.

The description occurs in the context of an article about the mid-twentieth century tavern, Hobshole House, once situated close to the Hob’s Hole Brook. Based on the tavern’s decades-long popularity and the absence of any earlier references to a “fairy called Hob” in published literature,² it seems likely that the Hobshole name was a source of curiosity to diners and that the building may have acted as a “vector” for claims about the mischievous fairy in the nearby marsh. Perhaps the tavern’s owners (Francis and Clementine O’Neill) encouraged stories about the “fairy called Hob” because they entertained the guests and were good for business. In fact, a certain willingness to capitalize on the Hob name might be identified in the Hobstick found on the tavern’s menu: a fried dough stick coated in cinnamon and sugar.

The former Hobshole House, built in 1795 and possible source of mid-twentieth-century claims about a fairy called Hob.

The most complete (though short) version of a story about “Hob” can be found in folklorist Caroline Lieberman Gitman’s 1971 book From These Roots. After researching the story of Hob’s Hole, Gitman spun an imaginative tale about the location, portraying Plymouth’s early settlers as telling tales about the hob of Hob’s Hole. As in the Boston Globe article, she also interpreted Hob as the fairy’s personal name rather than a generic noun, suggesting she got her information from the same source as the Boston Globe journalist.

I quote Gitman’s story in full here because it powerfully evokes the lost origins of many colonial-era place names and the multiple competing meanings of the Hob’s Hole name:

In the long-ago days of New England when Mayflower children of Plymouth were grouped about the famous Rock on a summer’s night between the dusk and the twilight, they heard strange tales from their elders of a mischievous fairy called Hob: “Please tell us more about him,” they begged, as the fireflies gleamed in the darkness among the hobs and hubbles of coarse grass near the shoreline.

“Hob, ’tis said,” began one of the old men, waving his hand in the direction of the lightning bugs down near Poverty Point, “Hob is the cunning sprite who, with his brothers and sisters, helped the daring outlaw Robin Hood and his Merry Men in the beautiful Sherwood Forest. Once, during a raid by the yeomen, Hob disappeared over a rocky cliff into a deep ravine by the sea and never was seen in Old England again.”

“But you said those fireflies are Hob’s fairies,” interrupted a child. “How can they be?”

“Well, Hob was never seen in Old England again,” the elderly one continued patiently, “for the changeling came right over here with us to New England. See! Even this very night Hob’s Hole is on fire with star dust!” The children watched breathlessly as the fireflies glistened over the marshland and the ancient man continued. “Beware that naughty elf never lures you with his light down to his Hole, for the place is haunted by all his hob-goblins and pixies, who make it so bewitching that once there you’ll never want to go away!”

“I thought the spot was called ‘Hob’s Hole’ because Hobomoc, our Indian guide from Strawberry Hill, keeps his canoe in the hole at the mouth of the brook beside the meadow,” said one of the older girls, as the speaker paused.

“Have it your own way, Missy,” the aged person replied. “But remember that as long as summer comes to Plymouth, folks will observe Hob’s fireflies flitting and dancing about on the hubbles, and all who see will be lured by his lively enchantment to come again to the beauty of the region called Hobshole.”

Whether Gitman learned this story from oral tradition or invented it herself, one can see that various elements of English folklore are represented. They include: the hob itself (including a possible allusion to the hob of Runswick Bay in North Yorkshire); the light-bearing fairy or Jack-o’-lantern (recast as the American firefly); and the exploits of Robin Hood (a topic that’s apparently connected to the fairy because the word hob derives from the name Robin). Although the story is fictional, it does describe a possible event, for Plymouth’s early settlers, as I mentioned earlier, were probably well aware of the word’s supernatural meaning.

Is Hob short for Hobbamock?

The other possible derivation of Hob’s Hole mentioned in Gitman’s story is the Wampanoag man Hobbamock. A helpful guide to the Europeans, Hobbamock went to live with the colonists within a year of their arrival in 1620. He also owned land near Hob’s Hole and was said to moor his boat at the mouth of the brook where the inlet provided a natural harbor.

The pool and inlet (in the background) where Hobbamock, the Wampanoag guide, may have moored his boat. It was the inlet that was first given the name Hob’s Hole.

That Hobbamock may have given his name to the Hole is a relatively recent idea. Historian William T. Hollis first mentioned the theory in 1881:

. . . we come to a district of the town, known from early times as Hob’s Hole. On the left hand, in the meadows, the visitor will see an inlet affording a harbor for boats. This is the Hole; and as Hobomock, the faithful Indian friend of the Pilgrims, had land assigned to him near by, it is probable that this Hole was on his land, and that Hob’s is but a natural contraction for Hobomock’s.

Hollis’s theory is certainly plausible. While references to a contracted version of Hobbamock are lacking, the word hole in Colonial New England often referred to a coastal inlet or cove, lending credibility to the notion that Hob’s Hole was named for its use as a natural harbor rather than for being a fairy lair. Nevertheless, one might argue that the simpler explanation is that the name follows the established English pattern of hob-related place names.

Hob’s Hole today

Just as in earlier days when Jane Cooper Baker jumped on the grassy tussocks, the Hob’s Hole meadow continues to exist, and the tussocks are ready to be jumped on. When I visited, the inlet looked rather more polluted than it might have been in the early twentieth century when the young Jane must have ambled in the meadow. However, the grass was a vibrant green, and the water, though muddy, reflected the blue of the sky. On my visit, I did see many hobs, but it was clear that many more would become visible at high tide when the water floods the meadow, filling the channels between the grassy tussocks. (Before you ask, no, I didn’t see that other type of hob—unfortunately.)

The Hob’s Hole name is well known locally, although residents of the neighborhood seem unaware of the wet meadow with its grassy tussocks, the inlet, and the brook. A sixteenth-generation Mayflower descendant who I met in the vicinity believed the name came from a man called Hobbs who’d owned land in the area. He and his wife weren’t aware of the location’s fairy connections despite living next door to the Hobshole House for many years and knowing the O’Neill family.

Whether approaching along the shore or walking along the Hob’s Hole Brook in high boots (I did both), one can reach the inlet where Hobbamock and others may have moored their crafts. This is probably the original Hob’s Hole. The inlet must have provided quick access to the mouth of Hob’s Hole Brook, where the rower could disembark. Today the extraordinarily tall and tough marsh grasses provide an insurmountable defense.

Read about more New England fairies in my book New England Fairies: A History of the Little People of the Hills and Forests.

1. Thanks to Simon Young and Chris Woodyard for listing this location in their survey of North American hob-related place names (in “Three Notes,” Supernatural Studies, 2019). ↩︎
2. In her 1986 history of the Wellingsley/Hob’s Hole neighborhood, local historian Jane Cooper Baker makes no reference to the Pilgrims telling stories about a hob, despite her mentioning English hob folklore. It’s possible she’d heard such claims but didn’t record them because she didn’t consider them historically supportable. She doesn’t mention the Hobbamock theory either. ↩︎