IN addition to the ghosts, boggles and dobbies that haunt Cumbria, there is also the brownie. The most famous of the brownies is the one that lived alongside human folk at Millom in the south of the county. This is the report of the creature as it appeared in Lays and Legends of the English Lake Country, by John Pagen White, published 1873:-

Among the local spirits of Cumberland, whose existence is believed in by the vulgar is one named Hob-Thross, whom the old gossips report to have been frequently seen in the shape of a "Body aw ower rough," lying by the fire side at midnight. He was one of the class of creatures called Brownies, and according to popular superstition, had especially attached himself to the family at Millom Castle.

He was a solitary being, meagre, flat-nosed, shaggy and wild in his appearance, and resembled the " lubbar fiend," so admirably described by Milton in L' Allegro. Gervase of Tilbury speaks of him as one of the “dsemones, senile vultu, facie corrugata, statura pusilli, dimidium pollicis non habentes”. In the day time he lurked in remote recesses of the old houses which he delighted to haunt,; and, in the night, sedulously employed himself in discharging any laborious task which he thought might be acceptable to the family, to whose service he had devoted himself.

He loved to stretch himself by the kitchen fire when the menials had taken their departure. Before the glimpse of morn he would execute more work than could be done by a man in ten days. He did not drudge from the hope of recompense : on the contrary, so delicate was his attachment, that the offer of reward, but particularly of food, infallibly would occasion his disappearance for ever. He would receive, however, if placed for him in a snipped fot, a quart of cream, or a mess of milk-porridge. He had his regular range of farm houses ; and seems to have been a kind spirit, and willing to do any thing he was required to do.

The servant girls would frequently put the cream in the chum, and say, "I wish Hob would churn that," and they always found it done. Hob's readiness to fulfil the wishes of his friends was sometimes productive of ludicrous incidents. One evening there was every prospect of rain next day, and a farmer had all his grain out. "I wish," said he, " I had that grain housed." Next morning Hob had housed every sheaf, but a fine stag which had helped him was lying dead at the barn door. The day however became extremely fine, and the farmer thought his grain would have been better in the field: "I wish," said he, "that Hob-Thross was in the mill-dam ;" next morning all the farmer's grain was in the mill-dam. Such were the tales which were constantly told of the Millom Brownie, and as constantly believed.

He left the country at last, through the mistaken kindness of some one, who made him a coat and hood to keep him warm during the winter. He was heard at night singing at his favourite haunts for a while about his apparel, and "occupation gone," and at length left the country.

The Cumberland tradition affirms that those persons who on Fasting's-Even, as Shrove Tuesday is vulgarly called in the North of England, do not eat heartily, are crammed with barley chaff by Hob-Thross : and so careful are the villagers to set the goblin at defiance, that scarcely a single hind retires to rest without previously partaking of a hot supper.