The Bogie was the household spirit; the same with the Robin Goodfellow and Bogle of other parts of England. He played the same part among the old farm-houses and granges of Northamptonshire as the, Brownies and Nisses did among the homesteads of Scotland and Sweden. His dwarfish stature, though somewhat larger than the ordinary race of elves, and his extreme love of mischief, show his connection with the other members of the same family. That he was a merry and jovial sprite we know from the proverb, ‘to laugh like old Bogie,’ or the old proverbial saying, ‘He caps Bogie,’ spoken of a person who is boisterously enjoying himself : often amplified to ‘He caps Bogie, Bogie capt Redcap, Redcap capt Nick.’ Thus reducing the last-mentioned personage to the lowest point in the scale of conviviality. Our goblin; does not appear to have been of so beneficent a character as the Highland Browny, who formed a valuable appendage to the household, and whose services were, at least, worth the ‘creame-bowl, duly set.’ His operations were, for the most part, confined to the grievously tormenting the family in whose abode he – had taken up his residence. He it was whose nocturnal revels in some lonely garret, produced those never-to-be explained sounds which chilled the hearts of superstitious servant-maids. But the cellar was the apartment in which he chiefly delighted ; there he reigned supreme, and, as old legends testify, imbibed the October at a terrible rate. Sternberg, 138

Almost within the memory of persons still living it was customary for the good woman of the cottage, before she retired to rest, to carefully sweep the hearth, and place thereon a vessel of water, to assist in the ablutions, which it was believed formed a principal object of [the fairies’] midnight visits; and if perchance any of the family woke during the night they heard the sound of their tiny footsteps as they gambolled over the fast-cooling hearth. Unless espionage was attempted, prosperity always attended the household thus visited. Tradition has recorded that a man whose house they so frequented, and who had received many favours from them, became smitten with a violent desire to behold his invisible benefactors. Determined to indulge his curiosity, and not having the fate of the Coventry worthy before his eyes, he one night stationed himself behind a knot in the door, which divided the ‘house’ from the sleeping apartment. True to their usual custom, the elves came; but no sooner had he glanced at the objects of his watch than he became blind: and so provoked were the fairies at this breach of hospitality that they deserted his dwelling, and never more returned to it. Sternberg, 132-133

The ‘green sour ringlets,’ frequently found on pasture land, are believed to be made by them; and the fairy dwelling is supposed to exist under the area bordered by the dark circle. In the parish of Brington is one of these, which has attained such great local celebrity as to be called, par excellence, ‘the fairies’ ring.’ It is believed to have existed from the earliest times, and to have resisted all the efforts of the plough to efface it, which, notwithstanding the awful calamities constantly attending such sacrilegious attempts, have, it is said, often been made. Village traditions relate that by running round it nine times on the first night of the full-moon sounds of mirth and revelry may be heard proceeding from the subterranean abode. Sternberg, 137

An acquaintance of mine, a man perfectly firm to  tell the truth, being out at night heard a hunting in the air, and as if they overtook something which they  hunted after, and being overtaken made a miserable cry among them, and seemed to escape; but overtaken again, made the same dismal cry; and again escaped, and followed after till out of hearing.   Some have been so hardy as to lye down by the way  side where the Corpse-Candle passed, that they may  see what passed; for they were not hurted who did  not stand in the way. Some have seen the resemblance  of a skull carrying the Candle, others the shape of the  person that is to die carrying the Candle between its  fore-fingers, holding the light before its face, Some  have said that they saw the shape of those who were to  be at the burying. I am willing to suspend my belief  of this as seeming to be extravagant, though their foreboding knowledge of mortality appears to be very  wonderful and undeniable.

If you make your bed at bedtime, you will look fair in the morning. It is useless to make it earlier; if you do the fairies will pull it to pieces. Gurdon, County Folklore, 132

Calling at a cottage in a retired lane in the parish of Carlton Colville, near this town, a few weeks since, I saw on the chimney-piece what appeared to be a fine specimen of fossil echinus, though disfigured by the successive coats of black lead used to give it a polish. … I was informed that it had been found on the land some twenty years before; that it was ‘a fairy loaf’; and that whoever had one of these loaves in the house would never want for bread. Lowestoft. E., ‘The East Anglian,’ or ‘Notes and Queries,’ edited by S. Tymms, vol. iii, p. 45,

A gentleman-farmer, in the neighhourhood of Woodbridge, had a calf to sell, and happened to be by when his bailiff and a butcher were about to bargain for it. The calf was produced, and was apparently very hot: ‘Oh!’ said the butcher, ‘the Pharisees have been here; and ‘stru’s you are alive, have been riding that there poor calf all night.’ The butcher very gravely instructed my friend how to avert such consequences in future: which was, to get a stone with a hole in it, and hang it up in the calves’ crib, just high enough not to touch the calves backs when standing up: ‘for,’ added the compassionate man of knife and steel, ’it will brush the Pharisees off the poor beasts when they attempt to gallop ’em round.’ This was a master-butcher, a shrewd intelligent man, in 1832. It accounted to me for the suspension of a stone, weighing perhaps a pound, which I had many years observed in my farm stable, just higher than the horses’ backs. And although my men more than half deny it, I can discern that they have heard of the Pharisaic freaks, and more than half believe in them. Ed. Moor. Oriental Fragments, p. 456.

Editor’s Note: This would be a fascinating legend, comparable to other freshwater mermaids from East Anglia. But which village!?! Paranormal Database records a mermaid in the well legend about Fornham All Saints.

Suffolk Superstition: A well in the village was said to contain a mermaid. — A .W.T, Ibid., Ipswich Journal (1877 ?). [Guderon 36]

Perry-Dancers, s. pi. the Northern lights. The^m^« ox perries are the fairies. There is fancy and elegance in this word. It is corrupted, it seems in Lowland Scotch to merry-dancers or pretty dancers, Forby, “Vocabulary of E. Anglia,” vol. ii, p. 249,

Mermaids are supposed to abound in the ponds and ditches in this neighbourhood. Careful mothers use them as bugbears to prevent little children from going too near the water. I once asked a child what mermaids were, and he was ready with his answer at once, ‘Them nasty things what crome you (i.e. hook you) into the water!’ Another child has told me ‘I see one wunst, that was a grit hig thing loike a feesh’… Suffolk. C. W. J., ”The Book of Days,” vol. i, p. 678. [Gurdon Suffolk 35-36]