Research source

There appeared in the night to one of the Counts von Hoya, an extremely small little man

Date of account: Nineteenth-century comparative survey
Source: The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries
Reference: The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries · selected passage 227
Rights: public_domain
Language: English with translated traditional material
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

There appeared in the night to one of the Counts von Hoya, an extremely small little man. The count was utterly amazed at him, but he bid him not to be frightened; said he had a request to make of him, and entreated that he might not be refused. The count gave a willing assent, qualified with the provision, that the thing requested should be a matter which lay in his power, and would not be injurious to him or his. The little man then said, "There will come tomorrow night some people to thy house, and make a feast, if thou will lend them thy kitchen, and hall for as long as they want them, and order thy servants to go to sleep, and no one to look at what they are doing or are about; and also let no one know of it but thyself; only do this and we shall be grateful to thee for thy courtesy: thou and thy family will be the better of it; nor will it be in any way hurtful to thee or thine." The count readily gave his consent, and on the following night there came, as if they were a travelling party, over the bridge into the house a great crowd of little people, exactly such as the Hill-mannikins are described to be.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

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