A Brownie is one of the most recognized types of Fairy. Brownies appear in the folklore of Scotland and England and are known as the bwca in Wales and the pixie or pisgie in Cornwall. Brownies are helpful beings who become attached to a family and will gladly do chores in the house and on the farm at night when people are sleeping. Brownies do not like to be offered payment for their services. According to lore, the brownie was named a servant of humankind in order to ease the weight of Adam’s curse and was to serve without payment.

Other lore holds that the brownie is too carefree and proud to accept compensation. It is expected and proper, however, to leave a bowl of cream and bits of good food out for the brownie to enjoy at his leisure. Failure to do so may cause the brownie to become mischievous and cause trouble for his human hosts. Brownies also become troublesome if they are criticized. When brownies can be seen, they appear as small men about 3 feet in height, dressed in ragged brown clothes, with brown faces and shaggy hair.

FURTHER READING:

• Briggs, Katherine. An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins – Brownies – Bogies and Other Supernatural Creatures. New York: Pantheon Books, 1976.
• Leach, Maria, ed., and Jerome Fried, assoc. ed. Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979.

SOURCE:

The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits– Written by Rosemary Ellen Guiley – September 1, 2007

Brownies—Traditional brownies are house FAIRIES, who will serve an individual house by performing small household chores, and who are normally rewarded with small offerings of food (although in most cases it’s also thought that a brownie will vanish if given a gift of clothing). Although some brownies could occasionally become mischievous and might even pinch or harass lazy human servants, they were on the whole useful and harmless. In Scotland, brownies supposedly lived in the hollows of trees, in caves, and in the recesses of ruined castles. The popular ballad “Aiken Drum” describes a brownie:

I lived in a lan’ where we saw nae sky,
I dwalt in a spot where a burn rins na by;
But I’se dwall now wi’ you if ye like to try—
Hae ye wark for Aiken Drum?

This 1936 RECITATION by Elizabeth F. Guptill is entitled, appropriately,

“A Brownie,” and was designed to be presented as part of a school PAGEANT (by a “tiny boy wearing a brownie suit, and carrying a JACK-O’- LANTERN”): A Halloween brownie am I,
I like to play tricks on the sly.
I’m happy and jolly,
And brimful of folly.
To play pranks on you
I shall try.
My old jack-o’-lantern and
I Will come snooping around by-and-by.
If you hear elfin laughter,
See lights scurrying after,
You’ll know that the brownies are nigh.

SOURCE:

The Halloween Encyclopedia Second Edition written by Lisa Morton © 2011 Lisa Morton. All rights reserved