disappeared from the face of the country. According to the legend,
however, instead of going to some other country, they had all taken
refuge in the subterranean caverns, whence they never came out but
at night, and then seldom showed themselves in any numbers, and
never to many people at once. It was only in the least frequented
and most difficult parts of the mountains that they were said to
gather even at night in the open air. Those who had caught sight
of any of them said that they had greatly altered in the course of
generations; and no wonder, seeing they lived away from the sun, in
cold and wet and dark places. They were now, not ordinarily ugly,
but either absolutely hideous, or ludicrously grotesque both in
face and form. There was no invention, they said, of the most
lawless imagination expressed by pen or pencil, that could surpass
the extravagance of their appearance. But I suspect those who said
so had mistaken some of their animal companions for the goblins
themselves - of which more by and by. The goblins themselves were
not so far removed from the human as such a description would
imply. And as they grew misshapen in body they had grown in
knowledge and cleverness, and now were able to do things no mortal
could see the possibility of. But as they grew in cunning, they
grew in mischief, and their great delight was in every way they
could think of to annoy the people who lived in the open-air storey
above them. They had enough of affection left for each other to
preserve them from being absolutely cruel for cruelty's sake to
those that came in their way; but still they so heartily cherished
the ancestral grudge against those who occupied their former
possessions and especially against the descendants of the king who
had caused their expulsion, that they sought every opportunity of
tormenting them in ways that were as odd as their inventors; and
although dwarfed and misshapen, they had strength equal to their