horrible creatures were very much the same as the animals now seen
about farms and homes in the country, with the exception of a few
of them, which had been wild creatures, such as foxes, and indeed
wolves and small bears, which the goblins, from their proclivity
towards the animal creation, had caught when cubs and tamed. But
in the course of time all had undergone even greater changes than
had passed upon their owners. They had altered - that is, their
descendants had altered - into such creatures as I have not
attempted to describe except in the vaguest manner - the various
parts of their bodies assuming, in an apparently arbitrary and
self-willed manner, the most abnormal developments. Indeed, so
little did any distinct type predominate in some of the bewildering
results, that you could only have guessed at any known animal as
the original, and even then, what likeness remained would be more
one of general expression than of definable conformation. But what
increased the gruesomeness tenfold was that, from constant
domestic, or indeed rather family association with the goblins,
their countenances had grown in grotesque resemblance to the human.

No one understands animals who does not see that every one of them,
even amongst the fishes, it may be with a dimness and vagueness
infinitely remote, yet shadows the human: in the case of these the
human resemblance had greatly increased: while their owners had
sunk towards them, they had risen towards their owners. But the
conditions of subterranean life being equally unnatural for both,
while the goblins were worse, the creatures had not improved by the
approximation, and its result would have appeared far more
ludicrous than consoling to the warmest lover of animal nature. I
shall now explain how it was that just then these animals began to
show themselves about the king's country house.