Trasgu

What it is

The trasgu is a small goblin of the house, told across northern Spain and known best in Asturias, where he counts as that region's most familiar mythological being. Galician, Cantabrian and northern Portuguese storytelling carry him as well. He is pictured as a tiny man who walks with a limp on his right side, has dark skin, dresses in red and wears a pointed red cap, and his left hand has a hole through it. Some tellers give him horns, a tail, sheep-like ears and a long grey and black cloak; others see him as slight, in a tight dark brown garment. Households blame him for noises after dark and for objects that turn up in the wrong place.

Where it comes from

Storytellers across the north of the Iberian peninsula place him in a family of European house spirits that takes in the gnome, the sylph and the kobold. The creature's beginnings are attributed to Celtic tradition, and the Asturian form is said to be shared with Celtic-derived lore in Galicia. His pranks are repeated in variant tellings in many towns of the peninsula, and he turns up in Lazarillo de Tormes, the anonymous 1554 novella, in short farces by Cervantes and in comedies by Lope de Vega. In Portugal he belongs to the folklore of Trás-os-Montes, and the Portuguese are said to have carried the figure through their empire, where a comparable being, the Saci, arose in Brazil.

How it is done

The tales offer no easy dismissal: a family that moves house finds he has come along too, carrying the lamp. What works in story is a task that cannot be finished. Three are named, namely fetching the sea away in a basket, collecting scattered millet from the floor while the grain slips through the hole in his palm, and making a black sheep white. Believing himself equal to anything, he accepts and keeps going until he is worn out. With the job unfinished and his pride hurt, he leaves and does not return. He is also said to bolt if a person copies goblin behaviour.

Tools and materials

What marks him out is simple and easy to hold in mind: the red cap, the uneven walk, the pierced left hand. Those details let a listener recognise him straight away, and one of them decides the outcome of a task, since grain cannot be gathered in a palm with a hole through it. In Cantabria the covering is different, leaves and moss worn so that people passing through the woods take no notice. The objects named in the stories are ordinary house things: a basket, a lamp, a chest of clothes, a herd of sheep.

What it is for

The tales give a household words for the small disturbances of the night, a noise on the stairs, a pot out of place, a garment moved, an animal restless. Because the family finds everything where it belongs by morning, the culprit is treated as a nuisance rather than a danger. A household that treats him well is said to gain a helper instead, since a trasgu in good humour is credited with finishing chores before dawn. When his mood sours, the household feels it in small breakages and mess. The figure marks the line between a home in order and one that has slipped.

Peoples and places

Asturias is where he is most at home, and each neighbouring region keeps its own telling. In western Asturias he is also called Cornín and Xuan Dos Camíos, and trasno is the usual Galician and Portuguese form. Cantabrian storytellers make him a forest dweller with a black face and green eyes whose trick is mockery, aimed above all at girls busy at a task such as herding. Galician and northern Portuguese versions travel under the name trasno, and Portuguese tradition carried a related being, the Saci, to Brazil.

What people believe

Behind the stories lies a world in which a house is not quite private after dark. Small beings have their own temper and their own self-regard, and they answer to how they are treated. The trasgu causes no lasting harm: whatever he upsets is found in place the next morning. His weak spot is vanity, and it is pride, rather than any counter-charm, that defeats him. The Asturian figure is said to belong to a Celtic-derived body of myth shared with Galicia, which sets him beside a wider northern European company of house and nature spirits.

When it is done

The night is his time. He is said to come in while the household sleeps, and any work he does for a family that treats him well is finished before morning. Nothing in the tales fastens him to a season, a feast or a phase of the moon. His visits are the ordinary dark hours of any night, and the traces he leaves are noticed at daybreak.

Compare and confuse

He is grouped with European sprites such as the gnome, the sylph and the kobold, and with the English goblin. The Spanish word trasgo is commonly used to render goblin, and fantasy writing sometimes muddles it with orc: the Spanish Hobbit calls goblins trasgo, while the Spanish Lord of the Rings keeps orcos for orcs. Lia Wyler's Brazilian Portuguese Harry Potter uses trasgo for what English editions call a troll.

Questions people ask about Trasgu

Good reading and sources

• Trasgu on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data