Introduction

In ancient and modern polytheistic and shamanic cultures, houses are viewed as inspirited and as being occupied by one or more house spirits. My recent efforts to build a better relationship with my house and house spirits has led me to researching how people in Britain and, in particular, in my local area and more widely across Lancashire, have related to theirs.

Living Lightly

The earliest people of Britain were hunter-gatherers. They were highly mobile. Those who dwelled in Lancashire spent their summers in temporary camps in various locations on the West Pennines and moved to larger and more static base camps in the western lowlands over the winter. 

I live in Penwortham in a lowland area close to the river Ribble. A couple of miles upriver was a camp at Walton-le-Dale where blades were made. The closest upland camps are on Withnell, Wheelton, Anglezarke, Rivington and Smithills Moors. 

These people lived so lightly on the land not a trace of their dwellings has been found. They slept in tents made from animal hides that they carried with them, supported by stakes made from dwarf birch and willow. The animal hides were viewed as imbued with the spirit of the animal who was killed and the stakes with the spirits of the trees who had been felled. Prayers and offerings were likely made to these spirits before and after their deaths. 

The First Houses

During the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods, settlements were rare but did exist. The most famous example is Star Carr in Yorkshire. Here, the earliest house in Britain was found, dating to around 8,500 BCE. It consisted of a ring of 18 wooden posts enclosing a circular floor 3.5 meters in diameter. It was likely thatched with reeds from the nearby lake. Three later houses were found along with timber platforms from which offerings were made to the lake.

Another example is Howick House in Northumberland dating to 7500BCE. At Lunt Meadows in Merseyside, three houses dating to 6000BCE were found. Close by was an intricate arrangement of stones consisting of two granite boulders, stained red, with sparkling mica pieces, with struck blue flints and a smaller pebble. These likely served a ritual function. Also, a tree had been set alight on the site and a white flint blade deposited underneath it.

It has been theorised that, whilst most of the population remained mobile, some people might have lived permanently at these camps and made them ‘home’. Here, perhaps, we found the earliest house spirits. 

It is likely that offerings were made to placate the land spirits before building a house and to keep them happy whilst people were in residence. It’s possible that some of the land spirits who were recipients came to be house spirits.

During the Neolithic period, in southern Britain, people began settling in farmsteads and taking to small-scale agriculture but this was less common in the north. The earliest domestic settlement in my vicinity is Irby, on the Wirral, from the Middle Bronze Age. It’s a circular structure with post-sockets in which pottery and clay artefacts were found – likely offerings to the land spirits. Within was an oven, pottery and bronze work. Cereals were farmed.

Such farmsteads, and other roundhouses, were simple structures with a hearth in the middle and beds around the outside. People worked and slept in them and no doubt told stories around the fire through the winter months. These houses would have been alive with the spirit of the family, their work, their tales. The fire would likely have been honoured along with the house spirits.

Here, in Penwortham, there was a Bronze Age lake dwelling on Penwortham Marsh consisting of a brushwood platform and piles measuring 17m by 7m. This may have been occupied during the winter and by people travelling the Ribble in dug-out canoes (two of which were found in the nearby area).

Hill Forts and Foundation Burials

In the Late Bronze Age and in the Iron Age people began building hill forts. These ranged in size. Some were a single fortified building with defensive palisades, banks and ditches, whereas others contained whole villages with roundhouses, granaries and storage pits, and shrines.

It’s possible that an earlier small prehistoric fort (or burial mound) lay beneath the Anglo-Saxon fort that gave its name to Castle Hill in Penwortham. Along the Ribble, there were possible promontory forts on Frenchwood Knoll and along the banks at Fishwick Allotments, Red Scar Wood and Boilton Wood.

Hill forts across Britain are often associated with foundation burials. For example, there was an adult burial beneath Maiden Hill in Dorset and at South Cadbury in Somerset there were numerous burials in ritual pits. These may have been made to placate the land spirits and / or to incorporate ancestors into the house. These spirits likely became house spirits.

The tradition of foundation burials of humans and animals is long standing. Two human skeletons were buried beneath a house on Orkney during the Neolithic period and a sea eagle was also buried as a foundation deposit. At Cladh Hallan, in South Ouist, on the Outer Hebrides, two mummified skeletons were deposited beneath a Bronze Age roundhouse. These were composed of different persons showing a complex merging of ancestors and house.

Hill forts were seen to have their own spirit and to be inspirited by past owners. In medieval Welsh literature, we find references to Caer Gwenddolau (‘the Fort of Gwenddolau’) and Staffell Cynddylan (‘The Hall of Cynddylan’) about whose fall exists a lament describing it as ‘forlorn,’ ‘desolate’, ‘dark’.

Roman House Spirits

Unfortunately, the Britons didn’t write anything down, so we don’t know much about their specific beliefs about house spirits or their names. However, we do know about the traditions brought by the Romans. 

It’s worth noting here that Roman building traditions differed to the British. When they came here, they built houses with multiple rooms, including kitchens, dining rooms, baths and individual bedrooms. 

Examples here in Lancashire include the fort at Kirkham and the Roman town at Ribchester known as Bremetennacum, ‘the Fortress by the Roaring Ford’, due to its proximity to the River Ribble. There was also a Roman industrial site at Walton-le-Dale, continuing the earlier blade industry.

The Romans honoured a variety of house spirits. The Lares domesticus were house spirits and might formerly have been spirits of the land. The Lares familiaris were spirits of the family – family ancestors. The penates were spirits of the pantries and kitchen and often had altars in the cupboards and were seen to look after the food and were gifted with food offerings at mealtimes. The male head of the household had a genius who helped him to govern the home and the female a guiding spirit called a Juno. Each family also had their own patron God or Goddess and worshipped the local deities.

Whereas we see examples of Romans taking over British shrines and equating British and Roman deities via interpretatio Romana (for example, Belisama, Goddess of the Ribble, was equated with Minerva at Ribchester), we do not find any examples of British and Roman house spirits being equated. This is likely because household shrines were small and made of organic materials and did not leave any traces in the archaeological records. 

It’s likely that the Britons also honoured both spirits of the house and family and possibly had guiding spirits for their male and female lineages. 

‘Unclean Spirits’

With the coming of Christianity and its establishment as the mainstream religion in Britain following the conversion of Constantine in 312CE and the Augustinian Mission in 597CE, interaction with spirits became frowned upon. Pre-Christian sacred sites were replaced with Christian ones. People were told to pray not to the deities of the land but to the Christian God. ‘Unclean spirits’ were routinely banished by the Christian priesthood.

Still, amongst rural people, the older traditions lived on. These were recorded in later folklore. In his Journey Through Wales, in 1188, Gerald of Wales records the existence of disruptive house spirits in Pembroke. He refers to them as ‘unclean spirits’ who ‘have been in close communication with human beings. They are not visible, but their presence is felt all the same… They have been in the habit of manifesting them-selves, throwing refuse all over the place, more keen perhaps to be a nuisance than to do any real harm.’

In William Not’s house, ‘They were a cause of annoyance to both host and guests alike, ripping up their clothes of linen, and their woollen ones, too, and even cutting holes in them. No matter what precautions were taken, there seemed to be no way of protecting these garments, not even if the doors were kept bolted and barred.’ 

In Stephen Wiet’s house, the spirit argued with humans. ‘When they protested, and this they would often do in sport, he would upbraid them in public for every nasty little act which they had committed from the day of their birth onwards, things which they did not like to hear discussed.’

Gerald notes that Christian priests failed to banish these spirits with holy water. 

Bwbachan

In British Goblins (1880), Wirt Sikes records several stories of the Welsh Bwbachan, ‘house fairies’. He provides the following description: ‘The Bwbach, or Boobach, is the good-natured goblin which does good turns for the tidy Welsh maid who wins its favour by a certain course of behaviour recommended by long tradition. The maid having swept the kitchen, makes a good fire the last thing at night, and having put the churn, filled with cream, on the whitened hearth, with a basin of fresh cream for the Bwbach on the hob, goes to bed to await the event. In the morning she finds (if she is in luck) that the Bwbach has emptied the basin of cream, and plied the churn-dasher so well that the maid has but to give a thump or two to bring the butter in a great lump. Like the Ellyll which it so much resembles, the Bwbach does not approve of dissenters and their ways, and especially strong is its aversion to total abstainers.’

He records a number of tales of how these spirits have come to help on farms. In Glamorganshire, Rowli Pugh was down on his luck. An ellyll ‘elf or fairy’ offered to help on the condition that he bid his ‘good wife leave the candle burning when she goes to bed, and say no more about it.’ Every night, ‘his wife set the candle out, swept the hearth, and went to bed; and every night the fairies would come and do her baking and brewing, her washing and mending, sometimes even furnishing their own tools and materials.’ ‘Everything prospered’. Then, ‘one night… she took a peep at the fair family… through a crack in the door. There they were, a jolly company of ellyllon, working away like mad, and laughing and dancing as madly as they worked. Catti was so amused that in spite of herself she fell to laughing too; and at sound of her voice the ellyllon scattered like mist before the wind, leaving the room empty. They never came back any more; but the farmer was now prosperous, and his bad luck never returned to plague him.’

In a story that shares resemblances with others from across Britain, at Hendrefawr farm, in Merionethshire, a farmer is tormented by a Bwbach who he wishes would ‘flit’. To get rid of the troublesome spirit, he feigns leaving the farm, putting his household goods on a cart and leaving for England. When he reaches a ford called Rhyd-y-Fen, a neighbour asks if he is leaving for good. From the churn on the cart comes a shrill cry, ‘Yes, yes, we are flitting from Hendrefawr to Eingl-dud, where we’ve got a new home.’ The farmer, realising his plan has failed, takes the Bwbach back to their home. 

This shows that once a house spirit has formed an attachment with a certain family, they will often follow the family, rather than remaining with the new owners.

Brownies

In Scotland and some areas of northern England and the midlands, house spirits are referred to as brownies. In his Fairy Mythology, (1828), Thomas Keightley describes a ‘Brownie’ as ‘a personage of small stature, wrinkled visage, covered with short curly brown hair, and wearing a brown mantle and hood. His residence is the hollow of the old tree, a ruined castle, or the abode of man, He is attached to particular families, with whom he has been known to reside, even for centuries, threshing the corn, cleaning the house… He is, to a certain degree, disinterested; like many great personages, he is shocked at anything approaching to the name of a bribe or douceur, yet, like them, allows his scruples to be overcome if the thing be done in a genteel, delicate, and secret way. Thus, offer Brownie a piece of bread, a cup of drink, or a new coat and hood, and he flouted at it, and perhaps, in his huff, quitted the place for ever; but leave a nice bowl of cream, and some fresh honeycomb, in a snug private corner, and they soon disappeared, though Brownie, it was to be supposed, never knew anything of them.’

Here, we find some overlap with other British house spirits with the helping with household chores and enjoyment of offerings of dairy products. We also find the additional rule against giving other forms of payment, particularly clothing.

In other tales, Brownies given clothing take offence and depart. ‘A new mantle and a new hood; / Poor Brownie! ye ‘ll ne’er do mair gude!’ ‘Gie Brownie coat, gie Brownie sark, / Ye ‘se get nae mair o’ Brownie’s wark!’ A Brownie given bread and milk left taking ‘the luck’ of the house with him.

House Boggarts

Here, in Lancashire, house spirits often appear as troublesome boggarts. These spirits traditionally dwell in boggart holes and come to take up residence in farms and cause trouble, possibly because they have taken a disliking to the draining of their land by the ditches that drain the fields. 

In The Lancashire Dictionary, Alan Crosby defines a boggart as a ‘ghost, sprite, evil spirit or feeorin.’ He says, ‘There was scarcely an old house or a lonely valley which did not have its terrifying tales of creatures which roamed, shrieked and caused havoc – though most do not appear to have been especially malevolent, and some were just a nuisance.’

A farmhouse in Boggart’s Hole Clough in Blackley was haunted by a creature with ‘a small shrill voice’ ‘like a baby’s penny trumpet’ who played tricks on the residents and their children. Having decided to leave, as they made their departure they heard the shrill voice say ‘Ay, ay neighbour, we’re flitting you see.” Realising wherever they went the boggart would follow, they turned back.

The boggart of Barcroft Hall in Burnley was reputedly ‘a helpful little fellow’ until given a pair of clogs. After this he caused trouble, breaking pots and pans, making animals sick and lame, preventing the cows from milking and putting the farmer’s prize bull on the roof. Fed up of his tricks the farmer decided to leave. Crossing a small bridge he heard a voice call from beneath, “Stop while I’ve tied my clogs, and I’ll go with you!” The farmer resigned to go back.’

Here we find again the themes of ‘flitting’ and the rule against giving clothes.

Approaching House Spirits

The archaeological and literary evidence for house spirits suggests they originated as land spirits and became incorporated into the house and then became attached to certain families, who they would often follow. They exercise a certain amount of freedom, choosing who they serve, setting conditions, and causing trouble or departing if they are not met. Some are satisfied by any offering of food or drink whilst others demand dairy. Giving them money or clothes appears to be a universal no-no. 

Assessing whether your house has a house spirit and whether it is happy might be evidenced by the feel and condition of the house. Is the house clean and airy? Do you feel like you’re helped with the chores? Does anything get on its own? Or are things always breaking or being misplaced? Is everything always a mess? Do you find you’re plagued by mould and damp?

For those who feel comfortable it is a good idea to try to commune with the house spirit. This can be done in meditation or light trance. A candle can be lit and an offering of food or drink (dairy products if it feels right) can be made. 

Be polite and respectful. Don’t immediately ask for help or favours. Check in with the spirit about who they are, how long they’ve been there, what they need. Depending on your own and the spirit’s ways of speaking and listening, you might see and hear the spirit directly with your inner sense or might receive feelings, an inner knowing, or some physical sign like a creak or blast of wind. Be aware that such spirits have likely not been talked to for a long time and might be feeling hurt and resentful about their neglect. 

Afterwards, if drawn to, you might set aside a space for the spirit with a representation, a candle, or a place for offerings, as you both see fit. 

The spirit can then be consulted on questions relating to the house such as cleaning, decorating and renovation and even asked for advice on family affairs.

When considering moving house you might ask if the spirit wants to stay or leave. And… if you don’t… you might find that it comes flitting with you!

SOURCES

Barrowclough, D. Prehistoric Lancashire, (The History Press, 2011)
Crosby, A. The Lancashire Dictionary, (Smith Settle, 2000)
Keightley, T., The Fairy Mythology, (1828), https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/tfm/tfm130.htm
Harland, J. Wilkinson, Lancashire Folklore, (1867), Project Guntenburg Ebook (2012), https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/41148/pg41148-images.html
Lamb, J. ‘Lancashire’s Prehistoric Past’, Linda Sever (ed), Lancashire’s Sacred Landscape, (2010, History Press)
Lecouteux, C. The Tradition of Household Spirits, (Inner Traditions, 2013)
Sikes, W. British Goblins, (1880), Project Gutenburg Ebook, (2010), https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34704/34704-h/34704-h.htm
Turner-Bishop, A, ‘Fairy and Boggart Sites in Lancashire,’ Sever, L. (ed), Lancashire’s Sacred Landscape, (The History Press, 2010)
https://historic-liverpool.co.uk/lunt-meadows-mesolithic-settlement/
https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2024/research/hunter-gatherers-orderly-home/