House Spirits of the Iberian Folklore
Portuguese Folkloric Creatures
House spirits are a type of entity from Iberian folklore. There’s a certain variety of these creatures and their names also varies according to the area of the peninsula. These creatures are mostly evil spirits who are in possession of a house.
The name commonly used to refer to all these creatures is duende, which is a contraction of the old spanish “duen de casa”, meaning “owner of the house”1. In portuguese folklore exists several kinds of duendes, such as the Fradinho da mão furada, Trasgos and Maruxinhos.
Fradinho da Mão Furada (Pierced Hand Friar)
According to Leite de Vasconcellos, an ethnographer, this creature is seen by the people as the devil himself. In a legend retold by Leite de Vascocellos the Fradinho da Mão furada is described as being dressed as a friar. He is said to be associated with witches and often offers riches to his victims. For a better understanding of what this creature is and how he is presented in stories I will give you a translation of a legend collected by Leite de Vascocellos2:
It is said that in one occasion a soldier was walking along a road and was very tired, and then he found a woman to whom he asked for a coat, because he was so cold. She told him she could not give him a coat, so he asked her if there was a house around there where he could stay. She said: “Around here there is none, there is only that big house, unhabited, because they say the devil lives there.” And he answered: “I don’t care, I’m going there; I am not afraid.” So, he went in there, lit a fire, ate what he was given in the village and lay in the floor to sleep, but he was a little startled. At midnight he heard a big noise inside the chimney, and a friar entered through his room, with his hands inside his habit sleeves. The friar asked him: “Who gave you permission to enter this house?””No one. I needed to sleep, because I was very tired, so I entered.” The friar told him:”Well, since you are so cheerful, you will see the meetings, but, if you do not want to follow what they (the witches) follow, I do not care, if you want money I can give you that too; go there at the chimney corner, and you’ll find as much as you want.” The soldier aswered him he did not need money. Then the friar gave him the key to the wine house, pantry, to the whole house, where he could find anything he would need. Sometime after he started seeing some dark figures, who came to kiss the pierced hand the friar would present them. And each figure, who were naked witches greased in a black substance, gave an account of what they had done. One said she had taken a unbaptised child, and the friar did not scream at her. The other had taken a baptised child. The friar also did not scream at her. The other had taken a child without being baptised at home and the friar screamed at her. All the witches gave an account of their deeds and then the audience was over. The soldier became very rich.
Trasgo
Trasgo is a spirit who torments people who live inside a particular house. Their activity is similar to what is now associated with hauted houses such as strange noises, sounds of tearing and crying at night, broken windows, and the like. In the past, people believed that if someone had been treated unfairly in a certain house, after death he would come back and torment the people who lived there3.
In the stories I read I could not find a physical description of these beings, but they seem to be small sized spirits. In one story collected by Leite de Vasconcellos the trasgo is able to enter or transform himself into a wooden seat4.
I will also translate a Trasgo legend to be easier to understand how these beings operate5:
It is said that a long time ago, a woman who lived alone, everyday when she would go to sleep, would hear a little spirit crying and tearing the floor near the room door. But, when she would turn on the lights everything would go silent. Then, when the light was turned off the crying and tearing resumed. Sometimes the woman would ask: “Are you hungry? Are you cold?” She had no answer. On the contrary: the spirit would become silent, and after sometime resumed his crying and tearing. Until one night, cold and windy, the woman felt so much pity that she said to him: “If you are there in the cold, at least come here, and hide under my blankets!” That was precisely what he wanted to hear. In an instant he lay in her bed, under the blankets, and the crying was over. However, after some time, the woman felt sharp nails pinching her buttocks, and that was enough for her, she became furious: “Oh, you devil! Go to the lowest parts of Hell!” From that time on the cryings and tearing of the floor were gone.
Maruxinhos
Maruxinhos are also small size spirits, but they tend to inhabit castles, castros and roam around villages at night instead of living specifically inside people’s houses, but occasionally they do so. Instead of terrorizing people at night, they seem to play with food, like piercing bags of apples, stealing it,etc.
A translation of “The Maruxinhos and the Linseed”6:
According to legend, the maruxinhos lived in São Sebastião Fortress Ruins, near Castanheira village, in Chaves. No one could see them… but the villagers felt them. It is said that, during the night, they would leave the fortress underground and were going to disturb the villagers. They would enter into the corrals, open the cereal bags and gave it to the horses to eat, making them fat. Then they would ride the horses all night long. Each horse would carry two or three maruxinhos. The animal owners, in the morning, would always find the animals tired and fat, and would ask themselves: “What is going on here? What devil is taking our horses out from the corral?” Then, one of the village farmers, curious but also anoyed because his horses were always tired and performed badly at work, decided to set an infallible trap, or so he thought. What did he do, then? A certain night, he spread a bushel of linseed on the floor of the corral. He believed that as the linseed is very thin, whoever steped on it would leave its footsteps on it. “Tomorrow I will know what devil is bothering me!” - he said. Do you want to know what happened? The next day, when the farmer entered the corral, the floor was completelly clean. Not even the smallest grain was lost on the floor. All the linseeds were collected inside the bag.
These are the most common duendes. Today people rarely speak about trasgos and maruxinhos, but the word duende is known by everyone and is the what we use to translate into portuguese the word elves, from germanic folklore or Leprechauns, from irish stories, even though they are not the same creatures.
https://etimologias.dechile.net/?duende
VASCONCELLOS, J. Leite de, Contos Populares e Lendas I, Acta Universitatis Conimbrensis, 1969, pág. 448
https://lendarium.org/pt/apl/trasgos/vai-pra-quem-te-comeu-as-leiras/
VASCONCELLOS, J. Leite de, Contos Populares e Lendas I, Acta Universitatis Conimbrensis, 1969, págs. 430-1
https://lendarium.org/pt/apl/trasgos/as-unhas-do-trasgo/
https://lendarium.org/pt/apl/trasgos/os-maruxinhos-e-a-linhaca/
Very interesting...!