The Denham Tracts: a list of monsters

There exist a couple of mysterious lists of all the bogies and fairies of folklore. I say mysterious, because it's hard to define all of the terms. The first is from Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft. The second, which includes and enfolds Scot's list, is from the Denham Tracts by Michael Denham.

These are long lists with no explanations or definitions. Denham's list in particular is confusing, disorganized, and repetitive, but it still catches my imagination. Tom Thumb even makes an appearance!

Like many before me, I set out to define what, exactly, all these weird creatures are supposed to be.
Discoverie of Witchcraft, Reginald Scot, Chapter XV (1584)
​“...they have so fraied us with bull beggers, spirits, witches, urchens, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes, sylens, kit with the cansticke, tritons, centaurs, dwarfes, giants, imps, calcars, conjurors, nymphes, changlings, Incubus, Robin good-fellowe, the spoorne, the mare, the man in the oke, the hell waine, the firedrake, the puckle, Tom thombe, hob gobblin, Tom tumbler, boneles, and other such bugs, that we are afraid of our owne shadows."
“The Denham Tracts” by Michael Aislabie Denham
first published between 1846 and 1859;
reprinted in 1895 by the Folklore Society
"…the whole earth was so overrun with ghosts, boggles, Bloody Bones, spirits, demons, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, black dogs, spectres, shellycoats, scarecrows, witches, wizards, barguests, Robin-Goodfellows, hags, night-bats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, hobgoblins, hobhoulards, boggy-boes, dobbies, hob-thrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers, Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons, centaurs, calcars, nymphs, imps, incubuses, spoorns, men-in-the-oak, hell-wains , fire-drakes, kit-a-can-sticks, Tom-tumblers, melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches, hobby-lanthorns, Dick-a-Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gyl-burnt-tales, knockers, elves, rawheads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs, pad-foots, pixies, pictrees, giants, dwarfs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons, sprets, spunks, conjurers, thurses, spurns, tantarrabobs, swaithes, tints, tod-lowries, Jack-in-the-Wads, mormos, changelings, redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies, Tom-thumbs, black-bugs, boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pochers, hob-thrushes, bugs, bull-beggars, bygorns, bolls, caddies, bomen, brags, wraiths, waffs, flay-boggarts, fiends, gallytrots, imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns, gringes, boguests, bonelesses, Peg-powlers, pucks, fays, kidnappers, gallybeggars, hudskins, nickers, madcaps, trolls, robinets, friars' lanthorns, silkies, cauld-lads, death-hearses, goblins, hob-headlesses, bugaboos, kows, or cowes, nickies, nacks, waiths, miffies, buckies, ghouls, sylphs, guests, swarths, freiths, freits, gy-carlins, pigmies, chittifaces, nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies, wirrikows, alholdes, mannikins, follets, korreds, lubberkins, cluricauns, kobolds, leprechauns, kors, mares, korreds, puckles, korigans, sylvans, succubuses, blackmen, shadows, banshees, lian-hanshees, clabbernappers, Gabriel-hounds, mawkins, doubles, corpse lights or candles, scrats, mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites, fates, fiends, sibyls, nicknevins, whitewomen, fairies, thrummy-caps, cutties, and nisses, and apparitions of every shape, make, form, fashion, kind and description, that there was not a village in England that had not its own peculiar ghost.

The Denham Tracts Dictionary (Now in alphabetical order!)

A    B    C    D    E    F     G    H    I    J    K    L    M    N    O    P    R    S    T    U    W    Y    Sources
Alholdes: "Dialogue of Dives and Pauper" (1493) mentions the "setting of mete or drynke, by nighte on the benche, to fede Alholde or Gobelyn." So perhaps this is a brownie-like creature or spirit of the house.
In German, the unholden were fiends or monsters. 
Joseph Ennemoser's History of Magic (1819), translated from German by Mary Howitt, described "holds" or "holdiken," the offspring of witches and demons. Holdiken took the forms of butterflies, bees, or worms.
The word could be related to Holda, Germanic goddess of childbirth, spinning, and winter, who sometimes served as the leader of the Wild Hunt. Holda comes from the German huld, "gracious, friendly, sympathetic, grateful." Thus, alholde may be a euphemistic name like the Good Neighbors, the Fair Folk, or the people of peace. 

Apparitions: ghosts or other frightening phantasms
banshees: a ghostly woman who was a portent of death.

Barguests: also barghest, boguest or other alternative spellings. A Yorkshire ghost – appearing as a headless person, a white cat, and more, including a variation on the “black dog.” In that area, “ghost” used to be pronounced as “guest.”

black-bugs – same as boggarts, bugbears

black dogs: In Britain, ghostly hounds that appears at night as an omen of death; also known as Grims, Barghests, or Black Shucks. Associated with crossroads. There seem to be almost as many stories of black dogs as there are towns in the British Islands; a few include Hairy Jack, Skriker, and Padfoot.

Blackmen: bogeymen. In Germany, the bogeyman is called Der schwarze Mann (the black man) due to his habit of hiding in dark places like closets and under beds.

Bloody Bones: A bogeyman used to frighten children. Might live near ponds or inside a cupboard; a blood-covered creature who hoarded the raw bones of naughty children. Also known as Rawhead.

bogies: related to bogle, bogeyman

boggarts: a spirit of the house or abandoned place; tended to be seen as malevolent

Boggles: bogle, bogill. A British (Northumbrian and Scottish) ghost or entity – not really evil or benevolent. One particular boggle is “Tatty Bogle,” depicted as a scarecrow. Derived from Old English “bugge,” a frightening thing, and related to the German bögge and thus goblin.
Many of the creatures on this list have "bug" or "bog" in their names, and are in the same range of menacing spirits. Boggart, bogie, bugbear, etc.
Related creatures are Shellycoats, Barguests, Brags, and the Hedley Kow.

boggleboes: related to bogle, bogeyman

boggy-boes: probably more likely to be known as bugaboos. A form of bug or boggart.

boguests: see Barguests, barghests. Black dogs of Yorkshire.

bolls: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, boll, bolly, or bolleroy is another term for bogle.

bomen: contraction of bogeymen

boneless: Unclear meaning, but a lack of bones was common in spirits. In the oldest known version of Tom Thumb, it is said of the hero that he shall be ethereal and shapeless: "No blood, nor bones in him shall grow." In Slavic folklore, vampires first appeared as boneless masses. Some dhampirs were born with no bones.
Ruth Tongue claimed to have heard of a boneless which was a pale "shapeless Summat," "woolly like a cloud," which stalked travelers on dark nights and could not be described, other than by its formlessness and terrifying nature.

brags: Northumberland, Durham: a creature appearing as a horse or donkey, which tricks wanderers into riding it and then throws them off into a lake and runs away laughing. Similar to a kelpie or pooka. See the Picktree Brag.

breaknecks: Definition unknown - however, breakneck is a word for dangerous and the Oxford English Dictionary gives breakneck as an obsolete term for a reckless person who risks breaking his neck.

Brownies: a household spirit from English and Scottish mythology; little men who cleaned the house in exchange for a bowl of cream

brown-men: Wikipedia links this to the Simonside Dwarfs, also known as brownmen. “The Brown Man of the Moor” was a dwarf and guardian of nature who lived “beneath the heather-bell” (John Leyden) and took terrible revenge on those who disobeyed him.

buckies: perhaps related to Puck, pooka, Bucca (Cornish), and Bwca (Welsh). The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "a perverse or refractory person." 

bugs: as in bugbears, not insects

bugaboos: see boggy-boes, bogarts

Bugbears: a bogeyman or hobgoblin used to threaten children. Like many things on this list, its name is derived from Old English “bugge” (or the Welsh bwg, spirit or goblin; the Scottish bogill, goblin, and it is cognate with the German böggel-mann or goblin.

bull-beggars: bugbears. Also bull-bear or bully-beggar.
Ruth Tongue's Bull-Beggar was a "tricksy spirit" which lay in the middle of the road pretending to be hurt in order to frighten anyone who might stop to help. (Somerset Folklore, 121-22.) This version has taken over in some modern encyclopedias. Henk Dragstra has a more scholarly study of the word throughout history.
  • Dragstra, Henk. "'Bull-Begger': An Early Modern Scare-Word." Airy Nothings: Imagining the Otherworld of Faerie from the Middle Ages to the Age of Reason: Essays in Honour of Alasdair A. MacDonald. 2013.

bygorns: Definition unknown. (Perhaps a bicorn, a horned animal similar to a unicorn?)
C
caddies: Definition unknown. Caddie did exist as a term for a boy or young man, particularly a servant boy or golf attendant. In John Hutton's A tour to the caves, in the environs of Ingleborough and Settle (1781), caddy is given as a word for a ghost or bugbear.

Calcars: Thomas Keightley guesses that this is a form of nightmare or mare (calcare or caucher = French “cauchemare,” nightmare). The Complete Book of Devils and Demons by Leonard R. N. Ashley defines them as "calkers," or conjurors.
Alternately, George Henderson defines "calcars" as "assypods" or "assy pods," a word for dirty women smeared with ash and grease. (The Scots Assiepattle and German Aschenputtel - i.e. Cinderella - are related; they indicate a lazy or neglected person who lies in the ashes.) Perhaps Henderson connected the word to "calcareous," meaning something chalky or related to limestone?
Cauld-lads: Also Cowed or Cowd Lad. The Cauld Lad of Hylton was the ghost of a murdered stableboy according to some sources, but also shows up as a brownie in Joseph Jacobs' English Fairy Tales.

Centaurs: half-horse half-man creatures from Greek myth

changelings: Some fairies would steal human children and replace them with elfish babies.

chittifaces:  An old insult for someone with a thin, pinched face. Possibly related: in Chaucer, the “chichevache” is a monster that eats patient wives.

clabbernappers: Near Gravesend was a large cave called the Clabber Napper’s Hole. The story, transcribed in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1803, is that the owner was a kidnapper or freebooter. Clabber supposedly comes from “caer l’abre,” i.e. the dwelling in the woods.

Cluricauns: similar to leprechauns

colt-pixies: Southwest England, New Forest and Dorset: a pixie which appeared as a ragged horse or pony and led travelers astray much like a will-o’-the-wisp.

conjurers: sorcerers

Corpse lights or candles: In Wales, a ball of flame seen on the route to the cemetery or within the graveyard. An omen of death. Also related to will-o’-the-wisps.

cowies: see cowe, kowe, Hedley Kow

Cutties: There are several creatures that involve the name Cutty, usually related to something being cut - a garment, ropes, or murdered victims.
Say the footnotes: “These are a certain class of female Boggles, not altogether peculiar to Scotland, who wore their lower robes, at least, a-la-bloomer.” In Robert Burns' poem Tam o' Shanter, Cutty-sark is a nickname for a witch named Nannie Dee, referring to the short undergarment she wears while dancing.
A kobold- or knocker-like spirit called Cutty Soames would cut miners’ ropes (or "soames"). 
  • The Ghost World, by T. F. Thiselton (1893).
In Devon, Cutty Dyer was a giant ogre who lived in the water and would drag children in to cut their throats.
death-hearses: The Death Coach, in Ireland and Britain, was a silently moving coach driven by a headless horseman. It was an omen of death.

demons: evil spirits or devils from hell

Dick-a-Tuesdays: will-o’-the-wisps or goblins

Dobbies: brownie-like household fairies.

dopple-gangers: “the spirit or double of a dying person”

Doubles: “the spirit or double of a dying person”

​Dudmen: rag-men, i.e. scarecrows made out of old rags and clothing

dunnies: a kind of brownie from Northumberland which may appear as a horse to trick riders or ploughmen. The Hazelrigg Dunny was a ghost.

dwarfs: small men; subterranean beings in Germanic mythology.
Elf-fires: will-o’-the-wisps

Elves: supernatural beings from Germanic lore. Usually supernaturally beautiful, capable of being either predatory
or helpful towards humans. ​​
fairies: a type of mythical spirit famous across Europe

fantasms: alternate spelling of phantasm or ghost

fates: In Norse and Greek mythology, triads of old women personified the force of fate.

Fauns: goat-men from Roman myth

Fays: fairies

Fetches, “the spirit or double of a dying person,” according to the footnotes. A doppelganger in Irish folklore; sighting one was an omen that the original person would soon die.

fiends: an evil spirit or demon. Mentioned twice on the list.

fire-drakes: firebreathing dragons

flay-boggarts: See "boggart," of course. "Flay" means to frighten. A flay-boggard was a terrifying hobgoblin; a flay-boggle or flay-boggard was a scarecrow or ridiculous, badly-dressed person. (English Dialect Dictionary, vol. 2) The word has survived in the form of fray-bug or freybug.

Follets: feufollet, French will-o’-the-wisps; perhaps also related to farfadets, tiny brownie/leprechaun creatures of Brittany, or folleti, wind fairies of Sicily.

Freiths: probably the same as freits.

Freits: superstitious beliefs and practices, omens and sayings. An example might be hanging rowan twigs over the door. "Freits follow them 'at freits follow” – Scottish proverb.
Alternately, perhaps related to “fright,” and thus another word for a ghost. The term “silly frit,” originating in Welsh, is an unusually small creature.

friars' lanthorns: will-o’-the-wisps (lanthorn = lantern)
Gabriel-hounds: another English name for hellhounds

Gallybeggars: A scarecrow. An alternative term was gallybagger, gallycrow or gallicrow. Gally means "to frighten." 
Is this connected to the Somerset term "gallitrap," for fairy rings?
Ruth Tongue in Somerset Folk-Lore (pp. 122-123) described a galley-beggar as a cackling nighttime apparition who carried his head under his arm.
gallytrots: An apparition from Woodbridge in Suffolk. It sometimes manifested as a white dog the size of a bullock. It was a boggart-like creature which chased people, not unlike British black dogs. 
Ghosts: the spirit of a dead person, appearing to the living

ghouls: a flesh-eating, graveyard-dwelling monster from Arabic mythology (the ghūl). It entered English literature in 1786, in William Beckford's novel Vathek.

giants: very large creatures

gnomes: The word comes from "gnomus," used and possibly invented by Paracelsus to describe earth elementals in his book Liber de Nymphis, sylphis, pygmaeis et salamandris et de caeteris spiritibus, first printed in 1566. It was later used to describe small celestial creatures in the 18th-century poem "The Rape of the Lock." Since then, the English word has come to describe tiny little men with long beards and pointy hats, most commonly seen as garden statues.

goblins: a monster from European folklore, usually small, ugly and evil, often with magical powers. The word was first recorded in the 14th century. The Medieval Latin "gobelinus" was the name of a demon haunting Evreux, Normandy. It may be related to the German "kobold."

Grants: a kind of bipedal horse that visits a particular town to warn of trouble, particularly fire. Gervase of Tilbury described it as a demon and a bad omen.

gringes: Definition unknown, but in old dialects, to gringe or grange means to grind the teeth. I'm imagining a monster that grinds its teeth a lot. (A Glossary of Words and Phrases Pertaining to the Dialect of Cumberland; The English Dialect Dictionary).

guests: an older pronunciation of ghosts

gy-carlins: witches, particularly threatening ogress figures. "Carling" or "carline" means old woman, and "gyre" may be related to greedy or ogress. See for instance, the Flyting between Montgomerie and Polwart (c. 1585): "boggles, brownies, Gyre-carlings, and Gaists."

Gyl-burnt-tales: will-o’-the-wisps. (All of these names are pretty generic – Jack, Joan, Will, Gill, Jill, Dick, etc.)

gytrashes: black dogs, also appearing as horses or mules. Though fearsome, they may either lead people astray or help them home. The American Philological Association connected "trash" to thrush and thurse, a word for a goblin seen elsewhere on this list, like hob-thrush. They furthermore tied "gy" or "guy" to 16th-century mentions of a "spreit of Gy" or "gaist of Gye."
hags: wizened old women – might be witches, fairies, or goddesses depending on the story.

Hell-hounds: hellhound, a ghostly or hellish black dog which guarded the gate to the otherworld – i.e. Cerberus. Related creatures are Gabriel Hounds, Ratchets, Yell Hounds/yeth-hounds, and the hounds of the Wild Hunt.

Hell-wains: Keightley suggests the Death-coach of Northern and Germanic lore - a "hell-wagon." Wikipedia links this to the Wild Hunt – an old tale of fairies or ghosts passing by in their hunt. A third point of view, Ashley, describes it as “a phantom wagon seen in the night sky.”
Another source lists hellwean as the "devil's child."

hob-and-lanthorns: will-o’-the-wisps; see also hobby-lanthorns

Hobbits: The name seems closely related to hobgoblins and hobs. This name would later show up in a children’s book by one J.R.R. Tolkien.

Hobby-lanthorns: will-o’-the-wisps. A torch moving as if on the back of a hobby (small horse or pony) or perhaps being carried by someone named Hob.

hobgoblins: mischievous or fearsome mythical creatures. Shakespeare's Puck was a hobgoblin. "Hob" may mean "hearth," meaning that it is a house fairy. Hob can also be a word for a goblin by itself, and might be a nickname for Robert. Similar to brownies, they seem to be small, hairy little men who do chores at night in exchange for food. They seem to enjoy practical jokes, and are often shapeshifters.
They appear twice on the list.

hob-headlesses: malicious hobgoblin who haunted a road close to the River Kent. Any travelers who stopped to sit on his rock were glued in place and trapped.

hobhoulards: A hobgoblin. Houlard may be relate to "owlet," thus "hob owl" or night goblin. (Transactions of the American Philological Association)

hob-thrushes: The footnotes say: “Hob-o’-t’-Hursts, i.e., spirits of the woods. Hobthrush Rook, Farndale, Yorkshire.” Thrush is related thrust and thurse, derived from the Norse thyrs for giant or demon. A goblin giant/demon?
Alternately, some writers theorized that this came from Hob o' t'hurst, or Hob of the wood, making it a forest spirit. (Transactions of the American Philological Association, vol. 26, p. 103-104)
The name "Hobthurst" was used for a dunce.
​The fairy name "Hob Hurst" is related. A Bronze Age barrow in Derbyshire is named "Hob Hurst's House." In medieval England, rebels sometimes used fairy aliases, and in the Paston Papers in 1489, the Northern Rebels' proclamation was made "in the name of Mayster Hobbe Hyrste, Robyn Godfelaws brodyr he is, as I trow."

hob-thrusts: See hob-thrushes. 

hodge-pochers: A hobgoblin. Hodgepoke is an alternate name for Puck.

hudskins: definition unknown. Perhaps related to Hodekin, Hudgin or Hutchin, a house spirit whose name means Little Hat.
ignis fatui: will-o-the-wisps, or illusory lights that led people astray. There were various explanations, usually obvious in the names, i.e., Will o’ the Wisp, or a man with a torch. From Latin ignis fatuus: “foolish fire.”

Imps: small goblins, or a witch’s demon familiars. In the original Germanic folklore they were more wild and mischievous and less evil. They appear twice on the list.

Incubuses: a male demon who seduced sleeping women. Its female counterpart was the succubus.
Jack-in-the-Wads: will-o’-the-wisps. A wad is a torch. Similarly, "Joan the Wad" was a Cornish name for a female will o' the wisp.
See also Meg-with-the-wad.

Jemmy-burties: will-o-the-wisps. “Burt” probably comes. from bright.

Jinny-burnt-tails: will o’ the wisp. Another such name was Gyl-Burnt-Tayle or Gillion a Burnt Taile; the name of a woman, with a burnt tail.
Kelpies: Scottish water-dwelling horses that lured in and devoured people.

Kidnappers: This could be a purely mundane fear, but also recalls stories of fairies kidnapping human children and leaving changelings.

kit-a-can-sticks: will-o’-the-wisps – i.e., Kit with the Candlestick.

Kitty-witches: Witches. There are a few references of kitwiches, crossdressing men or women who would go from house to house dancing and fiddling for money, around Christmastime. In some accounts the women’s faces were smeared with blood. In Norfolk, this would be a kitch-witch. Presumably connected to the Kittywitches pub and Kittywitches Row in Great Yarmouth.

Knockers: In Welsh, Cornish and Devon folklore, little men who did mischief in the mines or knocked on the walls to warn of impending collapse.

Kobolds: German goblins of houses or mines.

Korigan: In Breton lore a Korrigan was, literally, a “small dwarf;” however, depictions varied and they sometimes appeared as lovely but evil female fairies of rivers and springs.

​Kors: probably related to korred or korigan; korr means dwarf.

Korreds: Goblins in Brittany. They appear twice on the list.

Kows, or cowes: a “cowe” is a hobgoblin. The Hedley Kow was a mischievous shapeshifter, similar to the Brag of Northumberland.
Larrs: possibly the same as Lares, Roman guardian deities.

Leprechauns: an Irish fairy, usually depicted as a mischievous little man with a beard, who could be forced to give gold to a person who caught him.

lian-hanshees: the Celtic leannán sí or fairy lover is a beautiful woman who gives inspiration but also sucks life away.

lubberkins: lubber fiend, lurdane or Lob Lie-By-The-Fire; a Puck-like brownie or hob. The sound of the name also evokes "leprechaun."
Related: the abbey lubber is a demon that haunts abbey cellars and kitchens and tempts monks to gluttony. One abbey lubber is named Friar Rush, also the name of the will-o’-the-wisp. 
madcaps: Archaic word for lunatic.

mahounds: a Medieval variant of the name Muhammed, used to depict him as a pagan god or demon. This was tied to the idea that Muslims worshipped Mohammed.

Mannikins: tiny little people.

Mares: nightmares. Similar to an incubus or succubus in practice.

Mawkins: Sussex name for a scarecrow. Also used for foolish people, hares, or a generic name for a woman (promiscuous or not). Perhaps related to the names Maud and Malkin (nicknames for the May Queen) and Malekin, a child ghost and changeling who haunted Dagworth Manor.

Meg-with-the-wads: will-o’-the-wisps. Jack-in-the-wads also appear on this list.

Melch-dicks: In northern England, Churnmilk Peg and Melch Dick were tiny goblin-like creatures who guarded unripe nuts. They punished transgressors with bloating, cramps, or pinching. (Churn milk was the name for pulpy unripe nuts, and melch means moist.)

Men-in-the-oak: Keightley theorizes that this is Puck. "Turn your cloakes, quoth hee, for Pucke is busy in these oakes."--Iter Boreale. Ashley says it comes from older Druidic traditions of the sacred oak and tree-dwelling fairies (i.e. the Oak King or the Green Man).

Miffies: Miffy is a nickname for the devil in  Gloucester. Presumably related to Old French "maufé" meaning devil. (Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, The English Dialect Dictionary​)
In addition, "miff" originally meant “fit of ill humor” and later evolved into “to take offense at.” 

Mock-beggars: There are numerous places known as Mockbeggar, Mock Beggar, or some variation. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894, defines Mock-beggar Hall as a grand place with stingy owners who turn away beggars; Infoplease includes a quote to that effect from Taylor’s Workes.
Backofthecerealbox suggests a connection between beggar and boggart.

Mormos: In Greek myth, Mormo was a companion of the goddess Hecate – a vampire-like spirit who preyed on misbehaving children.

mum-pokers: A nursery room goblin – “mum” as in silent. Poker means a hobgoblin or devil. Similar to hodge poker, tom-poker, hodgepoke, perhaps Puck.
Nacks: water spirits, same root as necks, nickers, nickies and nixies. The Devil was named "Old Nick." In Germany, "Nickel" was a name for the devil and inspired the name of the metal.

Nickers: water spirits. There is a poem about "Nicker the Soulless." The Nykur was an Icelandic water horse similar to the kelpie.

Nickies: water spirits

Nicknevins: described in the footnotes as “mother witches.” Nicneven was the leader of a band of witches in a poem by Alexander Montgomerie from about 1580. The character may have been inspired by a real woman who was accused of witchcraft and burnt at the stake. In 1801, John Leyden recast this character as a mother-witch, fairy queen, or local equivalent of Hecate. Leyden claimed that this character was identical with the Gyre-Carling - see "gy-carlins" on this list.
Night-bats: Bats and other nocturnal animals were creatures of darkness and thus associated with evil. For this reason, they would later become associated with vampires.

Nisses: helpful Finnish brownies. Also called tomten.

Nixies: more water spirits, usually described as female - "nix" would be the masculine form.

Nymphs: female Greek nature spirits
old-shocks: Old Shuck or Black Shuck – black dogs. Otherwise, a name for the Devil, much like Old Scratch.

ouphs: An early 17th-century variant of "auf," from the Old Norse álfr or elf - i.e., an elf's child, a changeling. From there, the word oaf would come to mean a clumsy fool or an idiot.
pad-foots: black dogs. (You’ll notice a couple of terms in here, including dobbies, which show up in the Harry Potter books. Rowling took a lot of inspiration from English folklore.)

pans: Pan was a goat-legged Greek god.

Patches: Patch is a fairy appearing in the “Life of Robin Goodfellow,” a shapeshifting being who punishes lazy housewives by making them dirtier than ever. Patch was also a common name for a court fool at one time.

Peg-powlers: A river hag who drowned careless children. The footnotes call her “evil goddess of the [River] Tees” and described a similar character, Nanny Powler, who haunted the Skerne, which was connected to the Tees.

pictrees: There was a village named Pictree, and a ghost story of a “Picktree Bragg.” Pictree or pick-a-tree was also a word for a woodpecker.

pigmies: tiny people, originally from 14th century Greek descriptions of a race of dwarfs native to Africa. The term comes from the measurement between the elbow and knuckles.

pixies: a small, mischievous creature, usually humanlike with pointed ears and a pointed hat.

portunes: English finger-sized fairies, appearing as little old men, who worked on farms and might play pranks or grant wishes. Also: Portunes was a Roman god of doorways and livestock.

Pucks: Puck or Robin Goodfellow of Shakespearean fame. Other names: Hob, Hobgoblin, Willy Wisp, Crisp, Hodgepoke, Puckrel, Lob-lie-by-the-fire, Pug, Hob, Lubbar fend, Puckling, puck-hairy, Pixie, Pug-Robin, Robinet.

puckles: Ashley: puckrels are witches' familiars, pukeholds and pukes are demonic creatures that live underground. Ashley also mentions the Irish pooka, Welsh pwca, Cornish bucca, Puck, and Puck-hairy (probably a name for the devil).
Rawheads: See Bloody Bones,

redcaps: cruel dwarfs or goblins who dipped their hats in blood

Redmen: Red and green are both colors traditionally associated with fairies. In Northamptonshire, the redman was a small solitary elf who wore a red cap, lived in wells or hollows, and could be tricked into providing gold, like a leprechaun. The Irish fear dearg or far darrig, literally “Red Man,” is a leprechaun- and clurichaun-like solitary fairy, dressed in red, with similarities to nightmares and a habit of leaving changelings. 

Robin-Goodfellows, A reference to the character Puck. In the footnotes, he’s described as Oberon’s jester, in a clear reference to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Robin comes from the name Robert (a name often used for the Devil). Hob, as in Hobgoblin, may be a form of the same name.
The Complete Book of Devils and Demons, Ashley: the name Goodfellow is “supposed to disarm enmity through euphemism” – see also fairy names such as the good neighbors, the Fair Folk, les bonnes dames/the good ladies.

Robinets: dimunitive of Robin; an appellation of Robin Goodfellow/Puck. A thirteenth-century manuscript mentions Robinet (mentioned in On Friar Rush, pg 16)
Satyrs: goat-men from Greek myth

scar-bugs: "Scar" is here a form of "scare," and "bug" is from the bug/bogle/bogie root.

Scarecrows: In parts of England and Scotland, “bogle” was a word for “Scarecrow.” (I.e. Tatty Bogle, depicted as a scarecrow and named for his habit of hiding in potato fields.)

scrags: an archaic word for a skinny person (so, interestingly, was "rawboned," also on this list).
In Slaughham in the 1890’s, November bonfires were built around a large green post called a “Scrag.” When the fire was done and the scrag was charred, it would be uprooted and carried around to the pubs for drinks.

Scrats: Germanic domestic fairy or nature spirit (schrat, schretel). Jacob Grimm suggested that this name evolved into the Devil’s nickname of Old Scratch.

shadows: Basically just shadows, I guess.

shag-foals: shaggy donkeys which would terrify and chase travellers on lonely roads. Lincolnshire, England. People also made reference to "fairies and shag-boys." Shag could also meant a loitering person in ragged clothing., or as a verb it could mean to sneak off

​shellycoats: A kind of Scottish bogeyman that haunted rivers and wore a rattling coat of shells. May mislead travellers or mimic the cries of a drowning person, but relatively harmless. Similar to a Brag, Kelpie, or Nix. Jacob Grimm compared it to the German Schellenrock (“bell-coat”), a puck or brownie.

sibyls: Greek oracles

silkies: The village of Black Heddon in Northumberland was haunted b a lady ghost called the Silky for her silk robes. If a traveler dared to go out riding at night on the isolated roads, Silky might climb on after him. She liked to paralize horses but could be driven off with witchwood. One tree bore the name of "Silky's Chair." Like a brownie, she would clean up a messy house during the night.In Orkney and Shetland, a selkie or silkie was a seal which could take human form.

​Sirens: In Greek myth, bird-women whose songs lured sailors to their deaths. Later, the name began to refer to mermaids.

snapdragons: a snapdragon is a flower as well as a parlour game played on Christmas Eve,  where children would pick raisins out of burning brandy. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, snap-dragons were also a figure of a dragon built to open and shut its mouth, used in shows and parades.

spectres: ghosts or phantoms 

spirits: ghosts or phantoms

Spoorns: May be related to “spurs” – Keightley theorizes that, like “calcar,” this is from the idea of riding, and thus some kind of nightmare: an evil spirit that “rode” people and caused frightening dreams and paralysis.

sprets: sprites or spirits

sprites: legendary creatures such as fairies, elves and pixies. Sprite comes from the same root as "spirit."

spunks: spunkies, i.e. will-o’-the-wisps. Spunk also means spirit.

Spurns: see spoorns. 

Succubuses: female incubuses.

Swaithes: “the spirit or double of a dying person.” See also swarths.

swarths: a double much like wraiths and waffs, typically appearing as a premonition of death.
Katharine Briggs in The Personnel of Fairyland mentions that Swarth is the Cumberland name for a fetch or double. See also The Old Sports of England, p. 149. At one point, Wikipedia linked both swaithes and swarths to svartalfar, the dark elves of Norse myth. 

​sylphs: created by Paracelsus as a name for air elementals, although they were sometimes also earth or mountain elementals - he seems to have had a hard time deciding, and seems to have considered them wild hairy men of the woods. The name might be derived from "sylvan." Sylphs played a big part in The Rape of the Lock, the first known work to feature winged fairies.

sylvans: Probably related to the woods. Sylvanus was a Pan-like deity. Bishop Burchard of Worms, around the year 1000, chided those who believed in "rural women whom they call sylvaticas [sylvans]." (See Richard Firth Green, Elf Queens and Holy Friars, p. 15.) William Prynne in Histrio-mastix (1633) gave his own Scot-like list of spirits, consisting mostly of Greek myths including "sylvanes."
The older list, by Reginald Scot, lists instead silens. John Brand's Observations on Popular Antiquities connects sylens to Sylham Lamps, an alternate name for will o' the wisps. I am inclined more towards sylen being an alternate name for sylvan. 
Tantarrabobs: "Tantara" was a noise or distubance (i.e. a tantrum). Tantarabobus, Tantarabobs, or Tankerabogus were a Devonshire name for the Devil, or a playful nickname for a boy, man, or noisy child. Thus,  tantara-bogus, or noisy bogle. (English Dialect Dictionary, vol. 6.)

Thrummy-caps: Scottish poet John Burness wrote a ghost story titled Thrummy Cap, A Legend of the Castle of Fiddes (1796); however, in this story Thrummy Cap is the name of the man who encounters a ghost.
A story from Fife included a Thrummy-cap who was the vengeful ghost of a drowned carpenter. 
James Halliwell-Phillipps wrote that thrummy-caps were from Northumberland, and were little old men who lived in old castle cellars.
"Thrum" is a frayed fringe or tuft, meaning that a thrummy-cap would be a ragged or shaggy hat. (Wiktionary)
Thurses: Another name for the thyrs or giants of Norse myth, known as jötnar (singular jotun). Related to thrush, thrust.

Tints: possibly related to shades or shadows? The English Dialect Dictionary defines this as "goblin," but with a note that it was not known to their correspondents. In another sense, "tint" can also mean a tiny scrap or taste.
Intriguingly, there is a story where a goblin named Gilpin Horner pursued people while crying out "Tint, tint, tint" - tint in this case meaning "lost" (Allan). In another legend, a man tried to taunt the dwarves known as duergar by calling out "Tint! tint!" (Tibbits) However, this may simply be coincidence.
Tod-lowries: Tod Lowrie is a Scottish name for a fox or a crafty person. Lowrie comes from the name Laurence. Although it is more widely just used for foxes, it has been found as tod-lowery, meaning a hobgoblin, in Lincolnshire. A variation may be Tom-Loudy. Either way the word refers to a frightening nursery bogey.
In The Ochil Fairy Tales by Robert Menzies Fergusson (1912), the section "The Story of the Brownie" features Tod Lowrie as a benevolent brownie whose name means "Red Bonnet."
Tom-pokers: bugbear used to frighten bad children. Hides in closets, under the stairs, and in other dark spots called “poker-holes.” Poker may come from puck. Presumably related to Hodge Poker/Hodgepoke and mum-poker.

Tom-thumbs: Hey, it’s our old friend Tom! In this sense, the name may have been less related to the tiny knight of King Arthur’s court and more in the generic sense of a tiny person, here mischievous like an imp – see also mannikins. The earliest existing mentions of Tom Thumb identify him closely with fairies, and the oldest copy of the story from 1621 includes many references to occult superstitions. I believe Tom Thumb may have originally been related to the idea of demons hiding within food to trick or possess humans.
Tom-tumblers: Perhaps related to Tom Thumb, or to a will o' the wisp, as suggested by someone writing in Notes and Queries. 
In a 1586 work, "A pleasant enterlude, intituled, Like will to like quoth the Deuill to the collier," when the Devil enters the scene, someone says "Sancte benedicite, who haue we heere? Tom tumbler or els some dauncing beare." 
In the 1669 play "The island princess, or, The generous Portugal", there is the line "you wou'd a thought Tom Tumbler and all his Troop of [...?] had been there."
Based on these, it sounds as if Tom Tumbler may have been an entertainer, as in an acrobat who does somersaults. It's intriguing, though, that the Devil is associated with this.

Tritons: Triton was the fish-tailed son of the Greek god Poseidon.

Trolls: A monster from Norse and Scandinavian folklore, with depictions varying from huge giants to tiny dwarves. Although trolls could vary wildly from story to story depending on location, they tended to be unfriendly to humans.

Tutgots: Tut-gut, along with tut and tom-tit, were words for hobgoblin. (Brogden, Provincial Words and Expressions current in Lincolnshire.) This could mean tut-gotten, i.e. stolen away by fairies. "Tuts" are mentioned in the English Dialect Dictionary, and in The History and Antiquities of Boston, which mentions a "Spittal hill tut," which took horse form and guarded a particular hill, where some people thought either a treasure was buried or a murder committed. It behaved like a typical boggart or poltergeist.
Trows: In the Shetlands and Orkneys, kind of like a troll. Typically a small fairy.
Urchins: A name for an elf, or a poor child. Also an old-fashioned name for hedgehog, which (like fairies) were said to suck away the milk of sleeping cows (Sternberg p. 133). However, there may not be any etymological connection to hedgehogs. One correspondent to Notes and Queries suggested instead a connection to the "orcneas," a tribe of evil spirits named alongside elves and ogres in Beowulf. A root word "orcen" has been theorized, which could be connected to orc (Old English term for ogre or devil) or ork (Dutch) - see Thomas Wright, A Volume of Vocabularies. Thomas Keightley's Fairy Mythology mentions "a great, rough, hurgin bear;" the Notes and Queries correspondent suggested that hurgin meant 'monstrous' like orcen or urchin. Another correspondent theorized that hurgin simply meant hulking.
Waffs: “the spirit or double of a dying person.”
From Northumberland. See also The Old Sports of England, p. 149.

Waiths: “the spirit or double of a dying person” 

Warlocks: men who practice witchcraft

whitewomen: A number of ghosts and phantasms in Europe are referred to as White Ladies. The German Weisse Frauen and the French Dames Blanches are troops of otherworldly ladies. 

​Wirrikows: A hobgoblin. The Scottish wirry-cowe was a fearsome bugbear or goblin; the name might also be used for a scarecrow or for the Devil himself. The name probably comes from “worry” (in the older sense of harassment) and cowe, or hobgoblin.

Witches: sorcerers, usually women

Wizards: sorcerers

Wraithes: “the spirit or double of a dying person” ​
Yeth-hounds: (yell hounds) A type of black dog from Devon folklore. Appears as a headless dog which runs wailing through the woods at night; actually the spirit of an unbaptized child.

Page updated 6/14/2020