Robin Redcap

by Gareth Long of
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The Redcap Goblin

A malevolent goblin, redcaps are easily distinguishable for their namesake red hat and fiery red eyes. Their caps are red because they dip them in the blood of their human victims. Redcaps wears iron boots, but are swift on their feet. They reside in castles and watchtowers along the English-Scottish border, however, they move their residence often to avoid detection. Redcaps have sharp eagle's talons with which they kill humans. Short and wiry, redcaps have long white beards and look like old men. Like any goblin, all that is needed to repel them is the use of holy words.
The most infamous redcap of all was Robin Redcap. As the familiar of Lord William de Soulis, Robin wreaked much harm and ruin in the lands of his master's dwelling, Hermitage Castle. Men were murdered, women cruelly abused, and dark arts were practiced. So much infamy and blasphemy was said to have been committed at Hermitage Castle that the great stone keep was thought to be sinking under a great weight of sin, as though the very ground wanted to hide it from the sight of God.
Yet Soulis, for all the evil he wrought, met a very horrible end. He was taken to the Nine Stane Rigg, a circle of stones hearth by the castle, and there he was wrapped in lead and boiled to death in a great cauldron.
The Redcap moves from place to place on a whim throughout the extreme lowlands of Scotland along the English border. He haunts the ruins of old castles and cairns which he guards with his life.
Redcaps must kill regularly, for if the blood staining their hats dries out, they die. Outrunning the buck-toothed little daemons is quite impossible. The only way to escape one is to quote a passage from the Bible. They then lose a tooth on hearing it, which they leave behind.
They are emanciated old men with a leathery bodies and little or no hair. They often carry a sharp wooden scythe or an iron pike to strike down all who invade the area they have decided to guard for the time being. The Redcap they wear, and for which they are named, is said to be made of dried human skin. They are very fast in spite of the heavy iron pike they wield and the iron-shod boots they wear.
Redcaps are said to murder travelers who stray into their homes, sometimes by pushing boulders off cliffs and on to them and then staining their hats with their victims' blood.