Goblin
Goblins were a species of short, green-skinned humanoids with prominent noses and pointy ears. They had a place in human folklore, and the term was sometimes used in general terms to refer to a magical trickster, rather than to a specific trickster; in this figurative sense, the Doctor was sometimes compared to a "goblin".
Goblins were fond of kidnapping and eating human children, especially babies. (TV: The Church on Ruby Road [+]Loading...["The Church on Ruby Road (TV story)"], PROSE: A Message from Janis Goblin [+]Loading...["A Message from Janis Goblin (short story)"])
History
Goblins, among other creatures, were present on a battlefield in the Slough of the Disunited Planets. The Tenth Doctor, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart and Michael Yates comforted one mortally wounded goblin as he died. (COMIC: The Warkeeper's Crown)
Goblins also had a place in human culture and folklore. One of the props stored in an old pantomime theatre prop-room was a goblin costume; after the Thirteenth Doctor attempted to summon the "magic of pantomime" to life using a link she'd clicked on Spacebook, it turned out to be very literal, replacing the props with real versions of the various characters, "snatched" from their homes against their will. This included a sword-wielding goblin. Before long, however, the Doctor found and rubbed the now-real magic lamp and summoned a Genie, using the first of her three wishes to get him to send away all the other, more dangerous fictional beings the Spacebook link had summoned. (COMIC: It's Behind You!)
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Janis Goblin once thanked all the humans who had listened to "The Goblin Song", believing that the proceeds going to Children in Need would mean more children for she and her fellow goblins to eat. After realising this was not the case, she asked someone to pass her some twins. (PROSE: A Message from Janis Goblin [+]Loading...["A Message from Janis Goblin (short story)"])
As fantastical creatures in human folklore, goblins were brought into existence on Avalon by the nanobot system on the planet, which realised the fantasies of 22nd century human colonists. As such, goblins had an entry into the Avalonian Bestiary. Also in the book were bogies, which were described as shape-shifting goblins. (PROSE: The Sorcerer's Apprentice)
After the Fourteenth Doctor cast a superstition at the edge of the universe, (TV: Wild Blue Yonder [+]Loading...["Wild Blue Yonder (TV story)"]) he inadvertently gave goblins fantastical powers. In particular, the Fifteenth Doctor surmised he had granted them a "new science" that resembled magic. Specifically, the Goblins could now "bumble" through time through the power of coincidence. Doing this, they used coincidences to steal baby humans to feed their goblin king, creating a cracked timeline in the process. The Doctor intervened to stop them stealing Ruby Sunday in 2004, restoring the timeline and defeating the goblins using his intelligent gloves. (TV: The Church on Ruby Road [+]Loading...["The Church on Ruby Road (TV story)"])
References
According to legend, the Pandorica was the prison of a warrior or goblin who dropped out of the sky and tore the world apart until a "good wizard" tricked it and locked it up. River Song remarked that the good wizard had likely been the Doctor himself, though it later became clear that the trickster and warrior in the legend had actually been the Doctor, with the Pandorica Alliance of his worst enemies being the ones who were to seal him away. (TV: The Pandorica Opens) On the other hand, in his speech to the Clerics in which he told them that the Eleventh Doctor was a living breathing man, Colonel Manton said that the Doctor was not, among other things, a goblin. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War [+]Loading...["A Good Man Goes to War (TV story)"])
Christina Rossetti's poem "Goblin Market" referred to goblins. Dee Dee Blasco quoted the poem.
- "We must not look at goblin men,
- We must not buy their fruits:
- Who knows upon what soil they fed
- Their hungry, thirsty roots?" (TV: Midnight [+]Loading...["Midnight (TV story)"])
Members of the Great Houses regarded the Sontarans as "goblins"; Larissa remembered the Sontaran invasion of Gallifrey as a "goblin infestation", (PROSE: Newtons Sleep) and in Mujun: The Ghost Kingdom the Seventy-Ninth Sontaran Assault Corps was represented by a "goblin-hoarde". (PROSE: The Book of the War, AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire)
Goblin's Copse was a rural English village near Beaconsfield. (PROSE: Beautiful Chaos, TV: The Last Sontaran [+]Loading...["The Last Sontaran (TV story)"])
