A household deity is a deity

Deity

A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....

 or spirit

Spirit

The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...

 that protects the home

Home

A home is a place of residence or refuge. When it refers to a building, it is usually a place in which an individual or a family can rest and store personal property. Most modern-day households contain sanitary facilities and a means of preparing food. Animals have their own homes as well, either...

, looking after the entire household

Household

The household is "the basic residential unit in which economic production, consumption, inheritance, child rearing, and shelter are organized and carried out"; [the household] "may or may not be synonymous with family"....

 or certain key members. It has been a common belief in pagan religions as well as in folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

 across many parts of the world.

Household deities fit into two types; firstly, a specific deity- typically a goddess- often referred to as a hearth goddess or domestic goddess who is associated with the home and hearth, with examples including the Greek Hestia

Hestia

In Greek mythology Hestia , first daughter of Cronus and Rhea , is the virgin goddess of the hearth, architecture, and of the right ordering of domesticity and the family. She received the first offering at every sacrifice in the household. In the public domain, the hearth of the prytaneum...

 and Norse Frigg

Frigg

Frigg is a major goddess in Norse paganism, a subset of Germanic paganism. She is said to be the wife of Odin, and is the "foremost among the goddesses" and the queen of Asgard. Frigg appears primarily in Norse mythological stories as a wife and a mother. She is also described as having the power...

.

The second type of household deities are those that are not one singular deity, but a type, or species of animistic

Animism

Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....

 deity, who usually have lesser powers than major deities. This type was common in the religions of antiquity, such as the Lares

Lares

Lares , archaically Lases, were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries or fruitfulness, hero-ancestors, or an amalgam of these....

 of ancient Roman religion

Religion in ancient Rome

Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...

 and Cofgodas

Cofgodas

A Cofgod was an household god in Anglo-Saxon paganism related to the German kobold and equivalent to the Roman penates. It is generally accepted that the English hob and Anglo-Scottish brownie are the modern survival of the cofgod.-References:* "", An Other Dictionary: Tribal English. Accessed 13...

 of Anglo-Saxon paganism. These survived Christianisation as fairy

Fairy

A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...

-like creatures existing in folklore, such as the Anglo-Scottish Brownie

Brownie (folklore)

A brownie/brounie or urisk or brùnaidh, ùruisg, or gruagach is a legendary creature popular in folklore around Scotland and England...

 and Slavic Domovoi

Domovoi

A domovoi or domovoy is a house spirit in Slavic folklore. The plural form in Russian can be transliterated domoviye or domovye ....

.

Household deities were usually worshipped not in temples but in the home, where they would be represented by small idols

Idolatry

Idolatry is a pejorative term for the worship of an idol, a physical object such as a cult image, as a god, or practices believed to verge on worship, such as giving undue honour and regard to created forms other than God. In all the Abrahamic religions idolatry is strongly forbidden, although...

 (such as the teraphim

Teraphim

Teraphim is a Hebrew word from the Bible, found only in the plural, of uncertain etymology. Despite being plural, Teraphim may refer to singular objects, using the Hebrew plural of excellence...

 of the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

, often translated as "household gods" in Genesis 31:19 for example), amulet

Amulet

An amulet, similar to a talisman , is any object intended to bring good luck or protection to its owner.Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—, to...

s, painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

s or reliefs. They could also be found on domestic objects, such as cosmetic articles in the case of Tawaret

Tawaret

In Egyptian mythology, Taweret is the Egyptian Goddess of childbirth and fertility. The name "Taweret" means, "she who is great" or simply, "great one"...

. The more prosperous houses might have a small shrine

Shrine

A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated....

 to the household god(s); the lararium served this purpose in the case of the Romans. The gods would be treated as members of the family and invited to join in meals, or be given offerings of food

Sacrifice

Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals or people to God or the gods as an act of propitiation or worship.While sacrifice often implies ritual killing, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of cereal food or artifacts...

 and drink

Libation

A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid as an offering to a god or spirit or in memory of those who have died. It was common in many religions of antiquity and continues to be offered in various cultures today....

.

Household God

In many religions, both ancient and modern, a god

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

 would preside over the home.

Animistic deities

Certain species, or types, of household deities existed. An example of this was the Roman Lares.

Survival in folklore

Many European cultures retained house spirits into the modern period. Some examples of these include:

• Brownie (Scotland and England) or Hob
  Hob (folklore)
  A hob is a type of small mythological household spirit found in the north and midlands of England, but especially on the Anglo-Scottish border, according to traditional folklore of those regions. They could live inside the house or outdoors. They are said to work in farmyards and thus could be...
  
   (England) / Kobold
  Kobold
  The kobold is a sprite stemming from Germanic mythology and surviving into modern times in German folklore. Although usually invisible, a kobold can materialise in the form of an animal, fire, a human being, and a candle. The most common depictions of kobolds show them as humanlike figures the size...
  
   (Germany) / Goblin
  Goblin
  A goblin is a legendary evil or mischievous illiterate creature, a grotesquely evil or evil-like phantom.They are attributed with various abilities, temperaments and appearances depending on the story and country of origin. In some cases, goblins have been classified as constantly annoying little...
  
   / Hobgoblin
  Hobgoblin
  Hobgoblin is a term typically applied in folktales to describe a friendly but troublesome creature of the Seelie Court.The most commonly known hobgoblin is the character Puck in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Puck, however, is only another name given to a much older character named Robin...
  
  
• Domovoi
  Domovoi
  A domovoi or domovoy is a house spirit in Slavic folklore. The plural form in Russian can be transliterated domoviye or domovye ....
  
   (Slavic)
• Nisse
  Nisse
  Nisse can refer to:* Nisse, Netherlands, a town in the municipality of Borsele* Another name for the tomte, a mythical creature in Scandinavian mythology* A pet form of the Scandinavian given name Niels, Nils-See also:...
  
   (Norwegian or Danish) / Tomte
  Tomte
  A tomte , nisse or tonttu is a mythical creature of Scandinavian folklore. The tomte or nisse was believed to take care of a farmer's home and children and protect them from misfortune, in particular at night, when the housefolk were asleep...
  
   (Swedish) / Tonttu (Finnish)

Although the cosmic status of household deities was not so lofty as that of the Twelve Olympians

Twelve Olympians

The Twelve Olympians, also known as the Dodekatheon , in Greek mythology, were the principal deities of the Greek pantheon, residing atop Mount Olympus. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Hestia, and Hades were siblings. Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus, Athena, Apollo, and Artemis were children of Zeus...

 or the Aesir, they were also jealous of their dignity and also had to be appeased with shrines and offerings, however humble. Because of their immediacy they had arguably more influence on the day-to-day affairs of men than the remote gods did. Vestiges of their worship persisted long after Christianity and other major religions extirpated nearly every trace of the major pagan pantheon

Pantheon (gods)

A pantheon is a set of all the gods of a particular polytheistic religion or mythology.Max Weber's 1922 opus, Economy and Society discusses the link between a...

s, and indeed, they continue even today, in one form or another (and in fact may have taken on some of their own, including statues to various saints, such as St. Francis to protect a garden, or gargoyles in older churches).

For centuries Christianity fought a mop-up war against these lingering minor pagan deities, but they proved tenacious. For example, Martin Luther

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

's Tischreden

Table Talk (Luther)

Martin Luther's Table Talk is a collection of his sayings. It was compiled by Johannes Mathesius and published at Eisleben in 1566.Mathesius spoke enthusiastically of the privilege of eating with Luther and hearing him converse...

have numerous quite serious references to dealing with kobold

Kobold

The kobold is a sprite stemming from Germanic mythology and surviving into modern times in German folklore. Although usually invisible, a kobold can materialise in the form of an animal, fire, a human being, and a candle. The most common depictions of kobolds show them as humanlike figures the size...

s."Luther no longer believes in Catholic miracles, but he still believes in diabolical entities. His Table Talks are full of curious tales of satanic arts, kobolds, and witches." Eventually rationalism

Rationalism

In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...

 and the industrial revolution

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

 threatened to erase most of these minor deities, until the advent of romantic nationalism

Romantic nationalism

Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs...

 rehabilitated them and embellished them into objects of literary curiosity in the 19th century. Since the 20th century this literature has been mined for characters for role-playing games, video games, and other fantasy persona

Persona

A persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...

e, not infrequently invested with invented traits and hierarchies somewhat different from their mythological and folkloric roots.

Shinto as an exemplar of development

The general dynamics of the origin and development of household deities over a considerable span may be traced and exemplified by the historically attested origins and current practices of the Shinto

Shinto

or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...

 belief system in Japan. As the British Japanologist

Japanology

Japanese Studies is a term generally used in Europe to describe the historical and cultural study of Japan; in North America, the academic field is usually referred to as Japanese studies, which includes contemporary social sciences as well as classical humanistic fields.European Japanology is the...

 Lafcadio Hearn

Lafcadio Hearn

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn , known also by the Japanese name , was an international writer, known best for his books about Japan, especially his collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories, such as Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things...

 put it:
Drawing the picture with broader strokes. he continues:
As stated in the Wikipedia article on Shinto

Shinto

or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...

,
Many Japanese houses still have a shrine (kamidana "kami

Kami

is the Japanese word for the spirits, natural forces, or essence in the Shinto faith. Although the word is sometimes translated as "god" or "deity", some Shinto scholars argue that such a translation can cause a misunderstanding of the term...

 shelf") where offerings are made to ancestral kami, as well as to other kami.

Cultural evolution and survival

Edward Burnett Tylor

Edward Burnett Tylor

Sir Edward Burnett Tylor , was an English anthropologist.Tylor is representative of cultural evolutionism. In his works Primitive Culture and Anthropology, he defined the context of the scientific study of anthropology, based on the evolutionary theories of Charles Lyell...

, one of the main founders of the discipline of cultural anthropology, spoke of survivals, vestiges of earlier evolutionary stages in a culture's development. He also coined the term animism

Animism

Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....

. Tylor disagreed with Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era....

, another founder of anthropology, as well as of sociology, about the innateness of the human tendency towards animistic explanations, but both agreed that ancestor worship was the root of religion and that domestic deities were survivals from such an early stage.

Animism and totemism

In contradistinction to both Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era....

 and Edward Burnett Tylor

Edward Burnett Tylor

Sir Edward Burnett Tylor , was an English anthropologist.Tylor is representative of cultural evolutionism. In his works Primitive Culture and Anthropology, he defined the context of the scientific study of anthropology, based on the evolutionary theories of Charles Lyell...

, who defended theories of animistic origins of ancestor worship, Émile Durkheim

Émile Durkheim

David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...

 saw its origin in totem

Totem

A totem is a stipulated ancestor of a group of people, such as a family, clan, group, lineage, or tribe.Totems support larger groups than the individual person. In kinship and descent, if the apical ancestor of a clan is nonhuman, it is called a totem...

ism. In reality this distinction is somewhat academic, since totemism may be regarded as particularized manifestation of animism, and something of a synthesis of the two positions was attempted by Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

. In Freud's Totem and Taboo

Totem and Taboo

Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics is a book by Sigmund Freud published in German in 1913 under the title Totem und Tabu: Einige Übereinstimmungen im Seelenleben der Wilden und der Neurotiker...

, both totem and taboo are outward expressions or manifestations of the same psychological tendency, a concept which is complementary to, or which rather reconciles, the apparent conflict. Freud preferred to emphasize the psychoanalytic implications of the reification of metaphysical forces, but with particular emphasis on its familial nature. This emphasis underscores, rather than weakens, the ancestral component.

Jacob Grimm (1835)

The doyen of European folklorists Jacob Grimm

Jacob Grimm

Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was a German philologist, jurist and mythologist. He is best known as the discoverer of Grimm's Law, the author of the monumental Deutsches Wörterbuch, the author of Deutsche Mythologie and, more popularly, as one of the Brothers Grimm, as the editor of Grimm's Fairy...

 did not hesitate to equate the Roman lar familiaris

Lares Familiares

Lares Familiares were household tutelary deities of ancient Roman religion. The singular form is Lar Familiaris....

 to the brownie. He explains in some detail in his Deutsche Mythologie

Deutsche Mythologie

Deutsche Mythologie is a seminal treatise on Germanic mythology by Jacob Grimm. First published in Germany in 1835, the work is an exhaustive treatment of the subject, tracing the mythology and beliefs of the Ancient Germanic peoples from their earliest attestations to their survivals in modern...

:

Thomas Keightley (1870)

To underscore the equivalence of brownie, kobold and goblin, consider the words of the English historian and folklorist Thomas Keightly:

MacMichael (1907)

MacMichael elaborated his views on the folkloric belief complex as follows:

New International Encyclopaedia

Demonstrating that this evolution and functional equivalence has generally come to be accepted, and that their nature is indeed that proposed by Grimm, one may refer to the early twentieth century New International Encyclopaedia:
and also

Hearn (1878)

William Edward Hearn

William Hearn

William Edward Hearn , university professor and politician, was one of the four original professors at the University of Melbourne and was the first Dean of the University's Law School....

, a noted classicist and jurist, traced the origin of domestic deities from the earliest stages as an expression of animism, a belief system thought to have existed also in the neolithic, and the forerunner of Indo-European religion. In his analysis of the Indo-European household, in Chapter II "The House Spirit", Section 1, he states:
In Section 2 he proceeds to elaborate:

George Henderson (1911)

George Henderson elaborated on the presumed origin of ancestor worship in animism

Animism

Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....

:

European

• Hestia
  Hestia
  In Greek mythology Hestia , first daughter of Cronus and Rhea , is the virgin goddess of the hearth, architecture, and of the right ordering of domesticity and the family. She received the first offering at every sacrifice in the household. In the public domain, the hearth of the prytaneum...
  
  , a goddess in Greek paganism
• Vesta
  Vesta (mythology)
  Vesta was the virgin goddess of the hearth, home, and family in Roman religion. Vesta's presence was symbolized by the sacred fire that burned at her hearth and temples...
  
  , a goddess of traditional Roman religion
  Religion in ancient Rome
  Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...
  
  , both state and domestic
• Frigg
  Frigg
  Frigg is a major goddess in Norse paganism, a subset of Germanic paganism. She is said to be the wife of Odin, and is the "foremost among the goddesses" and the queen of Asgard. Frigg appears primarily in Norse mythological stories as a wife and a mother. She is also described as having the power...
  
  , a goddess in Norse paganism
  Norse paganism
  Norse paganism is the religious traditions of the Norsemen, a Germanic people living in the Nordic countries. Norse paganism is therefore a subset of Germanic paganism, which was practiced in the lands inhabited by the Germanic tribes across most of Northern and Central Europe in the Viking Age...
  
  
• Gabija
  Gabija
  Gabija is the goddess of fire and hearth in the Lithuanian mythology. She is the protector of home and family, provider of happiness and fertility. Her name is derived from gaubti or from St. Agatha...
  
  , a goddess in Baltic paganism
• Matka Gabia, a goddess in Slavic paganism
• Berehynia, (originally a river spirit, since 1991 has become a hearth goddess in Ukrainian Romantic nationalism)

African

• Bes
  Bes
  Bes was an Egyptian deity worshipped in the later periods of dynastic history as a protector of households and in particular mothers and children. In time he would be regarded as the defender of everything good and the enemy of all that is bad...
  
  , a god in Egyptian paganism
• Ekwu, a god in Igbo
  Igbo people
  Igbo people, also referred to as the Ibo, Ebo, Eboans or Heebo are an ethnic group living chiefly in southeastern Nigeria. They speak Igbo, which includes various Igboid languages and dialects; today, a majority of them speak English alongside Igbo as a result of British colonialism...
  
   Odinani

Asian

• Anito
  Anito
  Anito is the collective name for Pre-Hispanic belief system that exists in the Philippines. It is also the name for spirits, which may include deceased ancestors and nature-spirits or diwatas. Native Filipinos usually keep statues to represent these spirits and to ask guidance and even magical...
  
   in prehispanic Filipino culture.
• Kamui Fuchi
  Kamui Fuchi
  Kamuy Fuchi is the Ainu kamuy of the hearth. Her full name is Apemerukoyan-mat Unamerukoyan-mat , and she is sometimes styled Iresu Kamuy...
  
  , a goddess in the Ainu
  Ainu people
  The , also called Aynu, Aino , and in historical texts Ezo , are indigenous people or groups in Japan and Russia. Historically they spoke the Ainu language and related varieties and lived in Hokkaidō, the Kuril Islands, and much of Sakhalin...
  
   folklore in Japan
  Japan
  Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
  
  
• Hearth God
  Kitchen God
  In Chinese folk religion and Chinese mythology, the Kitchen God, named Zao Jun or Zao Shen , is the most important of a plethora of Chinese domestic gods that protect the hearth and family with the addition of being celebrated...
  
   in the Chinese
  China
  Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
  
   folklore
• Zashiki-warashi
  Zashiki-warashi
  , sometimes also called , is a Japanese yōkai, stemming from Iwate Prefecture, similar to a domovoi.The name breaks down to zashiki, a tatami floored room, and warashi, an archaic regional term for a child. The appearance of this spirit is that of a 5 or 6 year child with bobbed hair and a red face...
  
   in the Japanese
  Japanese people
  The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
  
   folklore

European

• Lares
  Lares
  Lares , archaically Lases, were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries or fruitfulness, hero-ancestors, or an amalgam of these....
  
  in ancient Roman religion
  Religion in ancient Rome
  Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...
  
  
• Cofgodas
  Cofgodas
  A Cofgod was an household god in Anglo-Saxon paganism related to the German kobold and equivalent to the Roman penates. It is generally accepted that the English hob and Anglo-Scottish brownie are the modern survival of the cofgod.-References:* "", An Other Dictionary: Tribal English. Accessed 13...
  
  in Anglo-Saxon paganism
• Hob
  Hob (folklore)
  A hob is a type of small mythological household spirit found in the north and midlands of England, but especially on the Anglo-Scottish border, according to traditional folklore of those regions. They could live inside the house or outdoors. They are said to work in farmyards and thus could be...
  
  in English folklore
  English folklore
  English folklore is the folk tradition which has developed in England over a number of centuries. Some stories can be traced back to their roots, while the origin of others is uncertain or disputed...
  
  
• Brownie
  Brownie (folklore)
  A brownie/brounie or urisk or brùnaidh, ùruisg, or gruagach is a legendary creature popular in folklore around Scotland and England...
  
  in Scottish folklore
• Kobold
  Kobold
  The kobold is a sprite stemming from Germanic mythology and surviving into modern times in German folklore. Although usually invisible, a kobold can materialise in the form of an animal, fire, a human being, and a candle. The most common depictions of kobolds show them as humanlike figures the size...
  
  in German folklore
  German folklore
  German folklore shares many characteristics with Scandinavian folklore and English folklore due to their origins in a common Germanic mythology. It reflects a similar mix of influences: a pre-Christian pantheon and other beings equivalent to those of Norse mythology; magical characters associated...
  
  
• Heinzelmännchen
  Heinzelmännchen
  The Heinzelmännchen are a race of creatures appearing in a tale connected with the city of Cologne in Germany.The little house gnomes are said to have done all the work of the citizens of Cologne during the night, so that the inhabitants of Cologne could be very lazy during the day...
  
  in German folklore
  German folklore
  German folklore shares many characteristics with Scandinavian folklore and English folklore due to their origins in a common Germanic mythology. It reflects a similar mix of influences: a pre-Christian pantheon and other beings equivalent to those of Norse mythology; magical characters associated...
  
  
• Tomte
  Tomte
  A tomte , nisse or tonttu is a mythical creature of Scandinavian folklore. The tomte or nisse was believed to take care of a farmer's home and children and protect them from misfortune, in particular at night, when the housefolk were asleep...
  
  , or Nisse in Scandinavian folklore
  Scandinavian folklore
  Scandinavian folklore is the folklore of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the Swedish speaking parts of Finland.Collecting folklore began when Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden sent out instructions to all of the priests in all of the parishes to collect the folklore of their area...
  
  
• Haltija
  Haltija
  Haltija is a spirit, gnome or elf-like creature in Finnish mythology, that guards, helps or protects something or somebody. The word is possibly derived from the Gothic *haltijar, and referred to the original settler of a homestead — although this is not the only possible etymology.In common...
  
  in Finnish paganism
  Finnish paganism
  Finnish paganism was the indigenous pagan religion in Finland, Estonia and Karelia prior to Christianization. It was a polytheistic religion, worshipping a number of different deities...
  
   and Finnish folklore
• Domovoi
  Domovoi
  A domovoi or domovoy is a house spirit in Slavic folklore. The plural form in Russian can be transliterated domoviye or domovye ....
  
  in Slavic folklore
• Aitvaras
  Aitvaras
  Aitvaras is a household spirit in Lithuanian mythology. Other names are Kaukas, Pūkis, Damavykas, Sparyžius, Koklikas, Gausinėlis, Žaltvikšas, and Spirukas. Aitvaras is identical to the Latvian Pūkis. An Aitvaras looks like a white or black rooster with a fiery tail . An Aitvaras may hatch from an...
  
  in Lithuanian mythology
  Lithuanian mythology
  Lithuanian mythology is an example of Baltic mythology, developed by Lithuanians throughout the centuries.-History of scholarship:Surviving information about Baltic paganism in general is very sketchy and incomplete. As with most ancient Indo-European cultures Lithuanian mythology is an example of...
  
  

See also

• Animism
  Animism
  Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
  
  
• Thomas Crofton Croker
  Thomas Crofton Croker
  Thomas Crofton Croker was an Irish antiquary, born at Cork. For some years, he held a position in the Admiralty, where his distant relative, John Wilson Croker, was his superior....
  
  
• Alfred Trubner Nutt
  Alfred Nutt
  Alfred Trübner Nutt was a British publisher, now best known for his writing as folklorist and Celticist.-Biography:...
  
  
• Totemism
  Totemism
  Totemism is a system of belief in which humans are said to have kinship or a mystical relationship with a spirit-being, such as an animal or plant...
  
  
• House Elf