A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in paganism as well as in folklore 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, such as the ancient Greek Hestia.
A boggart is a supernatural being from English folklore. The dialectologist Elizabeth Wright described the boggart as 'a generic name for an apparition'; folklorist Simon Young defines it as 'any ambivalent or evil solitary supernatural spirit'. Halifax folklorist Kai Roberts states that boggart ‘might have been used to refer to anything from a hilltop hobgoblin to a household faerie, from a headless apparition to a proto-typical poltergeist’. As these wide definitions suggest boggarts are to be found both in and out of doors, as a household spirit, or a malevolent spirit defined by local geography, a genius loci inhabiting topographical features. The 1867 book Lancashire Folklore by Harland and Wilkinson makes a distinction between "House boggarts" and other types. Typical descriptions show boggarts to be malevolent. It is said that the boggart crawls into people's beds at night and puts a clammy hand on their faces. Sometimes he strips the bedsheets off them. The household boggart may follow a family wherever they flee. One Lancashire source reports the belief that a boggart should never be named: if the boggart was given a name, it could neither be reasoned with nor persuaded, but would become uncontrollable and destructive (see True name).
A kobold (German: [ˈkoːbɔlt]; kobolt, kobolde, cobold) is a general or generic name for the household spirit (hausgeist) in German folklore.
It may invisibly make noises (i.e., be a poltergeist), or helpfully perform kitchen chores or stable work. But it can be a prankster as well. It may accept a bribe or offering of milk, etc. for its efforts or good behaviour. When mistreated (cf. fig. right), its reprisal can be utterly cruel.
In the Slavic religious tradition, Domovoy (Russian: Домовой, literally "[the one] of the household"; also spelled Domovoi, Domovoj, and known as Polish: Domowik, Serbian: Домовик (Domovik), Ukrainian: Домовик (Domovyk) and Belarusian: Дамавік (Damavik)) is the household spirit of a given kin. According to the Russian folklorist E. G. Kagarov, the Domovoy is a personification of the supreme Rod in the microcosm of kinship. Sometimes he has a female counterpart, Domania, the goddess of the household, though he is most often a single god. The Domovoy expresses himself as a number of other spirits of the household in its different functions.
A hobgoblin is a household spirit, appearing in English folklore, once considered helpful, but which since the spread of Christianity has often been considered mischievous. Shakespeare identifies the character of Puck in his A Midsummer Night's Dream as a hobgoblin.