hobthrust, hobthrush.
A variant name for a hob, whether in his capacity as domestic helper or out-of-doors trickster, found in Yorkshire, Westmorland, and Lancashire. It is uncertain whether the second syllable comes from Old English thurs, ‘giant, demon’, or Middle English hurst, ‘grove, clump of trees’.
A note in The Lonsdale Magazine or Kendal Repository for the Year 1822 (iii. 254) defines him well:
Hobthrust, or as he was more generally called, Throb-Thrush, was a being distinct from fairies. He was a solitary being who resided in Millom and had his regular range of farm houses. He seems to have been a kind spirit, and willing to do anything he was required to do. His only reward was a quart of milk porridge, in a snipped (chipped) pot. The servant girls would regularly put the cream in the churn, and say, ‘I wish Throb would churn that’, and they regularly found it done. … He left the country at last, through the kindness of a tailor, who made him a coat and a hood to keep him warm during the winter. He was heard singing at night in his favourite haunts
‘Throb-Thrush has got a new coat and a new hood, And he'll never do more good.’
