Nice to see this -- and by all means feel free to mention my 'Fremlins + Grimms' version. I unfortunately can't recall just where I got it, but it must have been one of the three books I used as sources, i.e. either Funk and Wagnell's 'Dictionary of Folklore and Myth', or Gillian Edwards' 'Hobgoblin and Sweet Puck' (1974), or P. Beale's 'Concise Dictionary of Slang' (1989).
Jacqueline
--- On Sun, 5/10/08, kaligrafr <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: kaligrafr <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Info About Gremlins?
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Sunday, 5 October, 2008, 12:25 AM
> Aloha,
>
> Since the list members have been helpful about my
> wonderings about
> gremlins,
> I figured I'd share a draft version of my blog post.
>
> Musing Looking Puzzled About It! Rose,
>
> Pitch
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Gremlins--20th Century Spirits Of Technology & Origins
> Of Terms
>
> It's clear that the term "Gremlin" came into
> use during the early 20th
> century,
> even though earlier lore about the broad category of
> fairies includes beings
> with particular affinities for technology, making, and
> handicrafts. And
> it looks
> like the term arose somewhere in the community of British
> military pilots
> and/or those with ties to that community. The term seems
> first to have
> appeared
> in print in an April 1929 number of "Aeroplane"
> published in Malta.
>
> At first, gremlins concentrated their activities on
> aircraft, breaking
> components,
> interfering with good operations of vital systems, altering
> the
> equilibrium of
> aircraft in flight, and beglamouring or distracting the
> awareness of air
> crew.
> Later, gremlins extended their activities into a host of
> different
> technologies,
> so that we may talk about gremlins afflicting trains,
> bicycles, cars,
> ships,
> computers, and other technologies.
>
> Later, during WWII, the term and the notion of
> "gremlins" was disseminated
> widely through popular culture mass media. Roald Dahl,
> having heard of
> "gremlins"
> during his early R.A.F. war service, wrote a children's
> story, "The
> Gremlins." Dahl
> tells of gremlins appearing first during the Battle of
> Britain, but
> clearly some pilots
> knew of gremlins before then,
>
> The full text of Dahl's story with the accompanying
> Disney Studios
> artwork is available
> online at Roald Dahl Fans.com:
>
> http://www.roalddahlfans.com/books/gremtext.php
>
> In 2006, Dark Horse Books reprinted the book.
>
> http://www.darkhorse.com/Books/10-665/The-Gremlins-HC
>
> That story led to cartoon art from the Walt Disney studio,
> including a
> variety of unit insignia designs. For example, the
> Minnesota Civil Air
> Patrol had a Disney deigned patch with a
> gremlin as their mascot. So did the Women Airforce Service
> Pilots, whose
> patch featured the
> female gremlin mascot,"fifinella."
>
> http://www.incountry.us/cappatches/MN/mnwg.html
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_Airforce_Service_Pilots
>
> In addition, Warner Bros studio produced well-known
> animated cartoons
> featuring gremlins.
> Both Falling Hare (1943) and Russian Rhapsody (1944) were
> produced by
> Bob Clampett.
> I probably first learned of gremlins when I saw these
> cartoons on TV.
>
> http://www.toonopedia.com/gremlins.htm
>
> Plus, the large and active military organizations of WWII
> undoubtedly
> developed or
> elaborated lots of organization/office folklore all on
> their own. Look
> at the
> efflorescence of aircraft nose art during this period. And
> this Royal
> Air Force
> Journal article "The Gremlin Question" by Hubert
> Griffith provides
> plenty of
> information, including a poem filled with details.
>
> http://www.angelfire.com/id/100sqn/gremlins.html
>
> About the possible origins of the term, The Online
> Etymological
> Dictionary offers:
>
> <<gremlin
> "small imaginary creature blamed for mechanical
> failures," oral use in
> R.A.F.
> aviators' slang from Malta, Middle East and India said
> to date to 1923.
> First
> printed use perhaps in poem in journal
> "Aeroplane" April 10, 1929;
> certainly
> in use by 1941, and popularized in World War II and picked
> up by Americans
> (e.g. "New York Times" Magazine April 11, 1943).
> Possibly from a dial.
> survival
> of O.E. gremman "to anger, vex" + -lin of goblin;
> or from Ir. gruaimin
> "bad-tempered
> little fellow." Surfer slang for "young surfer,
> beach trouble-maker" is
> from 1961.>>
> --Online Etymology Dictionary
>
> Lycos iq offers:
>
> <<Although today's word first emerged during
> World War II, evidence
> suggests a
> predecessor was in circulation among the RAF a bit earlier.
> In the 1920s
> it was
> used to refer to anyone saddled with a menial task but that
> sense never
> quite
> caught on. Charles Graves wrote in 'The Thin Blue
> Line' (1941) that the
> word
> referred to goblins that clambered out of Fremlin beer
> bottles, a
> popular beer
> among RAF pilots in India and the Middle East before World
> War II. Get it?
> Goblin + Fremlin = gremlin. No one has proposed a more
> convincing or
> authoritative explanation.>>
>
> --at Lycosiq beta
>
> From:
> http://www.yourdictionary.com/wotd/wotd.pl?date=2005-12-0
>
> Yes, this Lyco iq origin is persuasive, not conclusive.
> There is a rare
> English surname,
> "Fremlin." They were brewers before and during
> WWII. According to "The
> Directory
> of UK Real Ale Breweries," Fremlins Ltd was located in
> Maidstone, Kent.
>
> http://www.quaffale.org.uk/php/brewery/739
>
> This page from the Royal Engineers 37 Armoured Squadron
> web site
> provides some
> photos of the Fremlins Brewery building, beer labels, and
> coasters.
> Fremlins featured
> an elephant called "Noddy" in its graphics.
>
> http://www2.army.mod.uk/royalengineers/org/35regt/37sqn/traditions.htm
>
> Coining a new term by combining part of one that rhymes
> with the
> corresponding
> part of the other and maintaining the second word part is
> typical, a
> portmanteau word.
> "Frem" shifts to "Grem," keeping the
> "lin."
>
> Interestingly, "gremlin" inspired another
> portmanteau word which has
> itself become
> recognized in popular culture--"Femlin."
>
> <<The Femlin is a character used on the Party Jokes
> page of Playboy
> magazine.>>
>
> <<Femlins were created by LeRoy Neiman in 1955 when
> publisher/editor
> Hugh Hefner
> decided the Party Jokes page needed a visual element. The
> name is a
> portmanteau of
> "female" and "gremlin." They are
> portrayed as mischievous black and
> white female
> sprites, apparently ten to twelve inches tall, wearing only
> opera
> gloves, stockings and
> heels. They are usually drawn in two or three panel
> vignettes,
> interacting with various
> life-sized items such as shoes, jewelry, neckties, and so
> forth.>>
>
> <<Femlins have appeared on the Party Jokes page in
> every issue since
> their creation,
> and were featured on the magazine's cover numerous
> times, either as
> drawn by Neiman
> or in photographed tableaus which utilized sculpted clay
> models.>>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femlin
>
> So what have I got here?
>
> Gremlins were first recognized by name early in the 20th
> Century by
> British airmen
> as unusual beings who did things to hinder aircraft
> operations and
> flight. The term
> may have come from an Old English dialect survival or an
> Irish word. Or
> the term
> may have been coined as a portmanteau word tying together
> the name of a
> popular
> brewery and a diminutive. (For no particular reason beyond
> a taste for
> good beers,
> I favor this origin story.)
>
> The functions that gremlins perform, however, involving
> handicrafts,
> technology, and
> trick-playing reach back further into old lore. Elves,
> pixies, sprites,
> dwarves, goblins,
> imps, and other mythological beings took an interest in
> human
> technologies and
> makings, sometimes helping, sometimes not. So while
> gremlins fiddling
> with aircraft
> strikes us as a new activity, maybe its more our human new
> activity that
> called forth
> the gremlins and gave us that term. And a little later, a
> popcult term
> for a sexy magazine
> mascot.
>
> Maybe gremlins are beings we earlier called other names.
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
