[9] The Menehune of Hawaiian folklore have been compared to brownies as well, seeing they are portrayed as a race of dwarf people who carry out work during night time.

[10] The family cult of deceased ancestors in ancient times centred around the hearth,[2] which later became the place where offerings would be left for the brownie.

[11] The brownie will punish household servants who are lazy or slovenly by pinching them while they sleep, breaking or upsetting objects around them, or causing other mischief.

[11][15][a] Usually, the brownie associated with a house is said to live in a specific place, such as a particular nearby cave, stream, rock, or pond.

[15] He was said to go up to the nearby farm every night with wet feet and, if anything was untidy, he would put it in order, but, if anything was tidy, he would hurl it around and make a mess.

[6][13][30][31] The first mention in English of a brownie disappearing after being presented with clothes comes from Book Four, Chapter Ten of Reginald Scot's The Discoverie of Witchcraft, published in 1584.

[9][34] It is possible that the Cauld Lad may have simply thought himself "too grand for work", a motif attested to in other folk tales,[34] or that the gift of clothing may have been seen as a means of freeing him from a curse.

[33] The twelfth-century Welsh historian Gerald of Wales records how a Bwbach inflicted havoc and mischief upon a certain household that had angered him.

[41] Sikes goes on to explain that, in addition to being a household spirit, the Bwbach is also the name for a terrifying phantom believed to sweep people away on gusts of air.

The Fenodyree is envisioned as a "hairy spirit of great strength", who is capable of threshing an entire barn full of corn in a single night.

[37] He is described as a hideous, short-legged old man with a long tail who always dressed in a red coat and blue breeches with an old nightcap atop his head and a bandage around his face, since he was constantly plagued by toothache.

[37] A female spirit known as the Silkie or Selkie, who received her name from the fact that she was always dressed in grey silk, appears in English and Scottish folklore.

[16] Briggs gives the report of a woman named Marjory Sowerby, who, as a little girl, had spoken with the last remaining Hoyles of Denten Hall, two old ladies, about the Silkie and its kindness to them.

[16] Sowerby left the area in around 1902 and, when she returned over half a century later after World War II, the Hoyles were both long dead and the house was owned by a man who did not believe in fairies.

[54] According to M. L. West, they may be Celtic survivals of goat-like nature spirits from Proto-Indo-European mythology, analogous to the Roman fauns and Greek satyrs.

[39] In 1777, a vicar of Beetham wrote in his notes on local folklore, "A Browny is not a fairey, but a tawny color'd Being which will do a great deal of work for a Family, if used well.

"[39] The writer Walter Scott agreed in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, in which he states, "The Brownie formed a class of beings distinct in habit and disposition from the freakish and mischievous elves.

[3] Nonetheless, she rejects this idea, commenting that the Brownie has "an adaptability, individuality and a homely tang which forbids one to think of him as merely a lingering and reminiscent image.

[64]The folklorist L. F. Newman states that the image of the brownie fits well into a Functionalist analysis of the "old, generous rural economy" of pre-Industrial Britain,[34] describing him as the epitome of what a good household servant of the era was supposed to be.

[66] According to Susan Stewart, brownies also resolved the problem that human storytellers faced of the unending repetition and futility of labour.

"[6] An entity referred to as a "drudging goblin" or the "Lubbar Fend" is described in lines 105 to 114 of John Milton's 1645 pastoral poem L'Allegro.

[6][48] The "goblin" churns butter, brews drinks, makes dough rise, sweeps the floor, washes the dishes, and lays by the fire.

[68][70] In this story, the evil Lady Wheelhope orders that any of her male servants who openly practises any form of religion must be given over to the military and shot.

"[67] Characters in the novel believe Merodach to be a brownie, although others claim that he is a "mongrel, between a Jew and an ape... a wizard... a kelpie, or a fairy".

[68][69][74] The Canadian children's writer Palmer Cox helped promote brownies in North America through his illustrated poems about them published in St. Nicholas Magazine.

[75][77] The popularity of Cox's poems, illustrations, and tie-in products cemented brownies as an element of North American children's literature and culture.

[78] In 1919, Juliette Gordon Low adopted "Brownies" as the name for the lowest age group in her organization of "Girl Guides" on account of Ewing's short story.

[68][79] A brownie character named "Big Ears" appears in Enid Blyton's Noddy series of children's books,[74] in which he is portrayed as living in a mushroom house just outside the village of Toytown.

[74] House elves also resemble brownies in appearance, being small, but they have larger heads and large, bat-like ears.

[82] A brownie named Thimbletack plays an important role in the children's fantasy book series The Spiderwick Chronicles,[83][81] written by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi and published in five volumes from May 2003 to September 2004 by Simon & Schuster.