Nature
Description/Morphology
An emaciated man with a leathery body and little or no hair,
a
Redcap carries a sharp wooden scythe or an iron pike to strike
down
all who invade the area he has decided to guard for the time
being.
The Red Cap he wears, and for which he was named, is said to
be
made of dried human skin, died in blood. He is very fast in
spite
of the heavy iron pike he wields and the iron-shod boots he
wears.
Family
They are border goblins and live solitary
Element
Fire
Behavior
Redcaps are said to murder travelers who stray into their
homes,
sometimes by pushing boulders off cliffs and on to them,
staining
their hats with their victims' blood (from which they get
their
name).
Powers/Weaknesses
Redcaps must kill regularly, for if the blood staining
their
hats dries out, they die. Outrunning the buck-toothed little
daemons is quite impossible; the only way to escape one is to
quote
a passage from the Bible. They lose a tooth on hearing it,
which
they leave behind.
Places
The Red Cap moves from place to place on a whim throughout
the
extreme lowlands of Scotland along the English border. He
haunts
the ruins of old castles and cairns which he guards with his
life.
History/Beliefs
Famous
The most infamous redcap of all was Robin Redcap. As the
familiar of Lord William de Soulis, Robin wreaked much harm
and
ruin in the lands of his master's dwelling, Hermitage Castle.
Men
were murdered, women cruelly abused, and dark arts were
practiced.
So much infamy and blasphemy was said to have been committed
at
Hermitage Castle that the great stone keep was thought to be
sinking under a great weight of sin, as though the very
ground
wanted to hide it from the sight of God.
Yet Soulis, for all the evil he wrought, met a very
horrible
end: he was taken to the Nine Stane Rigg, a circle of stones
hard
by the castle, and there he was wrapped in lead and boiled to
death
in a great cauldron.
Reference
http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Redcap
Kankakee
County Cachers and Campers