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Brownie   Listen
noun
Brownie  n.  An imaginary good-natured spirit, who was supposed often to perform important services around the house by night, such as thrashing, churning, sweeping. (Scot.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Brownie" Quotes from Famous Books



... ynn Paradyse, All Heavenn and Erthe dyd hommage to hys mynde; Ynn Womman alleyne mannes pleasaunce lyes; As Instrumentes of joie were made the kynde. 175 Go, take a wyfe untoe thie armes, and see Wynter, and brownie hylles, wyll have a charme ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton

... like that the field- and forest-folk usually went straight to Mr. Crow for advice. But this time it happened that the old gentleman had gone on an excursion to the further side of Blue Mountain, where Brownie Beaver lived. And there seemed to be no one else at hand who was likely to be ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... I've chased it away. Isn't that a shame." Phyllis was very serious. "But, do you know, I think it was the brownie's own fault. I felt something a minute ago, just punching and kicking at my face, and I thought perhaps it was an ordinary leaf but of course it couldn't ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill

... could care for you, and see to it that you did not suffer from the chill. I don't know though, even with the admirable supervision I'd have over you then, whether you would take proper care of yourself, my Brownie. What would ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... in the castle. The rector was fonder of going to Kirby, where John, Geoffrey's eldest son, lived quietly and soberly, his three younger brothers having, when mere boys, embraced the profession of arms, placing themselves under the care of the good soldier Sir William Brownie, who had served for many years in the Low Countries. They occasionally returned home for a time, and were pleased to take notice of the sons of their old tutor, although Geoffrey was six years junior to Horace, ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... looking apparatus of a short time ago, experimenters are now vying with each other in making small or novel equipment. Portable sets of all sorts are being fashioned, from one which will go into an ordinary suitcase, to one so small it will easily slip into a Brownie camera. One receiver depicted in a newspaper was one inch square! Another was a ring for the finger, with a setting one inch by five-eighths of an inch, and an umbrella as a "ground." Walking sets with receivers fastened ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins

... she's not," Wally said. He and the old nurse-housekeeper of Billabong were sworn allies; though no one could ever quite come up to Jim and Norah in Brownie's heart, Wally had been a close third from the day, long years back, that he had first come to the station, a lonely, dark-eyed little Queenslander. "She's made the girls scrub and polish until there's ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... and silk goods, completed the list of all those of the party who were any way worthy of mention. The Frenchman, Monsieur Robineau by name, had a little ugly face, nearly hidden by an enormous beard, wore a red cap upon his head, and looked altogether like a bandy-legged brownie or gnome. The scene at daybreak the next morning is described with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... one with whom you are going to close accounts, I gave him liberty to transfer the shares you were to have in them to Messrs. Cadell & Davies. But when I consider your handsome subscription for "The Queen's Wake," if you have the slightest inclination to retain your shares of that work and "The Brownie," as your name is on them, along with Blackwood, I would much rather, not only from affection, but interest, that you should continue to dispose ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... "What shall I cry?"—O, thou spirit! whatever thou art, or wherever thou makest thyself visible! be thou a bogle by the eerie side of an auld thorn, in the dreary glen through which the herd-callan maun bicker in his gloamin route frae the fauld!—Be thou a brownie, set, at dead of night, to thy task by the blazing ingle, or in the solitary barn, where the repercussions of thy iron flail half affright thyself, as thou performest the work of twenty of the sons of men, ere the cock-crowing ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... bestowed; the tail wagged effusively; the name of Brownie became irrevocably associated with food, and a loving look and tone with favours to come. Thus a title and a friendship were established which endured through life and was terminated only by death. So trivial sometimes ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... fence into the barnyard jumped the horses; and Marmaduke came running up; and the Toyman rushed over from the field; and Father came out of the barn; and Mother flew out of the house; and Rover and Brownie and Wienerwurst raced from the pond, each one to see what all ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson

... he seemed to exercise a dreadful and secret power over 'Brownie'—his pathetic little serving boy, ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease

... "You see, Oz is a Great Wizard, and can take on any form he wishes. So that some say he looks like a bird; and some say he looks like an elephant; and some say he looks like a cat. To others he appears as a beautiful fairy, or a brownie, or in any other form that pleases him. But who the real Oz is, when he is in his own form, no living ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... part with them," was Teddie Braham's reply to this offer of his schoolfellow, Gerald Keith, to buy his pet rabbits. "What, sell little Stripe, and Pickles, and old Brownie, and Spot, and Longears! I should be very badly off before I ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous

... nor heard, for her eyes were fixed on the green pods, and her thoughts were far away. She was recalling the fairy-tale granny told her last night, and wishing with all her heart that such things happened nowadays. For in this story, as a poor girl like herself sat spinning before the door, a Brownie came by, and gave the child a good-luck penny; then a fairy passed, and left a talisman which would keep her always happy; and last of all, the prince rolled up in his chariot, and took her away to reign with him over a lovely kingdom, as a reward for her many kindnesses ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott

... happy, successful Christmas Day, full of rejoicing. May you be feeling the same; that joy has made us one in many a time of separation.—-Your faithful old Brownie, J. MOHUN.' ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... me, Brownie. You have always been my dear, little cousin, and it will take more than a letter to separate us," said Hugh, opening the envelope. The letter was as follows; "Miss B. Daril: I don't want to trouble you, but I must have that money. Bills is coming in every ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March

... with a black-haired cowman, Grey-eyed, in that fine Celtic type, As much the poet as the ploughman— "Seems kind of lucky here," said I; "The very ducklings look more downy Than others do." He grinned: "An' why? May happen, Sir, we feeds a brownie! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various

... gossip in the village had this notable cat hurried into premature parturition, as, on descending at day-break into her kitchen, the dame would descry the animal perched on the dresser, having entered, God knows how, and gleaming upon her with its great green eyes, and a malignant, brownie expression of countenance. ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... unlovely name. The sun was never so bright, and the piney air was balmier sweet than dreams. And that great noble bird came daily on his log, sometimes with her and sometimes quite alone, and drummed for very joy of being alive. But why sometimes alone? Why not forever with his Brownie bride? Why should she stay to feast and play with him for hours, then take some stealthy chance to slip away and see him no more for hours or till next day, when his martial music from the log announced him restless for her quick return? ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... Sunday and let him hold her parasol all the way to Grandma's gate. Hannah was mad as hops when she heard that you had gold hair and blue eyes, for it did seem hard to be beaten by a girl of the same kind? but you haven't, have you? Your hair is almost black and your eyes are brownie-brown. You're years younger than Hannah, too. My! Won't she be astonished when she sees you! But I don't understand how it got around about your having gold hair. It was a man that stopped at your father's ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... anywhere between. Fireplace, the full width of the hut in one end, where all the cooking and baking for forty or fifty men is done, and where flour, sugar, etc., are kept in open bags. Fire, like a very furnace. Buckets of tea and coffee on roasting beds of coals and ashes on the hearth. Pile of "brownie" on the bare black boards at the end of the table. Unspeakable aroma of forty or fifty men who have little inclination and less opportunity to wash their skins, and who soak some of the grease out of their clothes—in ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson

... the drawing-room was renovated, a forlorn old library resuscitated into vigorous life, a museum fitted with shelves, drawers, and glass cases which Caroline said would be as dangerous to the vigorous spirit of natural history as new clothes to a Brownie, and a billiard and gun room were ceded to the representations of Allen, who comported himself as befitted the son ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... were very happy together, and Katy found the hours of his absence very long, especially when she was left alone. Even to-day, with her aunts and mother, the time drags heavily, and she looks more than once from the bay window, until at last Brownie's head is seen over the hill, and a few moments after Morris' arm is around her shoulders, and her lips are upturned for the kiss he gives as he leads her into the house out of the chill, damp air, chiding ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... protected from the sea blast, mechanically pulling to pieces the dried, blackened seaweed blown up among the small, prickly blush roses. In her green quilted petticoat and spencer she might have been one of the "good people's changelings," only the hue of her cheek was more like that of a brownie of the wold; and, truly, to her remote world there was an impenetrable mystery about the young mistress of Staneholme, in her estrangement and mournfulness. Some said that she had favoured another lover, whom Staneholme had slain in a duel or a night-brawl; some ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... a little brownie, after all." Her mother was holding her at arm's—length and studying her critically, wondering if she would ever ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... "I do need so much a little Brownie or a goblin to help me with my housework. Fancy going home with a dear little Jackanapes to carry my 'dinner pail'!" and at this suggestion every one seemed to enjoy the grotesque ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose

... verandah when we saw the door give. Poor old Brownie was getting the worst of it. We heard the fellow call out something—a threat—and Dad's arm went up, and the stockwhip came down like a flash across the man's shoulder He gave one yell! You never heard such an ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... would die ere they could come to it; and in winter, if they were thick about the fire-side, he would desire them to make room for some others that stood by, though they did not see them, else some of them would be quickly thrown into the midst of it. But whether this man saw any more than Brownie and Meg Mullach, I am not very sure; some say, he saw more continually, and would often be very angry-like, and something troubled, nothing visibly moving him: others affirm he saw these two continually, ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey

... to fail," returned George. "As long as we're going to spend our vacations on this lake we'll give you girls a chance to prove your superiority as strategists. I'll wager you a No. 2 Brownie Camera, to be the joint property of whichever side wins it, that the Tramp Club can completely outwit the Meadow-Brook Girls three times inside of three ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge

... mine have a couple of rats which they have tamed. One, quite white, with pink eyes, is called 'Snow,' and the other, which is white, with a brown head and breast, is named 'Brownie.' ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot

... a purely contemptible slave. Where would be the room for any further repentance? He would have had every chance, and failed in every trial the most opposed! He must be lord of his wealth; Mammon must be the slave, not Walter Drake. Mammon must be more than his brownie, more than his Robin Goodfellow; he must be the subject Djin of a holy spell—holier than Solomon's wisdom, more potent than the stamp of his seal. At present he almost feared him as a Caliban to whom he might not be able to play Prospero, an Ufreet half-escaped ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... more enduring form. They have been written as occasion suggested, during several years; and they commemorate to me many of the friends I have known and loved in the animal world. "Shep" and "Dr. Jim," "Abdallah" and "Brownie," "Little Dryad" and "Peek-a-Boo." I have been fast friends with every one, and have watched them with such loving interest that I knew all their ways and could almost read their thoughts. I send them on to other lovers of dumb animals, hoping that ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 26, May 6, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... piled with deftly hand The rosined staves of the Noraway wood, Four feet high and four feet broad, To burn, amidst flames of burning pitch, So rare a chimera yclept a witch— Born of a fancy wild and camstary, Like ghost or ghoul, brownie or fairy. The prickers are there, each with long-pronged fork, Yearning and yape for their hellish work, And the priests and friars, black, white, or grey, All ready to preach the black devil away. Yea, devils are there, more than they opine. Even one under every gabardine; And there is a crowd ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... a short, fat, bow-legged man, with big whiskers and long white hair, wearing a red hat like those worn by clowns in circuses. He usually appears in his shirt sleeves, with an open collar, a blue vest, and knickerbockers upon his legs, which are as slim as those of a brownie. His circumference is greater than his height, and his head is almost as ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... it is just for the novelty of the thing. The last social we had was a Mother Goose, and we have had Brownie suppers and Pink teas and everything else we could think of. We must have ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... training. Fancy a woman, a young girl, having to sit still and drag at a runaway horse all the time. I couldn't stop the brute; she was boring like a wild bull. So just as we came pretty close I lifted Miss Falkland off the saddle and yelled at old Brownie as if I had been on a cattle camp, swinging round to the near side at the same time. Round he came like one o'clock. I could see the mare make one prop to stop herself, and then go flying right through the air, till I heard a beastly "thud" ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... like that, 'cause it's a hymn and you're a Bishop," said Eleanor, approvingly. Her effort was evidently meeting with appreciation. "You can talk to me now, I'm here." She settled herself like a Brownie, elbows on knees, her chin in the hollows of small, lean hands, and ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... over a dry puddle into which another fairy had fallen and been unable to climb out. At first this little damsel was afraid of Maimie, who most kindly went to her aid, but soon she sat in her hand chatting gaily and explaining that her name was Brownie, and that though only a poor street singer she was on her way to the ball to see if the ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... can hear the Colonel shouting already. Man, listen to that!"—as four of Fort Hell's guns crashed almost simultaneously. "Brownie! Greasy Cook! O Brownie!" ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson

... was her name for me—'we are going to the country, Brownie dear, where you can run and play on the green grass, and eat fresh clover, ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine

... witches they cause disease, or they hound on the tiger to catch men. But they are by no means always malevolent and are capable of gratitude. The Kisar Bonga or Brownie who takes up his abode in a house steals food for the master of the house, and unless offended will cause him to ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas

... that the things he hunts for are possessed of supernatural powers; and the theory of a brownie in the house, with a special grudge against Jonathan, would perhaps best account for the way in which they elude his search but leap into sight at my approach. There is, to be sure, one other explanation, but it is one that does not suggest itself to ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... steamer. The plan had been abandoned as too dangerous. But the colour clung to the soft skin; and the hair, cropped close to the neck, had a stubby, uncouth look. No one seeking Betty Harris, would have looked twice at the queer, little, brownie-like creature, dressing itself with careful haste. It lifted a plaid dress from the chair—large squares of red and green plaid—and looked at it with raised brows and dropped it over the cropped head. ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee

... as Milton calls him—is a rough kind of Brownie or House Elf, supposed to haunt some north-country homesteads, where he does the work of the farm labourers, ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... you good old Brownie, have you? How I should like to look at them again and show them the Gillian and Mysie. Do you remember the little scalloped line we drew round all the ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a ditch. Give him only a good fog-meal—which was merely a trifle, just what would serve three men or so—give him, we say, a fog-meal of this kind, about five times a day, with a liberal promise of more, and never was there a Scotch Brownie who could get through so much work. He knew no fatigue; frost and cold had no power over him; wind, sleet, and hail he laughed at; rain! it stretched his skin, he said, after a meal—and that, he added, was a comfort. Notwithstanding all this, he was neither more nor less ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... however, that the Neolithic men were not of Aryan blood. They are commonly spoken of by the name of Ugrians,[7] the "ogres"[8] of our folk-lore; which has also handed down, in the spiteful Brownie of the wood and the crafty Pixie of the cavern, dimly-remembered traditions of their physical and mental characteristics. Indeed it is not impossible that their blood may still be found in the remoter corners of ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... a voice behind them. The voice came from a fat Brownie, who was sitting on a stone with his legs dangling. "They have clocks everywhere in Zodiac Town," the Brownie resumed, "even out here in the suburbs. That noise is the Chestnut Chaps unbuckling their belts and ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner

... the best times he had ever known. He had kodak pictures of all their outings. Most of them were light-struck or out of focus or over-exposed, but he treasured them because he had taken them himself with his first little Brownie camera. There was nothing wrong or queer with the recollection of the scenes they brought to him. His memory photographed only perfect days, and he ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... daughter. "It was pretty slow, of course—it always is when you go away, Daddy. I worked, and pottered round with Brownie, and went out for rides. And oh, Dad! ever so many letters—and Jim's coming home next week!" She executed an irrepressible pirouette. "And he's got the cup for the best average at the sports—best all-around athlete that means, doesn't it? Isn't ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... me go to her," prayed Thistle; "if she is in sorrow, I will comfort her, and show my gratitude for all she has done for me: dear Brownie, set me free, and when she is found I will come and be your prisoner again. I will bear and suffer ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott

... churning was easy it was because of the secret help of the "brownie." He was a tiny, elf-like creature who lived in the barn and was never seen of men; but his presence was made known by his many deeds of helpfulness in kitchen and dairy, for which he was rewarded by a daily bowl of milk. Those who have ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll

... FOR TINY TOTS, the kind that mother reads beside the fire at bedtime, some of them old, like the "Little Red Hen" and "Peter Rabbit," and some of them newer, like "The Greedy Brownie" and "The Birthday ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... of the Grecian Satyr. The Urisk seems not to have inherited, with the form, the petulance of the silvan deity of the classics; his occupation, on the contrary, resembled those of Milton's Lubbar Fiend, or of the Scottish Brownie, though he differed from both in name and appearance. 'The Urisks,' says Dr. Graham, 'were a sort of lubberly supernaturals, who, like the Brownies, could be gained over by kind attention to perform the drudgery of the farm, and it was believed that many families in the Highlands had one of ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... Brittany the dead seek warmth at the hearth by night, and a feast is spread for them on All Souls' eve, or crumbs are left for them after a family gathering.[535] But generally the family ghost has become a brownie, lutin, or pooka, haunting the hearth and doing the household work.[536] Fairy corresponds in all respects to old ancestral ghost, and the one has succeeded to the place of the other, while the fairy is even said to be the ghost of a dead person.[537] Certain archaeological remains have ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... inverse heat sink. 2. [TMRC] /v./ To travel, with v approaching c [that is, with velocity approaching lightspeed —ESR]. 3. [MIT] /v./ To propel something very quickly. "The new comm software is very fast; it really zorches files through the network." 4. [MIT] /n./ Influence. Brownie points. Good karma. The intangible and fuzzy currency in which favors are measured. "I'd rather not ask him for that just yet; I think I've used up my quota of zorch with him for the week." 5. [MIT] /n./ Energy, drive, or ability. "I think I'll {punt} that change ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... be so: he left signs of each visit palpable and unmistakable; hitherto, however, I had never caught him in the act: watch as I would, I could not detect the hours and moments of his coming. I saw the brownie's work in exercises left overnight full of faults, and found next morning carefully corrected: I profited by his capricious good-will in loans full welcome and refreshing. Between a sallow dictionary and worn-out grammar would magically grow a fresh interesting new work, or a classic, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... made different by one or the other view being correct. For it would then have appeared that no difference of fact could possibly ensue; and the quarrel was as unreal as if, theorizing in primitive times about the raising of dough by yeast, one party should have invoked a 'brownie,' while another insisted on an 'elf' as the true cause of the phenomenon." [Footnote: 'Theorie und Praxis,' Zeitsch. des Oesterreichischen Ingenieur u. Architecten-Vereines, 1905, Nr. 4 u. 6. I find a still more radical pragmatism than Ostwald's in an address by Professor W. S. Franklin: ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... nights, all through the late summer and the fall, hoping against hope, despairing, hoping again, that the magic card might really be delivered some day in early December, and her debutante daughter's social position be placed beyond criticism once more. Only perhaps one hundred persons out of "Brownie's" four hundred guests could be sure of the privilege. The others must suffer ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... The brownie might or might not have heard; but, at any rate, he deigned no reply, and went on with his task, which was pounding seeds ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May

... old Captain had been to her all her life like a faithful kobold or brownie, an unquestioning servant of all her gentle biddings. She dared tell him anything without diffidence or shamefacedness; and she felt that in this trial of her life he might have in his sea-receptacle some odd old amulet or spell that should be ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... were better in bed," he said. What would happen to his dinner if any one's appetite failed for want of rest? There were too few of us as it was, and, besides, he would have to stay up all night in any case, for the mince pies were yet to be made, in addition to brownie and another plum-pudding for the "boys," to say nothing of the hop-beer, which if made too soon would turn with the thunder and if made too late would not "jump up" in time. He did not add that he would have trusted no mortal with the care of ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... Hall, long years ago, there lived a Brownie that was the contrariest Brownie you ever knew. At night, after the servants had gone to bed, it would turn everything topsy-turvy, put sugar in the salt-cellars, pepper into the beer, and was up to all kinds of pranks. It ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... understand a word you're saying," said Edred; and, darting to a corner, produced a photographic camera, of the kind called "Brownie." ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit

... "Don't, Brownie," said Helen, using her pet name for her friend. They had grown to be much to each other during the experiences of the past year. ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... that had given Mr. Bartlett this assurance had not exaggerated the amiable qualities of the donkey. "Little Brownie," as the children had unanimously and immediately named him, was of equable and even nature. True, as the days went by it was discovered that he was somewhat lazy, also self-willed. If he wanted to stop he would not move again until he wished to, in face of all pleading, urging, or inducements. ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake

... wide open. This stall was occupied by a favourite cow—brown, with large white spots, called therefore Brownie. Her manger was full of fresh-cut grass; and half-buried in this grass, at one end of the manger, with her back against the wall, sat Annie, holding one of the ears of the hornless Brownie with one hand and stroking the creature's ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... good Colonel man who had a perfectly good car and had, moreover, a perfectly good excuse to go to Passchendaele (he was really going to Boulogne), but wanted to get a good flying start, and we set off. We were a perfectly organised unit, consisting of four sections (including two No. 2 Brownie Sections), A.S.C. complement (one lunch basket), Aid Post (bandage and thermometer, carried as a matter of course by Sadie, who thinks of these things), a Scotch dog (mascot) and a flask of similar nationality (medical ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various

... occupied with weaving; she is making a veil for a human maiden which shall keep her from seeing sin; the Faery is singing to herself. Presently up comes a little Brownie—a male Faery that is—most daintily dressed and in the gayest mood. He wants the little weaving Faery to come with him; there is to be a most delicious little gathering in a clover-field on purpose to sip clover-honey—white clover-honey! Now of all things ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder

... are made so that you can never really understand what you have lost, and I, with all my will in my wings, and stronger for the loss of my heart. Some day, perhaps, if I keep the wings, it will return, a little withered, but sound as a brownie's. Then, dear man of the trees, I shall bury it here in the forest like a precious seed. Who knows what it may come to be, my poor heart that was dead and shall live again,—a tall lady-tree as heartless as any man-oak, ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... date back to my school days, although the first actually published was "Why the Chicadee Goes Crazy Twice a Year." This in its original form appeared in "Our Animal Friends" in September, 1893. Others, as "The Fingerboard Goldenrod," "Brook-Brownie," "The Bluebird," "Diablo and the Dogwood," "How the Violets Came," "How the Indian Summer Came," "The Twin Stars," "The Fairy Lamps," "How the Littlest Owl Came," "How the Shad Came," appeared in slightly different form in the Century Magazine, ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... you are not to mention the wooden shoe or the geese or the little brownie who was so like Nils Holgersson that if it was not himself it must have had some connection ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... outspoke a brownie, With a long beard on his chin; 'I have spun up all the tow,' said he, 'And I want some ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous

... caught her eye a-dance, Through the catkins downy. "Heigho, Brownie-pate," said I; "Heigho," said ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey

... rope tied by sportsmen round the necks of fleet pointers to tire them well, and check their speed, is hereabouts universally called 'trash cord,' or 'dog trash.' A few miles distant from Morley, west of Leeds, the 'Boggart' or 'Barguest,' the Yorkshire Brownie is called by the people the Gui-trash, or Ghei-trash, the usual description of which is invariably that of a shaggy dog or other animal, encumbered with a chain round its neck, which is heard to rattle in its movements. I have ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various

... by the phrases, "dashing on," "writing as if in desperation," "mingling pathos and absurdity," and so forth. Tales, novels, sketches, all were the same to him; and he had the same queer mixture of confidence in their merits and doubt about the manner in which they were written. The Brownie of Bodsbeck, The Three Perils of Man (which appears refashioned in the modern editions of his works as The Siege of Roxburgh), The Three Perils of Woman, The Shepherd's Calendar and numerous other uncollected tales exhibit for the most part very ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... wanders on earth, and chiefly amongst Maister Heriot's family, though she hath been seen in other places by them that well knew her. But who she is, I will not warrant to say, or how she becomes attached, like a Highland Brownie, to some peculiar family. They say she has a row of apartments of her own, ante-room, parlour, and bedroom; but deil a bed she sleeps in but her own coffin, and the walls, doors, and windows are so chinked up, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... from 'Brownie,' who spent his time inside the tent, the rest of the dogs never uttered a sound during the storm, and were found quite happily sleeping in their nests of snow. On the journey back the thermometer recorded -53 deg., and the effect of such a temperature upon wet clothing ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... same being that is called Kobold in Germany, and Brownie in Scotland. He is in Denmark and Norway also called Nisse god Dreng (Nisse good lad), and in Sweden, Tomtegubbe (the old ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various

... again with the same assiduity as before, with still interjected sentences expressive of her confidence that she would overcome the obstinacy of the coals. And overcome it she did, as appeared from the entire lighting up of the kitchen. Was ever Border Brownie so industrious! Some time now elapsed, as if she were sitting with due patience till the water should boil. Thereafter she rose, and they saw her cross the kitchen to the lobby, where the meal was kept, then ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... and Brownie lived with their father and mother and great herds of Deer in a forest. One day their father called them to him and said: "The Deer in the forest are always in danger when the corn is ripening in the fields. It will be best for you to go ...
— More Jataka Tales • Re-told by Ellen C. Babbitt

... so hard while the heat is so great. In spite of your red cheeks, you are a real brownie. Do you know what a ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... to "Old Mortality" would have been a novel, as good and on the whole as fair, written from the Covenanting side. Hogg attempted this reply, not to Scott's pleasure according to the Shepherd, in "The Brownie of Bodsbeck." The Shepherd says that when Scott remarked that the "Brownie" gave an untrue description of the age, he replied, "It's a devilish deal truer than yours!" Scott, in his defence, says that ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... A brownie stealeth from the vine Singing, "Heigho, my dearie! And will you hear this song of mine,— A song of the land of murk and mist Where bideth the bud the dew hath kist? Then let the moonbeam's web of light Be spun before thee silvery white, And I shall sing the ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field

... see her on the way! She 's past the witch's knowe; She 's climbing up the brownie's brae— My heart is in a lowe. Oh, no! 'tis not so, 'Tis glamrie I hae seen; The shadow o' that hawthorn bush Will move ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... from the chimney, and as my dog and I approached, a heavy bark came from a mastiff that was chained inside the low wicket. A sudden sense of companionship almost frightened me. It seemed as though the brownie had come from his clump of rushes to set things in order. A chair stood in the centre of a patch of grass that crowned a little hillock near the cottage, and while I waited and wondered a bowed figure stole forth ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... but a creature as matter of fact as any cheesemonger or any cheese, and a realist bemired up to the ears in actuality; so that, by that account, the whole of my published fiction should be the single-handed product of some Brownie, some Familiar, some unseen collaborator, whom I keep locked in a back garret, while I get all the praise and he but a share (which I cannot prevent him getting) of the pudding. I am an excellent adviser, something like Moliere's servant; I pull ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "Little Brownie is the pilot," replied Janus jocularly, waving a hand in Harriet Burrell's direction. "Whatever she suggests, we will do. We can't do any better than to ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge

... there was somebody frae Ameriky i' these pairts," said Gavin. "Brownie Telfer tell't me there was a saxpence i' the plate last Sabbath day. ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... made dolls of cotton wadding, and dolls of knitting cotton, and peanut dolls, and Brownie dolls, and all sorts of queer and odd dolls which they invented on the ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells

... not what could well be called fickle. He admired ladies indiscriminately, respected them all, liked some very much, and next to Alice was more attracted by and pleased with Adah's face than any he had ever seen save that of "the Brownie," which seemed to him much like it. He had thought of Adah often, but had as often associated her with some tall, bewhiskered man, who loved her and her little boy as she deserved to be loved. With this idea constantly ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... me, Grandmother, she belongs to me!" she didn't understand for some time what he meant. But Moni couldn't explain to her yet; he ran to the shed, and there right next to Brownie, so that it wouldn't be afraid, he made Mggerli a fine, soft bed of fresh straw, and laid it ...
— Moni the Goat-Boy • Johanna Spyri et al

... received a shock; she was much more inclined to take things prosaically. But it was very difficult to explain matters. I think the dwarf at the first moment was more inclined to take her for something supernatural than she was now to imagine him a brownie or a gnome. For she was a pretty little girl, with a mass of golden fair hair and English blue eyes; and with her hat half fallen off, and her cheeks flushed, she might have sat for a picture of a fairy who had strayed from ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... like that even as a baby, always on the side of the unfortunate, always fighting valiantly for the under dog. With his large head, his grotesque spectacles, and his pouting lips, he bore a curious resemblance to a brownie, yet when one observed him closely, one saw that there was a remarkable blending of strength and ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... shaggy black mane. I find you rather alarming, when I examine you close at hand: you talk of my being a fairy, but I am sure, you are more like a brownie." ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... Antiquites d'Herculanum, plate xvii. vol. viii., which represents a little old man sitting on the ground with his knees up to his chin, a huge head, ass's ears, a long beard, and a roguish face, which would agree well with our notion of a Brownie. Their statues were often placed behind the door, as having power to keep out all things hurtful, especially evil genii. Respected as they were, they sometimes met with rough treatment, and were kicked or cuffed, or thrown out of window without ceremony, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... a bunch o' keys at the camp. I had snavelled 'em at the railway station, las' time we was at Deniliquin, thinkin' they might come in useful. So I heads for the camp at the rate o' knots. Collars the keys, an' gits a drink o' tea, an' takes a bit o' brownie in my fist, an' back I goes, doin' the trip in about an hour. Providential, one o' the keys fits the lock, so I whips out the carrion, an' shoves 'em down to where the ole sinner took 'em from. Well, there was two station teams in the paddick—I ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... to put a fresh piece of sulphur in Ossy's water-bowl, and to cut up his meat finer. You can give Hotspur and Brownie two lumps of sugar each; and then we'll go out." Going down on her knees in the porch, she parted the old dog's hair, and examined his eczema, thinking: "I must rub some more of that stuff in to-night. Oh, ducky, you're not smelling your best! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... You're not mine; Belle is. Well, that buttons it up, Brownie, except for one thing. To Jim and Belle ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... instead of the restive Raven, they had harnessed, thanks to the representations of Marya Philimonovna, the bailiff's horse, Brownie, and Darya Alexandrovna, delayed by anxiety over her own attire, came out and got in, dressed in ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... coal cellar may seem a most curious place to choose to live in; but then a Brownie is a curious creature—a fairy, and yet not one of that sort of fairies who fly about on gossamer wings, and dance in the moonlight, and so on. He never dances; and as to wings, what use would they be to him in a coal cellar? He is a sober, stay-at-home ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... nor even a brownie, but one of the old wrinkled kind of fairies. Old Margaret, that kindest of nurses, could not bear to see her dear Miss Lizzie untidy, or to hear her dear Miss Lizzie scolded, so she mended and mended without saying anything, encouraging me in habits of arrant slovenliness, and ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... tales, that nobody believes any longer, about Brownies. A Brownie was a very useful creature to have in a house. He was a kind of fairy-man, and he came out in the dark, when everybody had gone to bed, just as ...
— The Gold Of Fairnilee • Andrew Lang

... cerebral den, Who raps upon table and chair, Who frightens the housemaid, and then Slinks back, like a thief, to his lair: 'Tis the Brownie (according to Mair) Who rattles the pots on the shelf, But the Psychical sages declare "It is ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang

... anticipation of a discovery! "On January 22, 1621, Bacon celebrated his sixtieth birthday with great state at York House. Jonson was present," and wrote an ode, with something about the Genius of the House (Lar or Brownie), ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang

... polish. He next set himself about putting Mr. Cargill's house into order; and without leave asked or given by that reverend gentleman, he actually accomplished as wonderful a reformation in the Manse, as could have been effected by a benevolent Brownie. The floors were sometimes swept—the carpets were sometimes shaken—the plates and dishes were cleaner—there was tea and sugar in the tea-chest, and a joint of meat at proper times was to be found in the larder. The elder maid-servant ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... "Oh, how nice Brownie looks!" cried the little girl in delight, as her cousin was lifted on to his new pony; "but I don't think he is as handsome as you, old Frisk. ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland

... 25th of January; how, on the evening of his birth, a man and horse were dispatched for the midwife, but the night being wild, and Ettrick deep in flood, the rider was lost; nevertheless, the familiar spirit called Brownie—the Lubber-Fiend of Milton—supplied his place, and brought the marvelling midwife in time to achieve the adventure of the future poet of Kilmeny. All this, and much more he related in a way hovering between jest and earnest, and in a strong ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various

... and see a deal of the world in their daily walks. Hunting for insects gives them an excellent chance to see fairies, if there are any. Here is some corn for the biddies; and, after we have fed them, we will look for eggs, and so may find a brownie ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... hind-toes. Every bear, of course, likes to chew his own feet, for it is one of the most soothing and comforting things in the world; but it is horrid to have anyone else come up behind you when you are asleep, and begin to chew your feet for you. And that was Kahwa—that was my sister, my name being Brownie—was always doing, and I simply had to slap her ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson

... "Cruel Brownie! I'm vexed that I bothered with him," said Kate, dropping her lip. Then nodding to her reflection in the water where the willow bough had disappeared, she said, "Poor little Katey! He might have given you something else. Anything but ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... There is something restful in truth and honest purity, after all: one feels safe, and grounded on a sure place. It's good to have a little fairy lying close in one's bosom; and I vow I'll have my little brownie there yet, though I have to go as suitor on a regular courting expedition to my own wife before I win her heart. Curse this old lover of hers, who bars her heart against me! And curse my own past follies, which make a good woman fear to trust me! Marriage is a ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... 'nine witch-knots,' the 'bush of woodbine,' the 'kaims o' care,' and the 'master goat'—from those mentioned in its prototypes in Scandinavian, Greek, and Eastern ballads and stories; and in more than one it is the sage counsels of 'Billy Blin''—the Brownie—that give the cue by which the evil charm is unwound. The Brownie—the Lubber Fiend—owns a department of legend and ballad scarcely less important than that possessed by his relatives, the Elfin folk and ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie

... the direction in which the Bellows had pointed, and, sure enough, there was a cloud coming slowly along, shaped very much like a trolley car, and on the front of it, as it drew nearer, the lad was soon able to discern the funny little figure of a Brownie acting as motorman. ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs

... BROWNIE, a good-natured household elf, believed in Scotland to render obliging services to good housewives, and his presence an evidence that the internal economies were approved of, as he favoured good husbandry, and was partial to ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... his sisters were the Reeds, And they every one applauded when he sang about his deeds. His vest was white, his mantle brown, as clear as they could be, And his songs were fairly bubbling o'er with melody and glee. But an envious Neighbor splashed with mud our Brownie's coat and vest, And then a final handful threw that stuck upon his breast. The Brook-bird's mother did her best to wash the stains away, But there they stuck, and, as it seems, are very like to stay. And so he wears the splashes ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... and improved in quality by being subjected to searching historical criticism. More than once, for instance, a leshie, or wood-sprite, had been seen in the neighbourhood; and in several households the domovoi, or brownie, had been known to play strange pranks until he was properly propitiated. And as a set-off against these manifestations of evil powers, there were well-authenticated stories about a miracle-working image that had mysteriously appeared on the branch of a tree, and about ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... his great strength, is Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle, on the Scottish side of the border. The Cowt, with his followers, was enticed into the Castle, where Lord Soulis purposed his death; but the gigantic youth burst through the circle of his foes and escaped. The evil Brownie of the moorland, however, gave to Lord Soulis the secret which safeguarded the young Cowt. His coat of mail was sword-proof by a spell of enchantment, and he wore in his helmet rowan and holly leaves; but these would all be of no avail against the power of running water. The ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry

... that side what wark was dune, By the streamer's gleam, or the glance o' the moon; A word, or a wish—an' the Brownie cam sune, Sae ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... moment a brownie with a hot face and looking rather uncomfortable in his brown-velvet tights, accompanied by the most spiritual-looking fairy it was possible to see, revolved slowly round in the mazes of ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade

... Brownie sits in the Scotchman's room, And eats his meat and drinks his ale, And beats the maid with her unused broom, And the lazy lout with his idle flail; But he sweeps the floor and threshes the corn, And hies him away ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... parents slept; yes, they did, and so he went softly, quite softly, only in his little shirt, up to the wheel, and began to spin. The cord flew off, and the wheel then ran much quicker. His mother awoke at the same moment; the curtains moved; she looked out and thought of the brownie, or another little spectral being. 'Have mercy on us!' said she, and in her fear she struck her husband in the side; he opened his eyes, rubbed them with his hands, and looked at the busy little fellow. 'It is Bertel, woman,' ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... the sullen brownie and straddled him forward of the saddle, then proceeded to mount himself, when the Capture began to display marked agitation. He squirmed and twisted, turned his head back and up, and finally ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... length. "I've got to grind in earnest now, Ted, if I'm to be ready for Yale, next year. Old Brownie has promised to put ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray

... corduroy trousers and clumsy boots—his feet and hands were enormous—together with a green coat and a red handkerchief which was carelessly twisted round his hairy throat. On his tangled locks—distressingly shaggy and unkempt—he wore no hat, and he looked like a brownie, grotesque, though somewhat sad. But even more did he resemble an ape—or say the missing link—and only his eyes seemed human. These were large, dark and brilliant, sparkling like jewels under his elf-locks. He sat cross-legged on the ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... made a wide enough circle you would inevitably cross that track, wouldn't you? provided the horse started out with the bunch in the first place. Then you would follow the track, catch the horse, and bring him back. Is this Algernon's procedure? Not any. "Ha!" says he, "old Brownie is missing. I will hunt him up." Then he maunders off into the scenery, trusting to high heaven that he is going to blunder against Brownie as a prominent feature of the landscape. After a couple of hours you probably saddle up Brownie and go out to ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... said she, with a quick impulse to give him comfort. "She has been sleeping quietly, and her hand is cool and moist. If you'll bide still beside her, I'll go and get a drop of warm milk from Brownie, to ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson

... caught sight of him one night, my dear, and his coat was so ragged, that they got a new suit, and a linen shirt for him, and laid them by the bread-and-milk bowl. But when Brownie saw the things, he put them on, and ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... possibly be some connexion with the ragged clothes of the Pixies. (Comp. "Tatrman," Deutsche Mythol., p. 470.; and Canciani's note "De Simulachris de Pannis factis," Leges Barbar., iii. p. 108.; Indic. Superst.) The common story of Brownie and his clothes ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various



Words linked to "Brownie" :   pixie, biscuit, sandman, fay, cookie, folklore, leprechaun, cooky, gremlin, faerie, hob, elf, faery, Girl Scout, fairy, pixy



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