A red cap or redcap, also known as a powrie or dunter, is a type of malevolent, murderous dwarf, goblin, elf or fairy found in Border Folklore. They are said to inhabit ruined castles found along the border between England and Scotland. Redcaps are said to murder travellers who stray into their homes and dye their hats with their victims' blood (from which they get their name).[1] Redcaps must kill regularly, for if the blood staining their hats dries out, they die. Redcaps are very fast in spite of the heavy iron pikes they wield and the iron-shod boots they wear. Outrunning a redcap is supposedly impossible.
They are depicted as sturdy old men with red eyes, taloned hands and large teeth, wearing a red cap and bearing a pikestaff in the left hand.[2]
The tale of one in Perthshire depicts him as more benign; living in a room in Grantully Castle, he bestows good fortune on those who see or hear him.[2]
According to the 19th century folklorist William Henderson, the dunter or powrie is distinct from the redcap. Like the redcap it inhabits old Border forts, castles and peel towers, but their main activity is to make a noise like the beating of flax or the grinding of barley in a hollow stone quern. If this sound goes on longer or louder than usual then it is considered an omen of death or misfortune. Popular tradition states that these Border castles were built by the Picts who bathed the foundation stones in human blood.
- Redcap was the general of the bad faerie army that attacked the house in the movie "Spiderwick Chronicles".
- Redcaps play a major role in Tales of Wychwood, a novel by Daniel Martin Eckhart. Imprisoned in modern-day Wychwood Forest, elves and humans fight headhunting redcaps.
- Redcap is a mob genus found within the Dark Age of Camelot Midgard realm.[5]
- In the video game "Fable Legends", there is an enemy creature named the Redcap. Instead of dyeing its hat with the blood of victims, it is dyed with their own, through the nails that they hammer into each other's skulls.[6]
- In the Dresden Files novel "Cold Days" by Jim Butcher, The Redcap is a vassal of Maeve (The Winter Lady) and a major antagonist in the story. The Dresden Files: The Redcap
- In the Harmatia Cycle book "The Sons of Thestian" by M.E. Vaughan, the Prince Jionathan fights a Red Cap in a Korrigans' nest.
- In the TV series Supernatural, an unnamed fairy chases down Dean Winchester while sporting a red cap.
- On the Blue Öyster Cult's eponymous debut album Blue Öyster Cult (album) from 1972, "Before the Kiss, A Redcap" is Track 5, the final track on the original Side One of the vinyl disc.
- In the Merry Gentry novels by Laurell K. Hamilton, Merry creates an alliance with the Red caps by bringing them back to their full original power.
- In the Changeling: The Dreaming role-playing game published by White Wolf Publishing, Redcaps are one of the kiths of Changelings that inhabit the bodies of humans in the modern World of Darkness.
- In The comic book series Fables by Bill Willingham, Red Cap is a fable that resides at The Farm and first appears in Fables Vol 7.
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