Hödekin

Hödekin (spelled Hödeken, Hütgin, Hüdekin, and Hütchen, etc.) is a kobold (house spirit) of German folklore. The name is a diminutive meaning "Little Hat", and refers to the hat he wears, explained as being a pileus a felt hat of certain shapes.

He famously haunted the castle of Bishop Bernard (Bernhardus), Prince-Bishopric of Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, and in some versions, inhabited Winzenburg, a county the spirit helped the bishopric to obtain. Although Hütchen did not initiate harm, he was murderously vindictive and dismembered a kitchen boy who had habitually of insulted him and poured kitchen filth upon him. When the cook (who hadn't controlled the misbehaving boy) griped, the sprite tainted the meat for the bishop with toad blood and venom; the cook remained unfazed, and got pushed down the heights into a ditch to die.

There was a man who during his absence entrusted his wife jokingly to the Hütchen, and the sprite chased off all the men calling on the adulterous wife. He also helped an idiot clerk appointed to the synod by giving him a ring made of laurel leaves that made him erudite within a short time. In the end, the bishop exorcised him with ecclesiastical incantations and drove him out of Hildesheim.