No one agrees where goblins came from, which suits goblins perfectly because every explanation sounds better when shouted over someone else’s. Some claim they crawled out of old tunnels where fey magic leaked into forgotten roots and stone. Others insist they were born from discarded wishes, bad bargains, or the universe dropping something small, sharp-toothed, and impossible to return.

The truth, if there ever was one, has been chewed, traded, misremembered, improved, stolen back, and probably hidden in a box labeled “do not open” for reasons everyone ignored. Goblin elders tell different origin stories depending on weather, audience, snack availability, and whether the listener looks too comfortable. In one version, they were made to survive the places larger folk abandoned. In another, they were never made at all — they simply noticed the world had loose edges and moved in.

What is certain is what they became. Goblins learned to thrive in cramped shelters, dark passages, broken walls, rough ground, and every overlooked corner that could be turned into home with enough string, stubbornness, and bad judgment. They wasted nothing, feared little for long, and treated curiosity as both sacred duty and recurring medical problem.

Now they remain quick, inventive, misunderstood, and nearly impossible to keep out of places that interest them. Their origin may be a mystery, a joke, a warning, or all three stacked in a trench coat, but their survival is not in question. Whatever made goblins, it clearly underestimated how hard they would be to get rid of.