Gremlins, Goblins and Fremlins

If you asked someone where the word gremlin came from, they would probably refer to the green destructive creatures in the 1984 film Gremlins. However, the story behind the term gremlin is actually much older and more complicated than that and features pilots, beer and even Walt Disney. 

Gremlins singing carols in the 1984 horror comedy film.

The Oxford English Dictionary says gremlin originated as Royal Air Force (RAF) slang and was originally used to refer to lowly workers or dogsbodies. An extract from The Aeroplane in 1929 stated: "There is a class abhorred, loather by all the high and mighty, slaves who work but get little [...] They are but a herd of gremlins, Gremlins who do all the flying, Gremlins who do much instructing, work shunned by the wing commanders."

However, less than a decade later pilots started to use gremlins in a different context, referring to imaginary mischievous sprites that created problems in the aircraft. Former pilot Pauline Gowers mentions gremlins in her book Women with Wings in 1938, describing them as:

"weird little creatures who fly about looking for unfortunate pilots who are either lost or in difficulties with the weather [...] They fly about with scissors in each hand to try to cut the wires on an aeroplane."

Fighter pilot turned author Roald Dahl would introduce gremlins to popular culture in 1943 with his first children's book The Gremlins, a story about mischievous creatures who try to sabotage the aircraft of British pilots. Walt Disney took an interest in making a film from the story and even made a range of plush toys and posters but the project was canned because distributors felt the public had grown tired of war films. 

Walt Disney and Roald Dahl with the Gremlin toys for the film that was never made © Disney

Dahl would have greater success with books such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda and the BFG while Gremlins would wait another 40 years before they hit the big screen but it would be Warner Bros rather than Disney who would reap the rewards.

The origin of the word gremlin is uncertain but there are a number of plausible theories. One theory is that gremlin stems from the Old English word gremian meaning 'to enrage, provoke or irritate' although there isn't a huge amount of evidence to back this up.

A sign advertising Kentish ale and stout by the Fremlin's Brewery.

Another possibility is it a combination of goblin with the name Fremlin as Fremlin's beer, once the largest brewery in Kent, was drunk by pilots around the time the word appeared. An article in the Observer in 1942 reported: 

"the young fliers of the R.A.F [..] invented a whole hierarchy of devils. They called them Gremlins, 'on account of they were goblins which came out of Fremlin beer bottles'. They were the genii loci of the R.A.F messes in India and the Middle East, where Fremlin's beer bottles were plentiful."

A interesting fact that may support this claim, is that the Fremlin's Brewery had a tradition to leave out dishes of beer for an unseen mythical sprite called Hodfellow who would wreak havoc in the brewery if nothing was left out for him. It's not inconceivable that this story made its way to the pilots and inspired the term gremlin but it seems that too many Fremlins were drunk for anyone to truly remember.