Word: gremlin
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Referring to your article on "Gremlins" [TIME, Sept. 14], credit for the discovery of the European gremlin should, I believe, go to an unknown weather forecaster at Le Bourget Airport, Paris. I knew the pilot concerned. (He has since been killed...
Incidentally, your article fails to mention that well-known cousin to the gremlin, the "Hopschneider," who lives on the ski trails in Switzerland and Canada, and emerges suddenly from behind trees in order to cross the skis of runners as they go by. As you dig yourself out and disentangle your limbs, their squeaky laughter can be heard echoing through the pines...
Fighter pilots, more inclined to have trouble with gremlins than other branches of the air services, often are bothered by gremlins who sit on their shoulders and make a noise like a knocking motor when the motor is running smoothly. When a pilot has been flying for a long time through clouds, a gremlin may whisper into the pilot's ear: "You fathead, you're flying upside down!" The pilot then hurriedly turns over and flies upside down while the gremlin laughs and laughs, silently. Another favorite gremlin trick is to climb into gun barrels and deflect bullets...
Daring. Bomber pilots say that the most annoying gremlins are those which like to play seesaw on the automatic horizon or use the ship's compass for a merry-go-round while the pilots are trying to fly blind. The most dangerous gremlins are those which delight in covering bombers' wings with ice. These are a middle-aged breed of gremlin, called spandules, who never bother with planes flying lower than 10,000 feet...
Necessary. Nothing could be more natural than that out of the tradition of Irish, Scottish and English whimsy the gremlin should appear, streamlined for the 20th Century. There is a sociological and psychological necessity in the thinking of Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples to conjure up the embodiment of fate in a charming form. Herr Goebbels in Berlin would not understand...