Dingbelle - [Aviation Gremlin]

Dingbelle, Wartime Aviation Gremlins - [Fearsome Critter, Gremlin 1942]

•About this critter: Gremlins are Trickster fae that go by many names & appearances. They're Said to "live in the sky" & on Military camps, often blamed for accidents or for aerial malfunctions, especially during wars. - It was important for team morale to cast the blame at something unexplained when something went wrong with machinery. (Better to pass the blame onto a "gremlin" rather than than your friends or team mechanic.) - in general gremlin lore, female gremlin are typically classified as Fifinella, Young males are called "Widgets" & young females are called "Flibbertygibbets". - Various types of gremlin with different names and appearances exist across different factions seen around the world: The Scientific study of gremlins is known as "Gremlinology." - 

• History: The gremlins of this particular design (in modern day) are often known as “Dingbelles” [definition below]  ...However Historically, this type of  gremlins earliest appearance seems t in Life magazine. (the ones pictured in life where apparently designed by Boris Artzybasheff.) & industrial Posters from the Office for Emergency Management. - War Production Board.

The earliest mention of "Dingbelles" that i could find was in the "Dictionary of folklore" [Funk and Wagnalls, 1949] which says the following about "Dingbelle" -

"Dingbelle - a female of the gremlin family, operating only on the ground. these creatures first discovered by the canadian wids (womens division) fouled up typing flipped on public address systems in the middle of personal conversations and off duty hours were apt to toss pictures of handsome wing commanders out of the wids kit bag while she was entertaining her LAC boyfriend or vise versa. Dingbelle is not to be confused with fifinella."

...so far I've been unable to find any old pictures in the archives associating this particular gremlin with the name "Dingbelle" - the association between the two seems to mostly have come about modern times thanks to both the cryptidz wikis & metazoo card games, to put it simply, the gremlin i've drawn here is a fairly generic gremlin.

Sticker Art by @Samkalensky (yo thats me!) - Part of my Gremlinology  sticker collection, weather resistant 4" Glossy sticker. Check my shop & follow @samkalensky for many more!