The Fellowship of the Talisman by Clifford D. Simak

You cannot afford to reject them because they antecede Christianity. My lady wanted what the wizard had.”
    â€œThere is one thing you do not realize,” said Andrew, speaking softly. “One thing you have not thought about. She herself may be a wizard.”
    â€œAn enchantress, you mean. A sophisticated witch.”
    â€œI suppose so,” Andrew said. “But whatever the correct designation, you had never thought of that.”
    â€œI had not thought of it,” said Duncan. “It may well be true.”
    Shafts of late afternoon sunlight came through the tall, narrow windows, looking very much like those shafts of glory that biblical artists delighted in depicting as shining upon saints. The windows were of tinted glass—those that still had glass in them, for many had been broken by thrown rocks. Looking at the few remaining tinted windows, Duncan wondered how the village, in all its piety and devotion, could have afforded that much tinted glass. Perhaps the few affluent residents, of which there certainly would have been very few, had banded together to pay for its fabrication and installation, thereby buying themselves certain dispensations or absolutions, buttressing their certainty of Heaven.
    Tiny motes of dust danced in the shining shafts of light, lending them a sense of life, of motion and of being, that simple light in itself could never have. And in back of the living light shafts something moved.
    Duncan reached out to grasp Andrew’s arm.
    â€œThere’s something here,” he said. “Back there in the corner.”
    He pointed with a finger, and the hermit peered in the direction that he pointed, squinting his eyes to get a better focus. Then he chuckled to himself, visibly relaxing.
    â€œIt’s only Snoopy,” he said.
    â€œSnoopy? Who the hell is Snoopy?”
    â€œThat’s what I call him. Because he’s always snooping around. Always watching out for something that he can turn to his own advantage. He’s a little busybody. He has another name, of course. A name you cannot get your tongue around. He doesn’t seem to mind that I call him Snoopy.”
    â€œSomeday that long-windedness of yours will be the death of you,” said Duncan. “This is all well and good, but will you tell me, who is …”
    â€œWhy, I thought you knew,” said Andrew. “I thought I had mentioned him. Snoopy is a goblin. One of the local boys. He pesters me a lot and I have no great love of him, but he’s really not a bad sort.”
    By this time the goblin had walked through the distorting shafts of window-light and was coming toward them. He was a little fellow; he might have reached to a grown man’s waist. He was dressed in nut-colored brown: a peaked cap that had lost its stiffening and flopped over at the top, a jerkin, a pair of trousers fitted tight around his spindly legs, shoes that curled up ridiculously at the toe. His ears were oversize and pointed, and his face had a foxy look.
    Without preamble, Snoopy spoke to Andrew. “This place is livable now,” he said. “It has lost some of its phony smell of sanctity, which was something that neither I nor any of my brethren could abide. The stabling of the griffin perhaps had much to do with it. There is nothing like the smell of griffin dung to fumigate and offset the odor of sanctity.”
    Andrew stiffened. “You’re being impertinent again,” he said.
    â€œIn that case,” said Snoopy, “I shall turn about and leave. You will pardon me. I was only trying to be neighborly.”
    â€œNo,” said Duncan. “Wait a minute, please. Overlook the sharp tongue of this good hermit. His outlook has been warped by trying to be a holy man and, perhaps, not going about it in quite the proper way.”
    Snoopy looked at Duncan. “You think so?” he asked.
    â€œIt’s a possibility,” said Duncan. “He tells me he wasted a