My father and mother own the house in which they live. A slight house with roof and a hard flow of walls. At the bottom end of the house is my parents bedroom. The top end of the L shape passage has a flashy living room-set up for watching TV. In the slippery space between these two rooms lives a goblin or 2. Known in Spanish as 'duende', I pay my dues to it here in question.

Goblins are small queer creatures like me. Ill-tempered towards human beings they become most enraged by folklore. Especially those underwritten tales 'of what is oldest in culture'. Take for instance, the 'belonging to' of my parents house. In the hierarchy of my Spanish upbringing, the owning of a house is akin to ones own individual freedom-all the more reason to make stories and songs up. My father's murmur might sound something like this: ' No, Ricardo still pays rent. No...he... He'll never own his own house. No, he's..'

In Spanish,the commonly used owner-occupier phrase 'el duenno de la casa' rewords well into 'the owner of the house' across the whole of the English speaking world. Its discourse narrates my father smoothly as the sole proprietor of a pots and Pan-freedom that only he can enjoy. One more paid up member of the blameless men. Subject here to the question of 'his' power rent free-as if? A power possessed with itself. A power passing beyond 'his' house to the goblin division-a global spirit to haunt places with, much like 'my' fairy tale.

Out there on the passage way the goblin revels in division-in becoming a mischievous 'outlet'/outcry. An opening permitting escape or release via words. Most Spanish words ending with the letter o like duenno for eg, denote a possessive masculine while some words ending with an a indicate the feminine as in the case of the word duenna. Still, and there are few on screen like the ad for Sprite: keen green wile far in between 'la duenna de la casa' is equally the most unfamiliar of phrases-even though in my parents house resistance is a great friend of the sober goblin.

Another small irony when considering that the Spanish translation for the English word house is the word casa. It being the singular form of my mother's maiden name Casas-meaning consisting of more than one house. In other words my mother will always 'know' more about Houses than my father will ever 'know' about goblins and yet she still has soft drink in her spirit-this is not a sherry amor mio. madre mia!

My mother, Mari Carmen Casas before marriage to my father Luis Ferreiro, a blacksmith's son.

My ownas - papa, mama, y dada - tata...
Ricardo Ferreiro