Stardust

by

Neil Gaiman

The Little Hairy Man Character Analysis

The little hairy man is a small person who helps Tristran on his journey to find the star. It’s unclear to Tristran and to readers if he’s actually a human. He helps instruct Tristran in the value of nursery rhymes and ultimately sends Tristran off with a silver chain to trap the star and a Babylon candle, which will allow Tristran to travel miles with every step. The little hairy man is part of a much larger underground organization called the Fellowship of the Castle, which Captain Johannes Alberic is a part of and which Tristran eventually joins.

The Little Hairy Man Quotes in Stardust

The Stardust quotes below are all either spoken by The Little Hairy Man or refer to The Little Hairy Man. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Youth, Aging, and Maturity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1  Quotes

Mr. Bromios had set up a wine-tent and was selling wines and pasties to the village folk, who were often tempted by the foods being sold by the folk from Beyond the Wall but had been told by their grandparents, who had got it from their grandparents, that it was deeply, utterly wrong to eat fairy food, to eat fairy fruit, to drink fairy water and sip fairy wine.

For every nine years, the folk from Beyond the Wall and over the hill set up the stalls, and for a day and a night the meadow played host to the Faerie market; and there was, for one day and one night in nine years, commerce between the nations.

Related Characters: Tristran Thorn, Dunstan Thorn, The Little Hairy Man
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

“So what damn-fool silly thing has this young lady got you a-doin’ of?”

Tristran put down his wooden cup of tea, and stood up, offended.

“What, he asked, in what he was certain were lofty and scornful tones, “would possibly make you imagine that my lady-love would have sent me on some foolish errand?”

The little man stared at up at him with eyes like beads of jet. “Because that’s the only reason a lad like you would be stupid enough to cross the border into Faerie. The only ones who ever come here from your lands are the minstrels, and the lovers, and the mad. And you don’t look like much of a minstrel, and you’re—pardon me saying so, lad, but it’s true—ordinary as cheese-crumbs. So it’s love, if you ask me.”

Related Characters: Tristran Thorn (speaker), The Little Hairy Man (speaker), The Star/Yvaine, Victoria Forester
Page Number: 78
Explanation and Analysis:

They certainly were fine new clothes. While clothes do not, as the saying would sometimes have it, make the man, and fine feathers do not make fine birds, sometimes they can add a certain spice to a recipe. And Tristran Thorn in Crimson and canary was not the same man that Tristran Thorn in his overcoat and Sunday suit had been. There was a swagger to his steps, a jauntiness to his movements, that had not been there before. His chin went up instead of down, and there was a glint in his eye that he had not possessed when he had worn a bowler hat.

Related Characters: Tristran Thorn, The Little Hairy Man
Page Number: 98
Explanation and Analysis:
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Stardust PDF

The Little Hairy Man Quotes in Stardust

The Stardust quotes below are all either spoken by The Little Hairy Man or refer to The Little Hairy Man. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Youth, Aging, and Maturity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1  Quotes

Mr. Bromios had set up a wine-tent and was selling wines and pasties to the village folk, who were often tempted by the foods being sold by the folk from Beyond the Wall but had been told by their grandparents, who had got it from their grandparents, that it was deeply, utterly wrong to eat fairy food, to eat fairy fruit, to drink fairy water and sip fairy wine.

For every nine years, the folk from Beyond the Wall and over the hill set up the stalls, and for a day and a night the meadow played host to the Faerie market; and there was, for one day and one night in nine years, commerce between the nations.

Related Characters: Tristran Thorn, Dunstan Thorn, The Little Hairy Man
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

“So what damn-fool silly thing has this young lady got you a-doin’ of?”

Tristran put down his wooden cup of tea, and stood up, offended.

“What, he asked, in what he was certain were lofty and scornful tones, “would possibly make you imagine that my lady-love would have sent me on some foolish errand?”

The little man stared at up at him with eyes like beads of jet. “Because that’s the only reason a lad like you would be stupid enough to cross the border into Faerie. The only ones who ever come here from your lands are the minstrels, and the lovers, and the mad. And you don’t look like much of a minstrel, and you’re—pardon me saying so, lad, but it’s true—ordinary as cheese-crumbs. So it’s love, if you ask me.”

Related Characters: Tristran Thorn (speaker), The Little Hairy Man (speaker), The Star/Yvaine, Victoria Forester
Page Number: 78
Explanation and Analysis:

They certainly were fine new clothes. While clothes do not, as the saying would sometimes have it, make the man, and fine feathers do not make fine birds, sometimes they can add a certain spice to a recipe. And Tristran Thorn in Crimson and canary was not the same man that Tristran Thorn in his overcoat and Sunday suit had been. There was a swagger to his steps, a jauntiness to his movements, that had not been there before. His chin went up instead of down, and there was a glint in his eye that he had not possessed when he had worn a bowler hat.

Related Characters: Tristran Thorn, The Little Hairy Man
Page Number: 98
Explanation and Analysis: