Tradition / Region: French folklore (Ardennes)
Alternate Names: Hannequet; Hannequin; Harliquin
Category: Fairy / Goblin / Will-o’-the-Wisp
The Kind of Person This Spirit Draws Near To
A person who is drawn to motion for its own sake.
Someone who feels most alive when carried by noise, rhythm, crowds, or momentum. They are uneasy with stillness and suspicious of silence. Direction matters less to them than intensity. Being swept along feels preferable to standing alone.
This is a person who confuses movement with meaning.
How This Person Thinks
Mental habits
- Fragmented attention
- Susceptibility to suggestion
- Thinking in bursts rather than through-lines
How they approach ideas
- Ideas are exciting if they feel alive
- Depth is secondary to stimulation
How they relate to uncertainty
- Uncertainty feels thrilling
- Ambiguity is welcomed if it promises sensation
What they obsess over / ignore
- Obsess over novelty, excitement, participation
- Ignore orientation, consequence, and return
How This Person Deals With Problems
- Escapes rather than confronts
- Distracts themselves from difficulty
- Moves on instead of resolving
Response to obstacles
- Flee
- Join something louder
- Follow whoever is already moving
They do not stop —
they disappear into motion.
How This Person Responds to Stress
Stress behavior
- Increased activity
- Seeking crowds, noise, intoxication, or spectacle
Collapse or sharpening
- Stress dissolves identity rather than sharpening it
What they cling to
- Belonging through movement
- The safety of being carried
Emotional Landscape
When Calm
- Restless
- Easily bored
When Angry
- Anger vents outward
- Quickly converted into action or flight
When Afraid
- Fear drives faster movement
- Panic disguised as excitement
When Joyful
- Joy is ecstatic but shallow
- Burns hot, fades fast
Relationship to Time
- Immediate
- Moment-to-moment
- No patience for duration
Time is urgency without memory.
Relationship to Pleasure and Comfort
- Pleasure is kinetic
- Comfort is irrelevant
- Stimulation replaces rest
Stillness feels like threat.
Living Space
- Transitional
- Untidy
- Lived in lightly
The space is never fully inhabited.
Relationship Patterns
- Short-lived bonds
- Shared excitement rather than intimacy
- Easy disappearance
Connection exists only while moving together.
How This Person Works
- In bursts
- Highly energetic, then absent
- Poor tolerance for repetition
They shine briefly — then vanish.
What Makes the Spirit Stay
- Following sounds or lights without question
- Moving at night without destination
- Choosing excitement over orientation
- Refusing to stop when warned
Annequin stays where motion replaces judgment.
What Makes the Spirit Leave
- Stopping
- Turning back
- Choosing silence over sound
- Refusing the pull
The moment one stands still, the lights fade.
The Cost of Keeping This Spirit Close
- Loss of direction
- Loss of self
- Eventual disappearance — socially, psychologically, or physically
What is lost is return.
What remains is movement without witness.
Final Human–Spirit Portrait
“A life lived at a run, following lights that promise more life ahead — until the ground gives way and no one remembers where you went.”