The Hobyahs is a fairy tale

Fairy tale

A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

 collected by Mr S. V. Proudfit, in Perth. Joseph Jacobs

Joseph Jacobs

Joseph Jacobs was a folklorist, literary critic and historian. His works included contributions to the Jewish Encyclopaedia, translations of European works, and critical editions of early English literature...

 included it in More English Fairy Tales. His source was American Folk-Lore Journal, iv, 173.

Synopsis

A man, woman, girl, and dog lived in a house made of hempstalks. The Hobyahs came for several nights, shouting "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!" For several nights, the dog barked, scaring them off, but the old man was angry at its barking and cut off its tail, then its legs, then its head. Then the Hobyahs tore down the house, ate the old man and woman, and carried off the girl in a bag. They hung up the bag at home and knocked it, shouting, "Look me!" They went to sleep, because they slept by daytime. A man heard her crying and took her home, putting his big dog in the sack. When the Hobyahs opened the sack, the dog ate them all.

Motifs

Jacobs noted that the Hobyahs, though now destroyed, resembled "the bogies

Bogeyman

A bogeyman is an amorphous imaginary being used by adults to frighten children into compliant behaviour...

 or spirits of the comma bacillus".

Escaping from a bag is a common fairy tale motif, but the technique used is not. Such tales as Molly Whuppie

Molly Whuppie

Molly Whuppie is a Scottish fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in English Fairy Tales. A Highland version, Maol a Chliobain, was collected by John Francis Campbell in Popular Tales of the West Highlands...

and The Little Peasant

The Little Peasant

The Little Peasant is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales, number 61.It is Aarne-Thompson type 1535, The Rich Peasant and the Poor Peasant, and includes an episode of type 1737, Trading Places with the Trickster in a Sack...

feature the character tricking his way out.