Katharine Mary Briggs was a British folklorist and writer whose work became the foundation for a Japanese anime television series, though she was not herself a direct creator of anime or manga. Born in London on November 8, 1898, Briggs was the eldest daughter of a wealthy Yorkshire family. Her father, a watercolour artist, encouraged her early interest in storytelling and folklore. After studying English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, she returned to the family home in Perthshire, Scotland, where she spent many years writing, producing amateur plays, and studying folklore and 17th-century English history. During World War II, she served as a nursing orderly in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. After the war, she returned to Oxford to earn a Doctor of Philosophy degree with a thesis on folklore in 17th-century literature, later receiving a Doctorate in Literature in 1969 for her scholarly contributions.

Briggs became a distinguished figure in the study of folklore, serving as president of the Folklore Society from 1969 to 1972. She wrote numerous scholarly works, including The Anatomy of Puck, Pale Hecate's Team on witchcraft and magic, and the four-volume A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language. She also wrote children's fantasy novels, drawing on the British folk tradition she knew so well. Among these was Hobberdy Dick, published in 1955, which tells the story of a household brownie, or domestic spirit, who guards a centuries-old English manor house and protects the family living there from evil forces.

It is this novel that connects Briggs to Japanese animation. In 1992, the Japanese production companies Marubeni, Grouper Productions, and Zuiyo Eizō adapted Hobberdy Dick into a 26-episode anime television series. The series aired on NHK from June 7 to December 6, 1992, under the Japanese title Yosei Dikku, also known as Fairy Dick or Hobberdy Dick – Der kleine Hauself. The adaptation was directed by Masami Hata, with music by Osamu Tezuka, and it followed the basic premise of Briggs's novel: a lonely elf named Hobberdy Dick lives in an old manor, and his life changes when a new family, including a young woman he knew as a child, moves in and faces threats from a vengeful witch. In the production credits for this anime, Katharine Mary Briggs is listed as the original creator, as her novel provided the source material.

The central themes of Briggs's literary work, which carried over into the anime adaptation, revolve around British folklore, fairy beliefs, and the interaction between the supernatural world and ordinary human life. Her scholarly writing focused on fairies, hobgoblins, boggarts, and other creatures from British tradition, treating these beliefs with serious academic attention while also bringing them to life for younger readers in her fiction. Her novel Hobberdy Dick, and by extension its anime adaptation, reflects this deep knowledge of domestic spirits and their role as protectors of the household, a common theme in English folklore.

The significance of Katharine Mary Briggs within the anime industry is indirect but noteworthy. She represents a rare case of a British folklorist from the early 20th century whose literary work was adapted into a Japanese animated series decades after its publication. While she had no direct involvement in the production of the anime, which was created well after her death in 1980, her novel provided the narrative foundation for the series. Her legacy continues through the Folklore Society's Katharine Briggs Folklore Award, an annual book prize established in her memory, and her scholarly works remain essential references in the study of British folk tales and fairy lore.