Yet still more know I of him—this to me is certaín,A terrible Lind-dragon the hero's hand hath slain;He in the blood him bathed, and horny grew his skin;Hence woundeth him no weapon, full oft it hath been seen.[250]MM. Grimm thought at one time that this name was properly Engel, and that it was connected with the chances of Alp, Alf, to Engel (see above, p.67). They query at what time the dimEngeleinfirst came into use, and when the angels were first represented under the form of children—a practice evidently derived from the idea of the Elves. In Otfried and other writers of the ninth and tenth centuries, they say, the angels are depicted as young men; but in the latter half of the thirteenth, a popular preacher named Berthold, says:Ir schet wol daz si allesamt sint juncliche gemälet; als ein kint daz dá vünf jâr all ist swâ man sie mâlet.[251]Elberich, (the Albrich of the Nibelungen Lied,) as we have said (above p. 40), is Oberon. From the usual change oflintou(asal,au,col,cou, etc.), in the French language, Elberich or Albrich (derived from Alp, Alf) becomes Auberich; andichnot being a French termination, the diminutiveonwas substituted, and so it became Auberon, or Oberon; a much more likely origin than the usual one fromL'aube du jour. For this derivation of Oberon we are indebted to Dr. Grimm.[252]Probably Saida,i.e.Sidon.[253]i. e.Mount Tabor.[254]This may have suggested the well-known circumstance in Huon de Bordeaux.[255]So Oberon in Huon de Bordeaux.[256]Str. 1564,seq.[257]Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 398,seq.[258]See above, pp.19,169; below,Ireland; and Grimm,ut sup.p. 1216. The swan-dresses also occur in the Arabian tales of Jahânshâh and Hassan of Bassora in Trebutien's Arabian Nights.[259]Poésies de Marie de France, i. 177,seq.[260]Another term is Wicht and its dim. Wichtlein, answering to the Scandinavian Vættr and the Anglo-Saxonwiht, Englishwight, all of which signify a being, a person, and also a thing in general. Thus our wordsaughtandnaughtwereanwihtandnawiht.[261]See Grimm's Deutsche Sagen, vol. i. p. 38. As this work is our chief authority for the Fairy Mythology of Germany, our materials are to be considered as taken from it, unless when otherwise expressed.[262]In Lusatia (Lausatz) if not in the rest of Germany, the same idea of the Dwarfs being fallen angels, prevails as in other countries: see the tale of the Fairies'-sabbath in the work quoted above, p. 179.[263]This tale is given by MM. Grimm, from the Brixener Volksbuch. 1782.[264]Related by Hammelmann in the Oldenburg Chronicle, by Prætorius, Bräuner, and others.[265]Frühmorgens eh die Sonn aufgehtSchon alles vor dem Berge steht.[266]This tale was orally related to MM. Grimm in Saxony. They do not mention the narrator's rank in life.[267]Dat is gaut dat de büerkem dat nich weitDat de sunne üm twölwe up geit.[268]Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 434. Both legends are in the Low-Saxon dialect.[269]The terms used in the original areWichtelmänner,Wichtelmännerchen, andWichtel.[270]The Saxon ó seems to answer to the Anglo-SaxonIold english g,IrishInis: see below,Ireland.[271]Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 428. The latter story is in the Low-Saxon dialect.[272]In Scandinavia the Dwarfs used to borrow beer, even a barrel at a time, which one of them would carry off on his shoulders, Thiele i. 121. In the Highlands of Scotland, a firlot of meal. In all cases they paid honestly. On one occasion, a dwarf came to a lady named Fru (Mrs.) Mettè of Overgaard, in Jutland, and asked her to lend her silk gown to Fru Mettè of Undergaard, for her wedding. She gave it, but as it was not returned as soon as she expected, she went to the hill and demanded it aloud. The hill-man brought it out to her all spotted with wax, and told her that if she had not been so impatient, every spot on it would have been a diamond. Thiele iii. 48.The Vends of Lüneburg, we are told, called the underground folk Görzoni (fromgora, hill), and the hills are still shown in which they dwelt. They used to borrow bread from people; they intimated their desire invisibly, and people used to lay it for them outside of the door. In the evening they returned it, knocking at the window, and leaving an additional cake to express their thankfulness. Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 423.[273]See above, p.225.[274]Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 437.[275]Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 453.[276]See Grimm,ut sup., p. 447seq.[277]Deutsche Sagen, from Prætorius., Agricola, and others.[278]Grimm, Deut. Mythol., pp. 451, 881.[279]Kohl, Die Marschen und Inseln der Herzogthümer Schleswig und Holstein.[280]These terms all signifyUnderground folk.[281]See above, p.116.[282]The Puk is also called Niss-Puk, Huis-Puk, Niske, Niske-Puk, Nise-Bok, Niss-Kuk—all compounds or corruptions of Nisse and Puk. He is also named from his racketing and noise Pulter-Claas,i. e.Nick Knocker, (the German Poltergeist,) Claas being the abbreviation of Nicolaus, Niclas; see above, p.139, for this same origin of Nisse.[283]All relating to the Wild-women and the Wunderberg is given by MM. Grimm from the Brixener Volksbuch, 1782. For an account of the variousBergentrückte Helden, see the Deutsche Mythologie, ch. xxxii.[284]In a similar tradition (Strack, Beschr. von Eilsen, p. 120) the wife cuts off one of her fair long tresses, and is afterwards most earnestly conjured by her to restore it.[285]Given by Büsching (Volks-sagen Märchen und Legenden. Leipzig, 1820), from Hammelmann's Oldenburg Chronicle, 1599. Mme. Naubert has, in the second volume of her Volksmärchen, wrought it up into a tale of 130 pages.The Oldenburg horn, or what is called such, is now in the King of Denmark's collection.[286]This word is usually derived from the Greek κοβαλος, a knave, which is found in Aristophanes. According to Grimm (p. 408) the German Kobold is not mentioned by any writer anterior to the thirteenth century, we find the French Gobelin in the eleventh; seeFrance.[287]In Hanover the Will-o'the-wisp is called the Tückebold,i. e.Tücke-Kobold, and is, as his name denotes, a malicious being. Voss. Lyr. Ged., ii. p. 315.[288]Deutsche Sagen, i. p. 103. Feldmann's work is a 12mo vol. of 379 pages.[289]Heinze is the abbreviation of Heinrich (Henry). In the North of Germany the Kobold is also named Chimmeken and Wolterken, from Joachim and Walther.[290]This is a usual measure of size for the Dwarfs, and even the angels, in the old German poetry; see above, p.208. In Otnit it is said of Elberich:nu bist in Kindes mâze des vierden jâres alt; and of Antilois in Ulrich's Alexander:er war kleine und niht grôz in der mâze als diu kint, wenn si in vier jâren sint, Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 418. We meet with it even in Italian poetry:E sovra il dorso un nano si piccinoChe sembri di quattr' anni un fanciullino.B. Tasso, Amadigi, C. c. st. 78.[291]The feats of House-spirits, it is plain, may in general be ascribed to ventriloquism and to contrivances of servants and others.[292]Von Steinen, Westfäl. Gesch.ap.Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 477.[293]Oral.Cölns Vorzeit. Cöln. 1826.[294]This legend seems to be connected with the ancient idea of the water-deities taking the souls of drowned persons to themselves. In the Edda, this is done by the sea-goddess Ran.[295]Grimm,ut sup.p. 463.[296]Grimm,ut sup.p. 453.[297]A tale of this kind is to be seen in Luther's Table-talk, told bydie frau doctorin, his wife. The scene of it was the river Mulda.[298]In SwissHärdmandle, pl.Härdmändlene.[299]Wyss, Reise in das Berner Oberland, ii. 412.Servantsis the term in the original.[300]This Scottish word, signifying the summer cabin of the herdsmen on the mountains, exactly expresses the Sennhütten of the Swiss.[301]Alpenrosen for 1824,ap.Grimm, Introd. to Irish Fairy Legends.[302]Idyllen, Volkssagen, Legenden, und Erzählungen aus der Schweiz. Von J. Rud Wyss, Prof. Bern, 1813.[303]In Bilder und Sagen aus der Schweiz, von Dr. Rudolf. Müller. Glarus, 1842, may be found some legends of the Erdmännlein, but they are nearly all the same as those collected by Mr. Wyss. We give below those in which there is anything peculiar.[304]The original is in German hexameters.[305]It is a notion in some parts of Germany, that if a girl leaves any flax or tow on her distaff unspun on Saturday night, none of what remains will make good thread. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. Anhang, p. lxxii.[306]Glanzis the term employed in Switzerland.[307]This legend was picked up by a friend of Mr. Wyss when on a topographical ramble in the neighbourhood of Bern. It was told to him by a peasant of Belp; "but," says Mr. Wyss, "if I recollect right, this man said it was a nice smoking-hot cake that was on the plate, and it was a servant, not the man's son, who was driving the plough. The circumstance of the table-cloth being handed down from mother to daughter," he adds, "is a fair addition which I have allowed myself."The writer recollects to have heard this story, when a boy, from an old woman in Ireland; and he could probably point out the very field in the county of Kildare where it occurred. A man and a boy were ploughing: the boy, as they were about in the middle of their furrow, smelled roast beef, and wished for some. As they returned, it was lying on the grass before them. When they had eaten, the boy said "God bless me, and God bless the fairies!" The man did not give thanks, and he met with misfortunes very shortly after.—The same legend is also in Scotland. See below.[308]The former account was obtained by a friend in Glarnerland. The latter was given to Mr. Wyss himself by a man of Zweylütschinen, very rich, says Mr. Wyss, in Dwarf lore, and who accompanied him to Lauterbrunnen. Schiller has founded his poem Der Alpenjäger on this legend.[309]Mr. Wyss heard this and the following tale in Haslithal and Gadmen.[310]In several of the high valleys of Switzerland it is only a single cherry-tree which happens to be favourably situated that bears fruit. It bears abundantly, and the fruit ripens about the month of August.Wyss.[311]Compare the narrative in the Swiss dialect given by Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 419. The same peasant of Belp who related the first legend was Mr. Wyss's authority for this one. "The vanishing of the Bergmänlein," says Mr. Wyss, "appears to be a matter of importance to the popular faith. It is almost always ascribed to the fault of mankind—sometimes to their wickedness."We may in these tales recognise the box of Pandora under a different form, but the ground is the same. Curiosity and wickedness are still the cause of superior beings withdrawing their favour from man."I have never any where else," says Mr. Wyss, "heard of the goose-feet; but that all is not right with their feet is evident from the popular tradition giving long trailing mantles as the dress of the little people. Some will have it that their feet are regularly formed, but set on their legs the wrong way, so that the toes are behind and the heels before."Heywood, in his Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, p. 554, relates a story which would seem to refer to a similar belief.[312]Müller, Bilder und Sagen, p. 119; see above, p.81. Coals are the usual form under which the Dwarfs conceal the precious metals. We also find this trait in Scandinavia. A smith who lived near Aarhuus in Jutland, as he was going to church, saw a Troll on the roadside very busy about two straws that had got across each other on a heap of coals, and which, do what he would, he could not remove from their position. He asked the smith to do it for him; but he who knew better things took up the coals with the cross straws on them, and carried them home in spite of the screams of the Troll, and when he reached his own house he found it was a large treasure he had got, over which the Troll had lost all power. Thiele, i. 122.[313]Müller,ut sup.p. 123.[314]Müller,ut sup.p. 126.[315]This story is told of two places in the Highlands of Berning, of Ralligen, a little village on the lake of Thun, where there once stood a town called Roll; and again, of Schillingsdorf, a place in the valley of Grinderwald, formerly destroyed by a mountain slip.The reader need scarcely be reminded of the stories of Lot and of Baucis and Philemon: see also Grimm's Kinder und Hausmärchen, iii. 153, for other parallels.[316]See above pp.66,75.[317]The Anglo-Saxon Dweorg, Dworh, and the English Dwarf, do not seem ever to have had any other sense than that of the Latinnanus.[318]As quoted by Picart in his Notes on William of Newbridge. We could not find it in the Collection of Histories, etc., by Martène and Durand,—the only place where, to our knowledge, this chronicler's works are printed.[319]Guilielmi Neubrigensis Historia, sive Chronica Rerum Anglicarum.Oxon. 1719, lib. i. c. 27.[320]See above, p.109.[321]Otia Imperialiaapud Leibnitz Scriptores rerum Brunsvicarum, vol. i. p. 981.[322]Vice calicis.[323]Otia Imperialiaapud Leibnitz Scriptores rerum Brunsvicarum, vol. i. p. 980.[324]There is, as far as we are aware, no vestige of these names remaining in either the French or English language, and we cannot conceive how the Latin names of sea-gods came to be applied to the Gotho-German Kobolds, etc.[325]Dimidiumpollicis. Should we not readpedis?[326]Otia Imperialiaapud Leibnitz Scriptores rerum Brunsvicarum, vol. i. p. 980.[327]Can this name be connected with that of Grendel, the malignant spirit in Beówulf?[328]Edited for the Percy Society by J. P. Collyer, Esq., 1841. Mr. Collyer says there is little doubt but that this work was printed before 1588, or even 1584. We think this is true only of the First Part; for the Second, which is of a different texture, must have been added some time after tobacco had come into common use in England: see the verses in p.34.[329]Mr. Collyer does not seem to have recollected that Huon de Bordeaux had been translated by Lord Berners; see above, p.56.[330]It is, according to this authority the man-fairy Gunn that steals children and leaves changelings.[331]Discoverie of Witchcrafte, iv. ch. 10.[332]R. Scot, Discoverie of Witchcrafte, ii. ch. 4.[333]Ib.vii. 15.[334]This appears to us to be rather a display of the author's learning than an actual enumeration of the objects of popular terror; for the maids hardly talked of Satyrs, Pans, etc. For Bull-beggar, see p.316; for Urchin, p.319.Hagis the Anglo-Saxonhæold english geiold english se, Germanhexe, "witche," and hence the Nightmare (see p.332) which was ascribed to witches; we still sayHag-ridden. Calcar and Sporn (spurs?) may be the same, from the idea of riding: the French call the Nightmare,Cauchemare, fromCaucher,calcare. Kit-wi-the-Canstick is Jack-with-the-Lanthorn. The Man in the Oak is probably Puck, "Turn your cloakes, quoth hee, for Pucke is busy in these oakes."—Iter Boreale. The Hell-wain is perhaps the Death-coach, connected with Northern and German superstitions, and the Fire-drake an Ignis Fatuus. Boneless may have been some impalpable spectre; the other terms seem to be mere appellations of Puck.[335]Anat. of Mel. p. 47.[336]Chap. xx. p. 134. Lond. 1604.[337]This is, we apprehend, an egg at Easter or on Good Friday.Housleis the Anglo-Saxonhuold english sel;Goth.hunsl, sacrifice or offering, and thence the Eucharist.[338]Terrors of the Night, 1594.[339]Hutchinson, History of Cumberland, vol. i. p. 269.[340]As quoted by Thoms in his Essay on Popular Songs, in the Athenæum for 1847.[341]Morgan, Phœnix Britannicus, Lond. 1732.[342]Pandemonium, p. 207. Lond. 1684.[343]Aubrey, Natural History of Surrey, iii 366,ap.Ritson, Fairy Tales, p. 166.[344]The Local Historian's Table-Book, by M. A. Richardson, iii. 239. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1846.[345]Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, 1725.[346]Quoted by Brand in his Popular Antiquities, an enlarged edition of Bourne's work.[347]This word Pixy, is evidently Pucksy, the endearing diminutivesybeing added to Puck, like Betsy, Nancy, Dixie. So Mrs. Trimmer in her Fabulous Histories—which we read with wonderful pleasure in our childhood, and would recommend to our young readers—calls her hen-robins Pecksy and Flapsy. Pisgy is only Pixy transposed. Mrs. Bray derives Pixy from Pygmy. At Truro, in Cornwall, as Mr. Thoms informs us, themoths, which some regard as departed souls, others as fairies, are calledPisgies. He observes the curious, but surely casual, resemblance between this and the Greek ψυχη, which is both soul and moth. Grimm (p. 430) tells us from an old glossary, that the caterpillar was named in Germany,Alba, i. e.Elbe, and that the Alp often takes the form of a butterfly.[348]Whip says he, as Mrs. Bray conjectures.[349]Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 513. Bohn's edit.[350]Given in the Literary Gazette for 1825. No. 430.[351]Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 503. Bohn's edit.[352]TheElfboreof Scotland, where it is likewise ascribed to the fairies, Jamieson,s. v.The same opinion prevails in Denmark, where it is said that any one who looks through it will see things he would not otherwise have known: see Thiele, ii. 18.[353]The Anglo-Saxonlǽan,laécan, to play.[354]We have abridged this legend from a well-written letter in the Literary Gazette, No. 430 (1825), the writer of which says, he knew the house in which it was said to have occurred. He also says he remembered an old tailor, who said the horn was often pitched at the head of himself and his apprentice, when in the North-country fashion they went to work at the farm-house. Its identity with other legends will be at once perceived.[355]And true no doubt it is,i. e.the impression made on her imagination was as strong as if the objects had been actually before her. The narrator is the same person who told the preceding Boggart story.[356]Fairy Tales, pp. 24, 56.[357]In Northumberland the common people call a certain fungous excrescence, sometimes found about the roots of old trees, Fairy-butter. After great rains and in a certain degree of putrefaction, it is reduced to a consistency, which, together with its colour, makes it not unlike butter, and hence the name. Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 492, Bohn's edit.The Menyn Tylna Têg or Fairy-butter of Wales, we are told in the same place, is a substance found at a great depth in cavities of limestone-rocks when sinking for lead-ore.[358]Comp. Milton, L'Allegro, 105seq.[359]Richardson, Table-Book, iii. 45; see above, p.297.[360]This word, as we may see, is speltfariesin the following legends; so we may suppose thatfairyis pronouncedfarryin the North, which has a curious coincidence withPeri: see above, p.15.[361]Probably pronouncedPoke, as still in Worcestershire. Our ancestors frequently usedou, oroofor the longowhile they expressed the sound ofoobyofollowed bye, asroteroot,cokecook,moremoor,polepool.[362]Passus xvii.v.11,323seq.ed. 1842. Comp.vv.8363, 9300, 10,902.[363]Mr. Todd is right, in readingpoukeforponke, an evident typographic error: wrong in saying, "He is the Fairy, Robin Good-fellow, known by the name of Puck." Robin is the "hob-goblin" mentioned two lines after.[364]We know nothing of the Oriental origin of Puck, and cannot give our full assent to the character of our ancestry, as expressed in the remaining part of Mr. Gifford's note: "but a fiend engendered in the moody minds, and rude and gloomy fancies of the barbarous invaders of the North." It is full time to have done with describing the old Gothic race as savages.[365]Der Putz würde uns über berg und thäler tragen.To frighten children they sayDer Butz kommt!see Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 474.[366]The former made by adding the Anglo-Saxon and Englishel,le; the latter by adding the Englishart: see p.318.[367]By Sir F. Palgrave, from whose article in the Quarterly Review, we have derived many of the terms named above. He adds that the Anglo-Saxonpæcanis to deceive, seduce; the Low-Saxonpickento gambol;pickelnto play the fool;pukrain Icelandic to make a murmuring noise, to steal secretly; andpukkein Danish to scold. He further adds the Swedishpoikaboy, the Anglo-Saxon and Swedishpigaand Danishpigegirl. If, however, Pouke is connected with the Sclavonic Bog, these at the most can be only derivations from it. By the wayboyitself seems to be one of these terms; the Anglo-Saxonpigawas probably pronouncedpiya, andais a masculine termination in that language.[368]See above, p.291. In Low German, however, the Kobold is called Bullmann, Bullermann, Bullerkater, frombullen,bullern, to knock: see Grimm,ut sup.p. 473.[369]Essay on the Ignis Fatuus, quoted by Thoms.[370]
Yet still more know I of him—this to me is certaín,A terrible Lind-dragon the hero's hand hath slain;He in the blood him bathed, and horny grew his skin;Hence woundeth him no weapon, full oft it hath been seen.
Yet still more know I of him—this to me is certaín,A terrible Lind-dragon the hero's hand hath slain;He in the blood him bathed, and horny grew his skin;Hence woundeth him no weapon, full oft it hath been seen.
[250]MM. Grimm thought at one time that this name was properly Engel, and that it was connected with the chances of Alp, Alf, to Engel (see above, p.67). They query at what time the dimEngeleinfirst came into use, and when the angels were first represented under the form of children—a practice evidently derived from the idea of the Elves. In Otfried and other writers of the ninth and tenth centuries, they say, the angels are depicted as young men; but in the latter half of the thirteenth, a popular preacher named Berthold, says:Ir schet wol daz si allesamt sint juncliche gemälet; als ein kint daz dá vünf jâr all ist swâ man sie mâlet.
[251]Elberich, (the Albrich of the Nibelungen Lied,) as we have said (above p. 40), is Oberon. From the usual change oflintou(asal,au,col,cou, etc.), in the French language, Elberich or Albrich (derived from Alp, Alf) becomes Auberich; andichnot being a French termination, the diminutiveonwas substituted, and so it became Auberon, or Oberon; a much more likely origin than the usual one fromL'aube du jour. For this derivation of Oberon we are indebted to Dr. Grimm.
[252]Probably Saida,i.e.Sidon.
[253]i. e.Mount Tabor.
[254]This may have suggested the well-known circumstance in Huon de Bordeaux.
[255]So Oberon in Huon de Bordeaux.
[256]Str. 1564,seq.
[257]Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 398,seq.
[258]See above, pp.19,169; below,Ireland; and Grimm,ut sup.p. 1216. The swan-dresses also occur in the Arabian tales of Jahânshâh and Hassan of Bassora in Trebutien's Arabian Nights.
[259]Poésies de Marie de France, i. 177,seq.
[260]Another term is Wicht and its dim. Wichtlein, answering to the Scandinavian Vættr and the Anglo-Saxonwiht, Englishwight, all of which signify a being, a person, and also a thing in general. Thus our wordsaughtandnaughtwereanwihtandnawiht.
[261]See Grimm's Deutsche Sagen, vol. i. p. 38. As this work is our chief authority for the Fairy Mythology of Germany, our materials are to be considered as taken from it, unless when otherwise expressed.
[262]In Lusatia (Lausatz) if not in the rest of Germany, the same idea of the Dwarfs being fallen angels, prevails as in other countries: see the tale of the Fairies'-sabbath in the work quoted above, p. 179.
[263]This tale is given by MM. Grimm, from the Brixener Volksbuch. 1782.
[264]Related by Hammelmann in the Oldenburg Chronicle, by Prætorius, Bräuner, and others.
[265]
Frühmorgens eh die Sonn aufgehtSchon alles vor dem Berge steht.
Frühmorgens eh die Sonn aufgehtSchon alles vor dem Berge steht.
[266]This tale was orally related to MM. Grimm in Saxony. They do not mention the narrator's rank in life.
[267]
Dat is gaut dat de büerkem dat nich weitDat de sunne üm twölwe up geit.
Dat is gaut dat de büerkem dat nich weitDat de sunne üm twölwe up geit.
[268]Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 434. Both legends are in the Low-Saxon dialect.
[269]The terms used in the original areWichtelmänner,Wichtelmännerchen, andWichtel.
[270]The Saxon ó seems to answer to the Anglo-SaxonIold english g,IrishInis: see below,Ireland.
[271]Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 428. The latter story is in the Low-Saxon dialect.
[272]In Scandinavia the Dwarfs used to borrow beer, even a barrel at a time, which one of them would carry off on his shoulders, Thiele i. 121. In the Highlands of Scotland, a firlot of meal. In all cases they paid honestly. On one occasion, a dwarf came to a lady named Fru (Mrs.) Mettè of Overgaard, in Jutland, and asked her to lend her silk gown to Fru Mettè of Undergaard, for her wedding. She gave it, but as it was not returned as soon as she expected, she went to the hill and demanded it aloud. The hill-man brought it out to her all spotted with wax, and told her that if she had not been so impatient, every spot on it would have been a diamond. Thiele iii. 48.
The Vends of Lüneburg, we are told, called the underground folk Görzoni (fromgora, hill), and the hills are still shown in which they dwelt. They used to borrow bread from people; they intimated their desire invisibly, and people used to lay it for them outside of the door. In the evening they returned it, knocking at the window, and leaving an additional cake to express their thankfulness. Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 423.
[273]See above, p.225.
[274]Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 437.
[275]Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 453.
[276]See Grimm,ut sup., p. 447seq.
[277]Deutsche Sagen, from Prætorius., Agricola, and others.
[278]Grimm, Deut. Mythol., pp. 451, 881.
[279]Kohl, Die Marschen und Inseln der Herzogthümer Schleswig und Holstein.
[280]These terms all signifyUnderground folk.
[281]See above, p.116.
[282]The Puk is also called Niss-Puk, Huis-Puk, Niske, Niske-Puk, Nise-Bok, Niss-Kuk—all compounds or corruptions of Nisse and Puk. He is also named from his racketing and noise Pulter-Claas,i. e.Nick Knocker, (the German Poltergeist,) Claas being the abbreviation of Nicolaus, Niclas; see above, p.139, for this same origin of Nisse.
[283]All relating to the Wild-women and the Wunderberg is given by MM. Grimm from the Brixener Volksbuch, 1782. For an account of the variousBergentrückte Helden, see the Deutsche Mythologie, ch. xxxii.
[284]In a similar tradition (Strack, Beschr. von Eilsen, p. 120) the wife cuts off one of her fair long tresses, and is afterwards most earnestly conjured by her to restore it.
[285]Given by Büsching (Volks-sagen Märchen und Legenden. Leipzig, 1820), from Hammelmann's Oldenburg Chronicle, 1599. Mme. Naubert has, in the second volume of her Volksmärchen, wrought it up into a tale of 130 pages.
The Oldenburg horn, or what is called such, is now in the King of Denmark's collection.
[286]This word is usually derived from the Greek κοβαλος, a knave, which is found in Aristophanes. According to Grimm (p. 408) the German Kobold is not mentioned by any writer anterior to the thirteenth century, we find the French Gobelin in the eleventh; seeFrance.
[287]In Hanover the Will-o'the-wisp is called the Tückebold,i. e.Tücke-Kobold, and is, as his name denotes, a malicious being. Voss. Lyr. Ged., ii. p. 315.
[288]Deutsche Sagen, i. p. 103. Feldmann's work is a 12mo vol. of 379 pages.
[289]Heinze is the abbreviation of Heinrich (Henry). In the North of Germany the Kobold is also named Chimmeken and Wolterken, from Joachim and Walther.
[290]This is a usual measure of size for the Dwarfs, and even the angels, in the old German poetry; see above, p.208. In Otnit it is said of Elberich:nu bist in Kindes mâze des vierden jâres alt; and of Antilois in Ulrich's Alexander:er war kleine und niht grôz in der mâze als diu kint, wenn si in vier jâren sint, Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 418. We meet with it even in Italian poetry:
E sovra il dorso un nano si piccinoChe sembri di quattr' anni un fanciullino.B. Tasso, Amadigi, C. c. st. 78.
E sovra il dorso un nano si piccinoChe sembri di quattr' anni un fanciullino.B. Tasso, Amadigi, C. c. st. 78.
[291]The feats of House-spirits, it is plain, may in general be ascribed to ventriloquism and to contrivances of servants and others.
[292]Von Steinen, Westfäl. Gesch.ap.Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 477.
[293]Oral.Cölns Vorzeit. Cöln. 1826.
[294]This legend seems to be connected with the ancient idea of the water-deities taking the souls of drowned persons to themselves. In the Edda, this is done by the sea-goddess Ran.
[295]Grimm,ut sup.p. 463.
[296]Grimm,ut sup.p. 453.
[297]A tale of this kind is to be seen in Luther's Table-talk, told bydie frau doctorin, his wife. The scene of it was the river Mulda.
[298]In SwissHärdmandle, pl.Härdmändlene.
[299]Wyss, Reise in das Berner Oberland, ii. 412.Servantsis the term in the original.
[300]This Scottish word, signifying the summer cabin of the herdsmen on the mountains, exactly expresses the Sennhütten of the Swiss.
[301]Alpenrosen for 1824,ap.Grimm, Introd. to Irish Fairy Legends.
[302]Idyllen, Volkssagen, Legenden, und Erzählungen aus der Schweiz. Von J. Rud Wyss, Prof. Bern, 1813.
[303]In Bilder und Sagen aus der Schweiz, von Dr. Rudolf. Müller. Glarus, 1842, may be found some legends of the Erdmännlein, but they are nearly all the same as those collected by Mr. Wyss. We give below those in which there is anything peculiar.
[304]The original is in German hexameters.
[305]It is a notion in some parts of Germany, that if a girl leaves any flax or tow on her distaff unspun on Saturday night, none of what remains will make good thread. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. Anhang, p. lxxii.
[306]Glanzis the term employed in Switzerland.
[307]This legend was picked up by a friend of Mr. Wyss when on a topographical ramble in the neighbourhood of Bern. It was told to him by a peasant of Belp; "but," says Mr. Wyss, "if I recollect right, this man said it was a nice smoking-hot cake that was on the plate, and it was a servant, not the man's son, who was driving the plough. The circumstance of the table-cloth being handed down from mother to daughter," he adds, "is a fair addition which I have allowed myself."
The writer recollects to have heard this story, when a boy, from an old woman in Ireland; and he could probably point out the very field in the county of Kildare where it occurred. A man and a boy were ploughing: the boy, as they were about in the middle of their furrow, smelled roast beef, and wished for some. As they returned, it was lying on the grass before them. When they had eaten, the boy said "God bless me, and God bless the fairies!" The man did not give thanks, and he met with misfortunes very shortly after.—The same legend is also in Scotland. See below.
[308]The former account was obtained by a friend in Glarnerland. The latter was given to Mr. Wyss himself by a man of Zweylütschinen, very rich, says Mr. Wyss, in Dwarf lore, and who accompanied him to Lauterbrunnen. Schiller has founded his poem Der Alpenjäger on this legend.
[309]Mr. Wyss heard this and the following tale in Haslithal and Gadmen.
[310]In several of the high valleys of Switzerland it is only a single cherry-tree which happens to be favourably situated that bears fruit. It bears abundantly, and the fruit ripens about the month of August.Wyss.
[311]Compare the narrative in the Swiss dialect given by Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 419. The same peasant of Belp who related the first legend was Mr. Wyss's authority for this one. "The vanishing of the Bergmänlein," says Mr. Wyss, "appears to be a matter of importance to the popular faith. It is almost always ascribed to the fault of mankind—sometimes to their wickedness."
We may in these tales recognise the box of Pandora under a different form, but the ground is the same. Curiosity and wickedness are still the cause of superior beings withdrawing their favour from man.
"I have never any where else," says Mr. Wyss, "heard of the goose-feet; but that all is not right with their feet is evident from the popular tradition giving long trailing mantles as the dress of the little people. Some will have it that their feet are regularly formed, but set on their legs the wrong way, so that the toes are behind and the heels before."
Heywood, in his Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, p. 554, relates a story which would seem to refer to a similar belief.
[312]Müller, Bilder und Sagen, p. 119; see above, p.81. Coals are the usual form under which the Dwarfs conceal the precious metals. We also find this trait in Scandinavia. A smith who lived near Aarhuus in Jutland, as he was going to church, saw a Troll on the roadside very busy about two straws that had got across each other on a heap of coals, and which, do what he would, he could not remove from their position. He asked the smith to do it for him; but he who knew better things took up the coals with the cross straws on them, and carried them home in spite of the screams of the Troll, and when he reached his own house he found it was a large treasure he had got, over which the Troll had lost all power. Thiele, i. 122.
[313]Müller,ut sup.p. 123.
[314]Müller,ut sup.p. 126.
[315]This story is told of two places in the Highlands of Berning, of Ralligen, a little village on the lake of Thun, where there once stood a town called Roll; and again, of Schillingsdorf, a place in the valley of Grinderwald, formerly destroyed by a mountain slip.
The reader need scarcely be reminded of the stories of Lot and of Baucis and Philemon: see also Grimm's Kinder und Hausmärchen, iii. 153, for other parallels.
[316]See above pp.66,75.
[317]The Anglo-Saxon Dweorg, Dworh, and the English Dwarf, do not seem ever to have had any other sense than that of the Latinnanus.
[318]As quoted by Picart in his Notes on William of Newbridge. We could not find it in the Collection of Histories, etc., by Martène and Durand,—the only place where, to our knowledge, this chronicler's works are printed.
[319]Guilielmi Neubrigensis Historia, sive Chronica Rerum Anglicarum.Oxon. 1719, lib. i. c. 27.
[320]See above, p.109.
[321]Otia Imperialiaapud Leibnitz Scriptores rerum Brunsvicarum, vol. i. p. 981.
[322]Vice calicis.
[323]Otia Imperialiaapud Leibnitz Scriptores rerum Brunsvicarum, vol. i. p. 980.
[324]There is, as far as we are aware, no vestige of these names remaining in either the French or English language, and we cannot conceive how the Latin names of sea-gods came to be applied to the Gotho-German Kobolds, etc.
[325]Dimidiumpollicis. Should we not readpedis?
[326]Otia Imperialiaapud Leibnitz Scriptores rerum Brunsvicarum, vol. i. p. 980.
[327]Can this name be connected with that of Grendel, the malignant spirit in Beówulf?
[328]Edited for the Percy Society by J. P. Collyer, Esq., 1841. Mr. Collyer says there is little doubt but that this work was printed before 1588, or even 1584. We think this is true only of the First Part; for the Second, which is of a different texture, must have been added some time after tobacco had come into common use in England: see the verses in p.34.
[329]Mr. Collyer does not seem to have recollected that Huon de Bordeaux had been translated by Lord Berners; see above, p.56.
[330]It is, according to this authority the man-fairy Gunn that steals children and leaves changelings.
[331]Discoverie of Witchcrafte, iv. ch. 10.
[332]R. Scot, Discoverie of Witchcrafte, ii. ch. 4.
[333]Ib.vii. 15.
[334]This appears to us to be rather a display of the author's learning than an actual enumeration of the objects of popular terror; for the maids hardly talked of Satyrs, Pans, etc. For Bull-beggar, see p.316; for Urchin, p.319.Hagis the Anglo-Saxonhæold english geiold english se, Germanhexe, "witche," and hence the Nightmare (see p.332) which was ascribed to witches; we still sayHag-ridden. Calcar and Sporn (spurs?) may be the same, from the idea of riding: the French call the Nightmare,Cauchemare, fromCaucher,calcare. Kit-wi-the-Canstick is Jack-with-the-Lanthorn. The Man in the Oak is probably Puck, "Turn your cloakes, quoth hee, for Pucke is busy in these oakes."—Iter Boreale. The Hell-wain is perhaps the Death-coach, connected with Northern and German superstitions, and the Fire-drake an Ignis Fatuus. Boneless may have been some impalpable spectre; the other terms seem to be mere appellations of Puck.
[335]Anat. of Mel. p. 47.
[336]Chap. xx. p. 134. Lond. 1604.
[337]This is, we apprehend, an egg at Easter or on Good Friday.Housleis the Anglo-Saxonhuold english sel;Goth.hunsl, sacrifice or offering, and thence the Eucharist.
[338]Terrors of the Night, 1594.
[339]Hutchinson, History of Cumberland, vol. i. p. 269.
[340]As quoted by Thoms in his Essay on Popular Songs, in the Athenæum for 1847.
[341]Morgan, Phœnix Britannicus, Lond. 1732.
[342]Pandemonium, p. 207. Lond. 1684.
[343]Aubrey, Natural History of Surrey, iii 366,ap.Ritson, Fairy Tales, p. 166.
[344]The Local Historian's Table-Book, by M. A. Richardson, iii. 239. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1846.
[345]Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, 1725.
[346]Quoted by Brand in his Popular Antiquities, an enlarged edition of Bourne's work.
[347]This word Pixy, is evidently Pucksy, the endearing diminutivesybeing added to Puck, like Betsy, Nancy, Dixie. So Mrs. Trimmer in her Fabulous Histories—which we read with wonderful pleasure in our childhood, and would recommend to our young readers—calls her hen-robins Pecksy and Flapsy. Pisgy is only Pixy transposed. Mrs. Bray derives Pixy from Pygmy. At Truro, in Cornwall, as Mr. Thoms informs us, themoths, which some regard as departed souls, others as fairies, are calledPisgies. He observes the curious, but surely casual, resemblance between this and the Greek ψυχη, which is both soul and moth. Grimm (p. 430) tells us from an old glossary, that the caterpillar was named in Germany,Alba, i. e.Elbe, and that the Alp often takes the form of a butterfly.
[348]Whip says he, as Mrs. Bray conjectures.
[349]Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 513. Bohn's edit.
[350]Given in the Literary Gazette for 1825. No. 430.
[351]Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 503. Bohn's edit.
[352]TheElfboreof Scotland, where it is likewise ascribed to the fairies, Jamieson,s. v.The same opinion prevails in Denmark, where it is said that any one who looks through it will see things he would not otherwise have known: see Thiele, ii. 18.
[353]The Anglo-Saxonlǽan,laécan, to play.
[354]We have abridged this legend from a well-written letter in the Literary Gazette, No. 430 (1825), the writer of which says, he knew the house in which it was said to have occurred. He also says he remembered an old tailor, who said the horn was often pitched at the head of himself and his apprentice, when in the North-country fashion they went to work at the farm-house. Its identity with other legends will be at once perceived.
[355]And true no doubt it is,i. e.the impression made on her imagination was as strong as if the objects had been actually before her. The narrator is the same person who told the preceding Boggart story.
[356]Fairy Tales, pp. 24, 56.
[357]In Northumberland the common people call a certain fungous excrescence, sometimes found about the roots of old trees, Fairy-butter. After great rains and in a certain degree of putrefaction, it is reduced to a consistency, which, together with its colour, makes it not unlike butter, and hence the name. Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 492, Bohn's edit.
The Menyn Tylna Têg or Fairy-butter of Wales, we are told in the same place, is a substance found at a great depth in cavities of limestone-rocks when sinking for lead-ore.
[358]Comp. Milton, L'Allegro, 105seq.
[359]Richardson, Table-Book, iii. 45; see above, p.297.
[360]This word, as we may see, is speltfariesin the following legends; so we may suppose thatfairyis pronouncedfarryin the North, which has a curious coincidence withPeri: see above, p.15.
[361]Probably pronouncedPoke, as still in Worcestershire. Our ancestors frequently usedou, oroofor the longowhile they expressed the sound ofoobyofollowed bye, asroteroot,cokecook,moremoor,polepool.
[362]Passus xvii.v.11,323seq.ed. 1842. Comp.vv.8363, 9300, 10,902.
[363]Mr. Todd is right, in readingpoukeforponke, an evident typographic error: wrong in saying, "He is the Fairy, Robin Good-fellow, known by the name of Puck." Robin is the "hob-goblin" mentioned two lines after.
[364]We know nothing of the Oriental origin of Puck, and cannot give our full assent to the character of our ancestry, as expressed in the remaining part of Mr. Gifford's note: "but a fiend engendered in the moody minds, and rude and gloomy fancies of the barbarous invaders of the North." It is full time to have done with describing the old Gothic race as savages.
[365]Der Putz würde uns über berg und thäler tragen.To frighten children they sayDer Butz kommt!see Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 474.
[366]The former made by adding the Anglo-Saxon and Englishel,le; the latter by adding the Englishart: see p.318.
[367]By Sir F. Palgrave, from whose article in the Quarterly Review, we have derived many of the terms named above. He adds that the Anglo-Saxonpæcanis to deceive, seduce; the Low-Saxonpickento gambol;pickelnto play the fool;pukrain Icelandic to make a murmuring noise, to steal secretly; andpukkein Danish to scold. He further adds the Swedishpoikaboy, the Anglo-Saxon and Swedishpigaand Danishpigegirl. If, however, Pouke is connected with the Sclavonic Bog, these at the most can be only derivations from it. By the wayboyitself seems to be one of these terms; the Anglo-Saxonpigawas probably pronouncedpiya, andais a masculine termination in that language.
[368]See above, p.291. In Low German, however, the Kobold is called Bullmann, Bullermann, Bullerkater, frombullen,bullern, to knock: see Grimm,ut sup.p. 473.
[369]Essay on the Ignis Fatuus, quoted by Thoms.
[370]