Good and Dark Elves and Dwarves

[EG]

Chapter 17: Wights and Elves
(Page 1)



Apart from deified and semi-divine natures there stands a whole order of other beings distinguished mainly by the fact that, while those have issued from men or seek human fellowship, these form a seperate community, one might say a kingdom of their own, and are only induced by accident or stress of circumstances to have dealings with men. They have in them some admixture of the superhuman, which approximates them to gods; they have power to hurt man, being no match for him in bodily strength. Their figure is much below the stature of man, or else mis-shapen. They almost all have the faculty of making themselves invisible. (1) And here again the females are of a broader and nobler cast, with attributes resembling those of goddesses and wise-women; the male spirits are more distinctly marked off, both from gods and from heroes. (2)


The two most general designations for them form the title of this chapter; they are what we should call spirits nowadays. But the word spirit (geist, ghost), (3) like the Greek daimwn, is too comprehensive; it would include, for instance, the half-goddesses discussed in the preceeding chapter. The Lat. genius would more nearly hit the mark. (see Suppl.).


The term wiht seems remarkable in more than one respect, for its variable gender and for the abstract meanings developed from it. The Gothic vaíhts, gen. vaíhtáis, is feminine, and Ulphilas hardly ever uses it in a concrete sense; in Luke 1, 1 he translates by it pragma, and much oftener, when combined with a negative, ouden (Gramm. 3, 8. 734). This, however, does not exclude the possibility of vaíhts having at other times denoted to the Goths a spirit regarded as female; and in 1 Thess. 5, 22 the sentence apo pantoj eidouj ponhtou apecesqe is rendered: af allamma vaíhtê ubiláizô afhabáiþ izvis, where the Vulg. has: ab omni specie mala abstinete vos; the use of the pl. 'vaíhteis ubilôs' of itself suggests the notion of spirits. The other Teutonic tongues equally use the word to intensify and make a substantive of the negative, and even let it swallow up at last the proper particle of negation; (4) but in all of them it retains its personal meaning too. The OHG. writers waver between the neut. and masc.; the Gothic fem. is unknown to them. Otfried has a neut. wiht, with the collective pl. wihtir, (5) and likewise a neut. pl. wihti, which implies a sing. wihti; thus, armu wihtir, iv. 6, 23; armu wihti, ii. 16, 117; krumbu wihti, iii. 9, 5; meaning 'poor, crooked creatures,' so that wiht (derivable from wîhan facere, creare) seems altogether synonymous with being, creature, person, and can be used of men or spirits: 'in demo mere sint wunderlîchiu wihtir, diu heizent sirenae,' Hoffm. Fundgr. 19, 17. In MHG. sometimes neut.: unreinez wiht, Diut. 1, 13; Athis H. 28; trügehaftez wiht, Barl. 367, 11; vil tumbez wiht, 11, 21; sometimes masc.: bœser wiht, Barl. 220, 15; unrehter bœsewiht, MS. 2, 147ª, Geo. 3508; kleiner wiht, Altd. bl. 1, 254; der wiht, Geo. 3513-36; der tumbe wiht, Fragm. 42ª; and often of indeterminable gender: bœse wiht, Trist. 8417; helle wiht, Geo. 3531; but either way as much aplicable to men as to spirits. Ghostly wights are the 'minuti dii' of the Romans (Plaut. Casina, ii. 5, 24). In Mod. Germ. we make wicht masc., and use it slightingly of a pitiful hapless being, fellow, often with a qualifying epithet: 'elender wicht, bösewicht (villian).' If the diminutive form be added, which intensifies the notion of littleness, it can only be used of spirits: wichtlein, wichtelmann; (6) MHG. diu wihtel, (7) MS. 1, 157ª; bœsez wihtel, Elfenm. cxviii.; kleinez wihtelîn, LS. 1, 378, 380, Wolfdietr. 788, 799; OHG. wihtelîn penates; wihtelen vel helbe (i.e. elbe), Lemures, dæmones, Gl. Florian. The dernea wihti, occulti genii, in Hel. 31, 20. 92, 2 are deceitful demonic beings, as 'thie derno' 164, 19 means the devil himself; lêtha wihti, 76, 15; wrêda wihti 76, 1. In Lower Saxony wicht is said, quite in a good sense, of little children: in the Münster country 'dat wicht' holds especially true of girls, about Osnabrück the sing. wicht only of girls, the pl. wichter of girls and boys; 'innocent wichte' are spoken of in Sastrow, 1, 351. The Mid. Nethl. has a neut. wicht like the H. German: quade wicht, clene wicht (child). Huyd. op St. 3, 6. 370; arem wiht, Reinh. 1027; so the Mod. Dutch wicht, pl. wichteren: arm wicht, aardig wicht, in a kindly sense. The AS. language agrees with the Gothic as to the fem. gender: wiht, gen. wihte, nom. pl. wihta; later wuht, wuhte, wuhta; seo wiht, Cod. Exon. 418, 8. 419, 3. 5. 420, 4. 10. The meaning can be either concrete: yfel wiht (phantasma), leás wiht (diabolus), Cædm. 310, 16; sœwiht (animal marinum), Beda, 1, 1; or entirely abstract = thing, affair. The Engl. wight has the sense of our wicht. The ON. vœtt and vœttr [[supernatural being, spirit]], which are likewise fem., have preserved in its integrity the notion of a demonic spiritual being (Sæm. 145ª): allar vœttir, genii quicuque, Sæm. 93b; hollar vœttir, genii benigni, Sæm. 240b; ragvœttir or meinvœttir, genii noxii, ( landvœttir, genii tutelares, Fornm. sög. 3, 105. Isl. sög. 1, 198, etc. In the Färöes they say: 'feâr tû têar til mainvittis (go to the devil)!' Lyngbye, p. 548. The Danish vette is a female spirit, a wood-nymph, meinvette an evil spirit, Thiele 3, 98. The Swedish tongue, in addition to vätt (genius) and a synonymous neut. vättr, has a wikt formed after the German, Ihre, p. 1075. Neither is the abstract sense wanting in any of these dialects.


This transition of the meaning of wight into that of thing on the one hand, and of devil on the other, agrees with some other phenomena of language. We also address little children as 'thing,' and the child in the märchen (No. 105) cries to the lizard: 'ding, eat the crumbs, too!' Wicht, ding, wint, teufel, vâlant (Gramm. 3, 734. 736) all help to clinch a denial. O. French males choses, male genii, Ren. 30085. Mid. Latin bonœ res = boni genii, Vinc. Bellov. iii. 3, 27 (see Suppl.).


We at once perceive a more decided colouring in the OHG. and MHG. alp (genius), AS. œlf, ON. âlfr [[elf]]; a Goth. albs may safely be conjectured. Together with this masc., the OHG. may also have had a neut. alp, pl. elpir, as we know the MHG. had a pl. elber; and from the MHG. dat. fem. elbe (MS. 1, 50b) we must certianly infer a nom. diu elbe, OHG. alpia, elpia, Goth. albi, gen. albjôs, for otherwise such a derivative could not occur. Formed by a still commoner suffix, there was no doubt an OHG. elpinna, MHG. elbinne, the form selected by Albrecht of Halberstadt, and still appearing in his poem as remodelled by Wikram; (9) AS. elfen, gen. elfenne. Of the nom. pl. masc. I can only feel sure in the ON., where it is âlfar [[pl. of álfr - elves]], and would imply a Goth. albôs, OHG. alpâ, MHG. albe, AS. ælfas; on the other hand an OHG. elpî (Goth. albeis) is suggested by the MHG. pl. elbe (Amgb. 2b, unless this comes from the fem. elbe above) and by the AS. pl. ylfe, gen. pl. ylfa (Beow. 223). (10) The Engl. forms elf, elves, the Swed. elf, pl. maasc. elfvar (fem. elfvor), the Dan. elv, pl. elve, are quite in rule; the Dan. compounds ellefolk, ellekoner, elleskudt, ellevild have undergone assimilation. With us the word alp still survivies in the sense of night-hag, night-mare, in addition to which our writers of the last century introduced the Engl. elf, a form untrue to our dialect; before that, we find everywhere the correct pl. elbe or elben. (11) H. Sachs uses ölp: 'du ölp! du dölp!' (i. 5, 525b), and ölperisch (iv. 3, 95c); conf. ölpern and ölpetrütsch, alberdrütsch, drelpetrütsch (Schm. 1, 48); elpentrötsch and tölpentrötsch, trilpentrisch (Schmid's Swab. dict. 162); and in Hersfeld, hilpentrisch. The words mean an awkward silly fellow, one whom the elves have been at, and the same thing is expressed by the simple elbisch, Fundgr. 365. In Gloss. Jun. 340 we read elvesce wehte, elvish wights.


On the nature of Elves I resort for advise to the ON. authorities, before all others. It has been remarked already (p. 25), that the Elder Edda several times couples œsir and âlfar together, as though they were a compendium of all higher beings, and that the AS. ês and ylfe stand together in exactly the same way. This apparently concedes more of a divinity to elves than to men. Sometimes there come in, as a third member, the vanir (Sæm. 83b), a race distinct from the æsir, but admitted to certain relations with them by marriage and by covenants. The Hrafnagaldr opens with the words: Alföðr orkar (works), âlfar skilja, vanir vita,' Sæm. 88ª; Allfather, i.e., the âs, has power, âlfar have skill (understanding), and vanir knowledge. The Alvîsmâl enumerates the dissimilar names given to heavenly bodies, elements and plants by various languages (supra, p. 332); in doing so, it mentions œsir, âlfar, vanir, and in addition also goð, menn, ginregin, iötnar, dvergar and denizens of hel (hades). Here the most remarkable point for us is, that âlfar and dvergar (dwarfs) are two different things. The same distinction is made between âlfar and dvergar, Sæm. 8b; between dvergar and döckâlfar, Sæm. 92b; between three kinds of norns, the âs-kungar, âlf-kungar and dœtr Dvalins, Sæm. 188ª, namely, those descended from âses, from elves and from dwarfs; and our MHG. poets, as we see by Wikram's Albrecht, 6, 9, continued to separate elbe from getwerc. (12) Some kinship however seems to exist between them, if only because among proper names of dwarfs we find an Alfr and a Vindâlfr, Sæm. 2. 3. Loki, elsewhere called an âs, and reckoned among âses, but really of iötun origin, is nevertheless addressed as âlfr, Sæm. 110b; nay, Völundr, a godlike hero, is called 'âlfa lioði,' alforum socius, and 'vîsi âlfa,' alforum princeps, Sæm. 135ª,b. I explain this not historically (by a Finnish descent), but mythically: German legend likewise makes Wielant king Elberich's companion and fellow smith in Mount Gloggensachsen (otherwise Göugelsahs, Caucasus?). Thus we see the word âlfr shrink and stretch by turns.



ENDNOTES:


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1. But so have the gods (p. 325), goddesses (p. 268) and wise women (p. 419). Back

2. Celtic tradition, which runs particularly rich on this subject, I draw from the following works: Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, by Crofton Croker, Lond. 1825; 2nd ed., parts 1, 2, 3, Lond. 1828. The Fairy Mythology, by Th. Keightley, vols. 1, 2, Lond. 1828. Barzas-Breiz, chants populaires de la Bretagne, par Th. de la Villemarqué, 2e éd., 2 vol., Paris 1840. Back

3. OHG. keist, AS. gâst, OS. gêst (see root in Gramm. 2, 46); Goth. ahma, OHG. âtum for ahadum, conn. with Goth. aha (mens), ahjan (meminisse, cogitare), as man (homo), manniska, and manni, minni belong to munan, minnen (pp. 59. 344. 433). Back

4. Aught = â-wiht, any wight or whit; naught = n'â-wiht, no wight, no whit.---Trans. Back

5. So: thiu diufilir, iii. 14, 53, by the side of ther diufal, iii. 14, 108. Back

6. In Hesse wichtelmänner is the expression in vogue, except on the Diemel in Saxon Hesse, where they say 'gute holden.' Back

7. Swer weiz und doch niht wizzen wil, ...................Whoso knows, yet will not know,

der slæt sich mit sîn selbes hant; ...................Smites himself with his own hand;

des wîsheit aht ich zeime spil, ..................His wisdom I value no more than a play

daz man diu wihtel hât genannt: ..................That they call 'the little wights':

er lât uns schouwen wunders vil, ....................He lets us witness much of wonder,

der ir dâ waltet. ..........................Who governs them.

The passage shows that in the 13th cent. there was a kind of puppet-show in which ghostly

beings were set before the eyes of spectators. 'Der ir waltet,' he that wields them, means the

showman who puts the figures in motion. A full confirmation in the Wachtelmäre, line 40:

'rihtet zu mit den snüeren (strings) die tatermanne!' Another passage on the wihtel-spil in

Haupt's Zeitschr. 2, 60: 'spilt mit dem wihtelin ûf dem tisch umb guoten win.' Back

8. Biörn supposes a masc. (fem.?) meinvættr and a neut. meinvætti; no doubt mein is noxa, malum; nevertheless I call attention to the Zendic mainyus, dæmon, and agramainyus, dæmon malus. Back

9. Wikram 1,9. 6, 9 (ed. 1631, p. 11ª 199b). The first passage, in all the editions I have compared (ed. 1545, p. 3ª), has a faulty reading: 'auch viel ewinnen und freyen,' rhyming with 'zweyen.' Albrecht surely wrote 'vil elbinnen und feien.' I can make nothing of 'freien' but at least a very daring allusion to Frigg and Frea (p. 301); and 'froie' = fräulein, as the weasel is called in Reinh. clxxii., can have nothing to say here. Back

10. Taking AS. y [as a modified a, œ, ea] as in yldra, ylfet, yrfe, OHG. eldiro, elpiz, erpi. At the same time, as y can also be a modified o (orf, yrfe = pecus), or a modified u (wulf, wylfen), I will not pass over a MHG. ulf, pl. ülve, which seems to mean much the same as alp, and may be akin to an AS. ylf: 'von den ülven entbunden werden,' MS. 1, 81ª; 'ülfheit ein suht ob allen sühten,' MS. 2, 135ª; 'der sich ülfet in der jugent,' Helbl. 2, 426; and conf. the ölp quoted from H. Sachs. Shakspeare occasionally couples elves and goblins with similar beings called ouphes (Nares sub v.). It speaks for the identity of the two forms, that one Swedish folk-song (Arwidsson 2, 278) has Ulfver where another (2, 276) has Elfver. Back

11. Besold. sub v. elbe; Ettner's Hebamme, p. 910, alpen or elben. Back

12. In Norway popular belief keeps alfer and dverge apart, Faye p. 49

Grimm's Mythology

[EG]

Now what is the true meaning of the word albs, alp = genius? One is tempted indeed to compare the Lat. albus, which according to Festus the Sabines called alpus; alfoj (vitiligo, leprosy) agrees still better with the law of consonant-change. Probably then albs meant first of all a light-coloured, white, good spirit, (13) so that, when âlfar and dvergar are contrasted, the one signifies the white spirits, and other the black. This exactly agrees with the great beauty and brightness of âlfar. But the two classes of creatures getting, as we shall see, a good deal mixed up and confounded, recourse was had to composition, and the elves proper were named liosâlfar. (14)


The above-named döckâlfar (genii obscuri) require a counterpart, which is not found in the Eddic songs, but it is in Snorri's prose. He says, p. 21: 'In Alfheim dwells the nation of the liosâlfar (light elves), down in the earth dwell the döckâlfar (dark elves), the two unlike one another in their look and their powers, liosâlfar brighter than the sun, döckâlfar blacker than pitch.' The liosâlfar occupy the third space of heaven, Sn. 22. Another name which never occurs in the lays, and which at first right seems synonymous with döckâlfar, is svartâlfar (black elves); (15) and these Snorri evidently takes to be the same as dvergar, for his dvergar dwell in Svartâlfaheim, (Sn. 34. 130. 136). This is, for one thing, at variance with the separation of âlfar and dvergar in the lays, and more particularly with the difference implied between döckâlfar and dvergar in Sæm. 92b 188ª. That language of poetry, which everywhere else imparts such precise information about the old faith, I am not inclined to set aside here as vague and general. Nor, in connexion with this, ought we to overlook the nâir, the deadly pale or dead ghosts named by the side of the dvergar, Sæm. 92b, though again among the dvergar themselves occur the proper names Nâr and Nâinn.


Some have seen, in this antithesis of light and black elves, the same Dualism that other mythologies set up between spirits good and bad, friendly and hostile, heavenly and hellish, between angels of light and of darkness. But ought we not rather to assume three kinds of Norse genii, liosâlfar, döckâlfar, svartâlfar? No doubt I am thereby pronouncing Snorri's statement fallacious: 'döckâlfar eru svartari en bik (pitch).' Döckr (16) seems to me not so much downright black, as dim, dingy; not niger, but obscurus, fuscus, aquilus. In ON. the adj. iarpr [[jarpr - chestnut, reddish-brown]], AS. eorp, fuscus, seems to be used of dwarfs, Haupt's Zeitschr. 3, 152; and the female name Irpa (p. 98) is akin to it. In that case the identity of dwarfs and black elves would hold good, and at the same time the Old Eddic distinction between dwarfs and dark elves be justified.


Such a Trilogy still wants decisive proof; but some facts can be brought in support of it. Pomeranian legend, to begin with, seems positively to divide subterraneans into white, brown, and black; (17) elsewhere popular belief contents itself with picturing dwarfs in gray clothing, in gray or brown cap-of-darkness; Scotch tradition in particular has its brownies, spirits of brown hue, i.e., döckâlfar rather than svartâlfar (see Suppl.). But here I have yet another name to bring in, which, as applied to such spirits, is not in extensive use. I have not met with it outside of the Vogtland and a part of East Thuringia. There the small elvish beings that travel especially in the train of Berchta, are called the heimchen (supra, p. 276); and the name is considered finer and nobler than querx or erdmännchen (Börner p. 52). It is hardly to be explained by any resemblance to chirping crickets, which are also called heimchen, OHG. heimili (Graff 4, 953); still less by heim (domus), for these wights are not home-spirits (domestici); besides, the correct spelling seems to be heinchen (Variscia 2, 101), so that one may connect it with 'Friend Hein,' the name for death, and the Low Sax. heinenkleed (winding-sheet, Strodtmann p. 84). (18) This notion of departed spirits, who appear in the 'furious host' in the retinue of former gods, and continue to lead a life of thier own, may go to support those nâir of the Edda; the pale hue may belong to them, and the gray, brown, black to the coarser but otherwise similar dwarfs. Such is my conjecture. In a hero-lay founded on thoroughtly German legend, that of Morolt, there appear precisely three troops of spirits, who take charge of the fallen in battle and of their souls: a white, a pale, and a black troop (p. 28b), which is explained to mean 'angels, kinsmen of the combatants coming up from hades, and devils.' No such warlike part is ever played by the Norse âlfar, not they, but the valkyrs have to do with battles; but the traditions may long have become tangled together, and the offices confounded. (19) The liosâlfar that dwell 'niðri î iörðu,' nay, the very same that in the Alvîsmâl are not expressly named, but designated by the words 'î heljo.' Or I can put it in this way: liosâlfar live in heaven, döckâlfar (and nâir?) in hel, the heathen hades, svartâlfar in Svartâlfaheim, which is never used in the same sense as hel (see Suppl.). The dusky elves are souls of dead men, as the younger poet supposed, or are we to separate döckâlfar and nâir? Both have their abode in the realms of hades, as the light ones have in those of heaven. Of no other elves has the Edda so much to tell as of the black, who have more dealings with mankind; svartâlfar are named in abundance, liosâlfar and döckâlfar but fitfully.


One thing we must not let go: the identity of svartâlfar and dvergar.


Dvergar, Goth. dvaírgs? AS. dweorg, OHG. tuerc, MHG. tverc, our zwerg, (20) answer to the Lat. nanus, Gr. nannoj (dwarf, puppet), Ital. nano, Span. enano, Portug. anao, Prov. nan, nant, Fr. nain, Mid. Nethl. also naen, Ferg. 2243-46-53-82. 3146-50, and nane, 3086-97; or Gr. pugmaioj. Beside the masc. forms just given, OHG. and MHG. frequently use the neut. form gituerc, getwerc, Nib. 98,1. 335, 3. MS. 2, 15ª. Wigal. 6080. 6591. Trist. 14242. 14515. daz wilde getwerc, Ecke 81. 82. Wh. 57, 25. Getwerc is used as a masc. in Eilhart 2881-7. Altd. bl. 1, 253-6-8; der twerk in Hoffm. fundgr. 237. Can qeourgoj (performing miraculous deeds, what the MHG. would call wunderære) have anything to do with it? As to meaning, the dwarfs resemble the Idæan Dactyls of the ancients, the Cabeiri and pataikoi: all or most of the dvergar in the Edda are cunning smiths (Sn. 34. 48. 130. 354). This seems the simplest explanation of their black sooty appearance, like that of the cyclopes. Their forges are placed in caves and mountains: Svartâlfheimr must therefore lie in a mountainous region, not in the abyss of hell. And our German folk-tales everywhere speak of the dwarfs as forging in the mountains: 'von golde wirkent si diu spœhen werc' says the Wartburg War of the getwerc Sinnels in Palakers, whereas elves and elfins have rather the business of weaving attributed to them. Thus, while dwarfs border on the smith-heroes and smith-gods (Wielant, Vulcan), the functions of elves approach those of fays and good-wives (see Suppl.). (21)


If there be any truth in this view of the matter, one can easily conceive how it might get altered and confused in the popular belief of a later time, when the new christian notions of angel and devil had been introduced. At bottom all elves, even the light ones, have some devil-like qualities, e.g. their loving to teaze men; but they are not therefore devils, not even the black ones, but often good-natured beings. It appears even that to these black elves in particular, i.e., mountain spirits, who in various ways came into contact with man, a distinct reverence was paid, a species of worship, traces of which lasted down to recent times. The clearest evidence of this is found in the Kormakssaga p. 216-8. The hill of the elves, like the altar of a god, is to be reddened with the blood of a slaughtered bull, and of the animal's flesh a feast prepared for the elves: 'Hôll einn er heðan skamt î brott, er âlfar bûa î (cave that elves dwell in); grâðûng þann, er Kormakr drap (bull that K. slew), skaltû fâ, ok riôða blôð grâðûngsins â hôlinn ûtan, en gera âlfum veizlu (make the elves a feast) af slâtrinu, ok mun þer batna.' An actual âlfabôt. With this I connect the superstitious custom of cooking food for angels, and setting it for them (Superst. no. 896). So there is a table covered and a pot of food placed for home-smiths and kobolds (Deut. sagen, no. 37. 38. 71); meat and drink for domina Abundia (supra, p. 286); money or bread deposited in the caves of subterraneans, in going past (Neocorus 1, 262. 560). (22) There are plants named after elves as well as after gods: alpranke, alpfranke, alfsranke, alpkraut (lonicera periclymen., solanum dulcam.), otherwise called geissblatt, in Denmark troldbär, in Sweden trullbär; dweorges dwosle, pulegium (Lye), Mone's authorities spell dwostle, 322ª; dvergeriis, acc. to Molbech's Dial. Lex. p. 86, the spartium scoparium. A latrina was called âlfrek, lit. genios fugans, Eyrb. saga, cap. 4 (see Suppl.).


Whereas man grows but slowly, not attaining his full stature till after his fifteenth year, and then living seventy years, and a giant can be as old as the hills; the dwarf is already grown up in the third year of his life, and a greybeard in the seventh; (23) the Elf-king is commonly described as old and white-bearded.


Accounts of the creation of dwarfs will be presented in chap. XIX.; but they only seem to refer to the earthly form of the black elves, not of the life.

[EG]

The leading features of elvish nature seem to be the following:---


Man's body holds a medium between those of the giant and the elf; an elf comes as much short of human size as a giant towers above it. All elves are imagined as small and tiny, but the light ones as well-formed and symmetrical, the black as ugly and misshapen. The former are radiant with exquisite beauty, and wear shining garments: the AS. œlfsciene, Cædm. 109, 23. 165, 11, sheen as an elf, bright as angels, the ON. 'frîð sem âlfkona,' fair as elfin [[literally - fair as an elf-woman or elf-wife]], express the height of female loveliness. In Rudlieb xvii. 27 a dwarf, on being caught, calls his wife out of the cave, she immediately appears, 'parva, nimis pulchra, sed et auro vesteque compta.' Fornald. sög. 1, 387 has: 'þat fôlk, er âlfar hêtu, at þat var miklu frîðara enn önnur mankind.' The Engl. elves are slender and puny: Falstaff (1 Henry IV. i. 4) calls Prince Henry 'you starveling, you elfskin!' (24) The dwarf adds to his repulsive hue an ill-shaped body, a humped back, and coarse clothing; when elves and dwarfs came to be mixed up together the graceful figure of the one was transferred to the other, yet sometimes the dwarfs expressly retain the black or grey complexion: 'svart i synen,' p. 457; 'a little black mannikin,' Kinderm. no. 92; 'grey mannikin,' Büsching's Wöch. nach. 1, 98. Their very height is occasionally specified: now they attain the stature of a four years' child, (25) now they appear a great deal smaller, to be measured by the span or thumb: 'kûme drîer spannen lanc, gar eislich getân,' Elfenm. cxvi.; two spans high, Deut. sag. no. 42; a little wight, 'reht als ein dûmelle lanc,' a thumb long, Altd. bl. 2, 151; 'ein kleinez weglin (l. wihtlîn) dûmeln lanc,' Ls. 1, 378. In one Danish lay, the smallest trold is no bigger than an ant, D.V. 1, 176. Hence in fairy tales däumling (thumbling, petit poucet) indicates a dwarfish figure; the daktuloj Idaioj is to be derived from daktuloj (finger); pugmaioj pigmæus from pugmh (fist); the O. Pruss. parstuck, perstuck, a dwarf, from Lith. pirsztas, Slav. perst, prst (finger); and a Bohem. name for a dwarf, pjdimuzjk = span-mannikin, from pjd' (span). (26) In Sansk. bâlakhilya = geniorum genus, pollicis magnitudinem aequans, sixty thousand of them sprang out of Brahma's hair, Bopp's Gloss. Skr. p. 122ª (ed. 2, p. 238b); bâla, bâlaka=puer, parvulus, the 'ilya' I do not understand. There are curious stories told about the deformity of dwarfs' feet, which are said to be like those of geese or ducks; (27) conf. queen Berhta, p. 280, and the swan-maidens, p. 429. One is also reminded of the blatevüeze, Rother 1871. Ernst 3828; conf. Haupt's Zeitschr. 7, 289.


The Mid. Nethl. poem of Brandaen, but no other version of the same legend, contains a very remarkable feature. (28) Brandan met a man on the sea, who was a thumb long, and floated on a leaf, holding a little bowl in his right hand and a pointer in his left: the pointer he kept dipping into the sea and letting water drip from it into the bowl; when the bowl was full, he emptied it out, and began filling it again: it was his doom to be measuring the sea until the Judgment-day (see Suppl.). This liliputian floating on the leaf reminds us of ancient, especially Indian myths. (29)


The âlfar are a people, as the Edda expressly says (Sn. 21), and as the Alvîsmâl implies by putting âlfar, dvergar, and helbûar (if I may use the word), by the side of men, giants, gods, âses and vanir, each as a separate class of beings, with a language of its own. Hence too the expressions 'das stille volk; the good people (p. 456); huldu-fôlk;' in Lausitz ludki, little folk (Wend. volksl. 2, 268), from lud, liud (nation), OHG. liut, Boh. lid; and in Welsh y teulu (the family), y tylwyth têg (the fair family, the pretty little folk), conf. Owen sub v. tylwyth, and Diefenbach's Celtica ii. 102. Whether we are to understand by this a historical realm situate in a particular region, I leave undecided here. Dvergmâl [[echo; literally - dwarf talk]] (sermo nanorum) is the ON. term for the echo: a very expressive one, as their calls and cries resound in the hills, and when man speaks loud, the dwarf replies, as it were, from the mountain. Herrauðssaga, cap. 11, p. 50: 'Sigurðr stilti svâ hâtt hörpuna, at dvergmâl qvað î höllunni,' he played so loud on the harp, that dwarf's voice spoke in the hall. When heroes dealt loud blows, 'dvörgamâl sang uj qvörjun hamri,' echo sang in every rock (Lyngbye, p. 464, 470); when hard they hewed, 'dvörgamâl sang uj fiödlun,' echo sang in the mountains (ibid. 468). ON. 'qveðr við î klettunum [[kveðr við í klettunum - cry out from in the rocks]],' reboant rupes. Can grœti âlfa (ploratus nanorum) in the obscure Introduction to the Hamdismâl (Sæm. 269ª) mean something similar? Even our German heroic poetry seems to have retained the same image:


Dem fehten allez nâch erhal,................To the fighting everything resounded,


dô beide berg und ouch diu tal.............then both hill and also dale


gâben ir slegen stimme. .....................gave voice to their blows.


(Ecke, ed. Hagen, 161)


Daz dâ beide berg und tal


vor ir slegen wilde wider einander allez hal. (ibid. 171)


The hills not only rang again with the sword-strokes of the heroes, but uttered voice and answer, i.e., the dwarfs residing in them did. (30)


This nation of elves or dwarfs has over it a king. In Norse legend, it is true, I remember no instance of it among âlfar or dvergar; yet Huldra is queen of the huldrefôlk (p. 272), as Berchta is of the heinchen (p. 276), and English tradition tells of an elf-queen, Chaucer's C. T. 6442 (the fairy queen, Percy 3, 207 seq.); I suppose, because Gallic tradition likewise made female fairies (fées) the more prominent. The OFr. fable of Huon of Bordeaux knows of a roi Oberon, i.e. Auberon for Alberon, an alb by his very name: the kingdom of the fays (royaume de la féerie) is his. Our poem of Orendel cites a dwarf Alban by name. In Otnit a leading part is played by künec Alberîch, Elberich, to whom are subject "manec berg und tal;" the Nob. lied makes him not a king, but a vassal of the kings Schilbung and Nibelung; a nameless king of dwarfs appears in the poem of Ecke 80; and elsewhere king Goldemâr (Deut. heldensage p. 174. Haupt's Zeitschr. 6, 522-3), King Sinnels and Laurîa (MS. 2, 15ª); 'der getwerge künec Bîleî,' Er. 2086. The German folk-tales also give the dwarf nation a king (no. 152); king of erdmännchen (Kinderm. 3, 167). Gübich (Gibika, p. 137) is in the Harz legends a dwarf-king. Heiling is prince of the dwarfs (no. 151). (31) These are all the kings of black elves, except Oberon, whom I take to be a light alb. It appears that human heroes, by subduing the sovereign of the elves, at once obtain dominion over the spirits; it may be in this sense that Völundr is called vîsi âlfa (p. 444), and Siegfried after conquering Elberich would have the like pretensions (see Suppl.).


The ON. writings have preserved plenty of dwarfs' names which are of importance to the study of mythology (loc. princ. Sæm. 2b 3ª). I pick out the rhyming forms Vitr and Litr, Fili and Kili, Fialarr and Galarr, Skirvir and Virvir, Anar and Onar, Finnr and Ginnr, as well as the absonant Bivor and Bavor. Nâr and Nâinn are manifestly synonymous (mortuus), and so agrees Dâinn (mortuus again); with Oinn (timidus) Moinn; Dvalinn, Durinn, Thorinn, Fundinn, show at least the same participial ending. Alfr, Gandâlfr, and Vindâlfr place the connexion of elves and dwarfs beyond doubt. Ai occurs twice, and seems to mean avus, as in Sæm. 100ª; Finnr and Billîngr are like the heroes' names discussed on pp. 373, 380. Nýr, and Niði, Nýr and Nýrâðr have reference to phases of the moon's light; a few other names will be touched upon later. In Sæm. 45b and Sn. 48. 130 all dwarfs are said to be 'Ivalda synir,' sons of Ivaldi, and he seems identical with the elvish Ivaldr, father of Iðunn, Sæm. 89ª, just as Folkvaldr and Folkvaldi (AS. Folcwealda), Dômvaldr and Dômvaldi = Domaldi, are used indifferently. Ivaldr answers to the Dan. Evald and our Ewald, a rare name in the older documents: we know the two St. Ewalds (niger et albus) who were martyred in the elder Pipin's time (695) and buried at Cologne, but were of English origin. Beda 5, 10 spells it Hewald, and the AS. tansl. Heáwold (see Suppl.).


Of the dwellings of light elves in heaven the folk-tales have no longer anything to tell; the more frequently do they describe those of dwarfs in the rifts and caves of the mountains. Hence the AS. names bergœlfen, dunœlfen, muntœlfen. ON. 'bý ec for iörð neðan, â ec undr steini stað,' I dwell underneath the earth, I have under stone my stead, Sæm. 48ª. 'dvergr sat undir steininum,' Yngl. saga, cap. 15. 'dvergar bûa î iörðu oc î steinum,' Sn. 15. Elbenstein, Elphinstone, are names of noble families, see Elwenstein, Weisth. 1, 4. In the Netherlands the hills containing sepulchral urns are vulgarly denominated alfenbergen (Belg. mus. 5, 64). Treasures lie hidden in graves as they do in the abodes of elves, and the dead are subterraneans as these are. And that is why dwarfs are called erdmännlein, erdmanneken, in Switzerland härdmändle, sometimes even unterirdische, Dan. underjordiske. (32) They scamper over moss and fell, and are not exhausted by climbing steep precipices: 'den wilden getwergen wære ze stîgen dâ genuoc,' enough climbing for wild dwarfs, says Wh. 57, 25, speaking of a rocky region. (33) The popular beliefs in Denmark about the biergmand, biergfolk, biergtrold, are collected in Molbech's Dial. lex. p. 35-6. The biergmand's wife is a biergekone. These traditions about earth-men and mountain-sprites all agree together. Slipping (34) into cracks and crevices of the hills, they seem to vanish suddenly, 'like the schwick,' as the Swiss tale has it, and as suddenly they come up from the ground; in all the places they haunt, there are shown such dwarf's holes, querlich's holes. So the ludki in Lausitz make their appearance out of underground passages like mouseholes; a Breton folk-song speaks of the korred's grotto (Villemarqué 1, 36). In such caves they pursue their occupations, collecting treasures, forging weapons curiously wrought; their kings fashion for themselves magnificent chambers underground, Elberich, Laurîn dwell in these wonderful mountains, men and heroes at times are tempted down, loaded with gifts, and let go, or held fast (see Suppl.). Dietrich von Bern at the close of his life is fetched away by a dwarf, Deut. heldens. p. 300; of Etzel, says the Nibelungs' Lament 2167 one knows not 'ob er sich verslüffe in löcher der steinwende,' whether he have slipped away into holes of the rocks (35): meaning probably, that, like Tannhäuser and faithful Eckart, he has got into the mount wherein Dame Venus dwells. Of this Dame Venus's mount we have no accounts before the 15-16th centuries; one would like to know what earlier notions lie at the bottom of it: has Dame Venus been put in the place of subterranean elf-queen, or of a goddess, such as Dame Holda or Frikka? Heinrich von Morunge sings of his beloved, MS. 1, 55ª:




ENDNOTES:


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24. In Denmark popular belief pictures the ellekone as young and captivating to look at in front, but hollow at the back like a kneading-trough (Thiele 1, 118); which reminds one of Dame Werlt in MHG. poems. Back

25. Whether the OHG. pusilîn is said of a dwarf as Graff supposes (3, 352; conf. Swed. pyssling), or merely of a child, like the Lat. pusus, pusio, is a question. The Mid. Age gave to its angels these small dimensions of elves and dwarfs: 'Ein iegelich engel schînet alsô gestalter als ein kint in jâren vieren (years 4) in der jugende,' Tit. 5895 (Hahn); 'junclîche gemalet als ein kint daz dâ vünf jâr (5 year) alt ist,' Berth. 184. Laurîn is taken for the angel Michael; Elberich (Otnit, Ettm. 24) and Antilois (Ulr. Alex.) are compared to a child of four. Back

26. When we read in a passage quoted by Jungmann 4, 652: 'mezi pjdimuzjky kraluge trpasljk' (among thumblings a dwarf is king), it is plain that a trpasljk is more than a pjdimuzjk. Can this trp- (Slovak. krpec, krpatec) be conn. with our knirps, knips, krips, gribs (v. infra), which means one of small stature, not quite a dwarf? Finn. peukalo, a thumbling, Kalew. 13, 67; mies peni, pikku mies, little man three fingers high 13, 63-8. 24, 144. ---For dwarf the MHG. has also 'der kurze man,' Wigal. 6593. 6685. 6710; 'der wênige man,' Er. 7442. Ulr. Alex. (in Wackern.'s Bas. Ms., p. 29b), in contrast with the 'michel man' or giant. One old name for a dwarf was churzibolt, Pertz 2, 104, which otherwise means a short coat, Hoff. Gl. 36, 13. Roth. 4576. Conf. urkinde (nanus), Gramm. 2, 789. Back

27. Deutsche Sagen, no. 149; I here give a more faithful version, for which I am indebted to Hr. Hieron. Hagebuch of Aarau.---Vo de härdmändlene uf der Ramsflue. Hinder der Ärlisbacher egg, zwüschenem dörfle Hard und dem alte Lorenzekapällele, stoht im ene thäle so ganz eleigge e grüsle verträite flue. se sägere dRamsflue. uf der hindere site isch se hohl, und dhöle het numme e chline igang. Do sind denn emol, me weiss nid äxact i wele johrgänge, so rarige mändle gsi, die sind i die höhle us und i gange, händ ganz e so es eiges läbe gefüehrt, und en apartige hushaltig, und sind ganz bsunderig derhär cho, so wärklich gestaltet, und mit eim wort, es isch halt kei mönsch usene cho, wer se denn au seige, wohär se cho seige, und was se tribe. ämel gekochet händ se nüt, und würzle und beeri ggässe. unde a der flue lauft es bächle, und i dem bächle händ die mändle im summer badet, wie tüble, aber eis vonene het immer wacht gha, und het pfiffe, wenn öpper derhär cho isch, uf dem fuesswäg: denn sind se ame gsprunge, was gisch was hesch, der bärg uf, dass ene kei haas noh cho wer, und wie der schwick in ehre höhle gschloffe. dernäbe händ se kem mönsch nüt zleid tho, im gägetheil, gfälligkäite, wenn se händ ebönne. Einisch het der Hardpur es füederle riswälle glade, und wil er elei gsi isch, het ers au fast nid möge. E sones mandle gsehts vo der flue obenabe, und chunt der durab zhöpperle über driese, und hilft dem pur, was es het möge. wo se do der bindbaum wänd ufe thue, so isch das mandle ufem wage gsi, und het grichtet, und der pur het überunde azoge a de bindchneble. do het das mandle sseil nid rächt ume gliret, und wo der pur azieht, schnellt der baum los und trift smandle ane finger und hets würst blessiert; do foht der pur a jommere und seit 'o heie, o heie, wenns numenau mer begegnet wer!' do seit das mandle 'abba, das macht nüt, sälben tho, sälben gha.' [Swab. 'sell thaun, sell haun,' Schmid p. 628. More neatly in OHG., 'selbe tæte, selbe habe,' MS. 1, 10b. 89ª] mit dene worte springts vom wage nabe, het es chrütle abbroche, hets verschaflet und uf das bluetig fingerle gleit, und das het alles ewäg puzt. do springts wider ufe wage, und het zum pur gseit, er soll sseil nume wider ume ge. Mängisch, wenn rächtschafne lüt durn tag gheuet oder bunde händ und se sind nit fertig worde bis zobe, und shet öppe welle cho rägne, so sind die härdmändle cho, und händ geschaffet und gewärnet druf ine, bis alles im schärme gsi isch. oder wenns durt dnacht isch cho wättere, händ se sheu und shorn, wo dusse gläge isch, de lüte zum tenn zue träit, und am morge het halt alles gross auge gmacht, und se händ nid gwüsst, wers tho het. den händ erst no die mändle kei dank begehrt, numenau dass me se gern hät. Amenim winter, wenn alles stei und bei gfrore gsi isch, sind die mändle is oberst hus cho zÄrlispach: se händ shalt gar guet chönnen mit dene lüte, wo dert gwohnt händ, und sind ame durt dnacht ufem ofe gläge, und am morge vortag händ se se wieder drus gmacht. was aber gar gspässig gsi isch, si händ ehre füessle nie vüre glo, händ es charlachroths mäntele träit, vom hals bis ufe bode nabe. jetzt hets im dorf so gwunderige meitle und beube gha, die sind einisch znacht vor das hus go gen äsche streue, dass se gsäche, was die härdmändle für füessle hebe. und was händse gfunde? sisch frile wunderle: änte und geissfüess sind in der äsche abdrückt gsi. Aber vo sälber stund a isch keis mandle meh cho, und se sind au nümme uf der Ramsflue bliebe, i dkräche händ se se verschloffe, tief id geissflue hindere, und händ keis zeiche me von ene ge, und chömme nümme, so lang dlüt eso boshaft sind (see Suppl.).---[Substance of the above. Earth-mannikins on the Ramsflue: lived in a cave with a narrow entrance; cooked nothing, ate roots and berries; bathed in a brook like doves, set one to watch, and if he whistled, were up the hills faster than hares, and slipt into their cave. Never hurt men, often helped: the farmer at Hard was alone loading, a dwarf came down, helpted to finish, got on the waggon, did not properly run the rope over the bind-pole, it slipped off the pole flew up and hurt him badly. Farmer: 'I wish it had happened to me.' Dwarf: 'Not so; self do, self have.' Got down, picked a herb, and cured the wound instantly. Often, when honest folk cut hay or tied corn, dwarfs helped them to finish and get it under shelter; or in the night, if rain came on, they brought in what was lying cut, and didn't the people stare in the morning! One severe winter they came every night to a house at Arlisbach, slept on the oven, departed before dawn; wore scarlet cloaks reaching to the ground, so that their feet were never seen; but some prying people sprinkled ashes before the house, on which were seen the next morning marks of duck's and goose's feet. They never showed themselves again, and never will, while men are so spiteful.] Back

28. Blommaert's Oudvlaemsche gedichten 1, 118b. 2, 26ª. Back

29. Brahma, sitting on a lotus, floats musing across the abysses of the sea. Vishnu, when after Brahma's death the waters have covered all the worlds, sits in the shape of a tiny infant on a leaf of the pipala (fig-tree), and floats on the sea of milk, sucking the toe of his right foot. (Asiat. Res. 1, 345). Back

30. The Irish for echo is similar, though less beautiful: muc alla, swine of the rock. Back

31. A curious cry of grief keeps recurring in several dwarf-stories: 'the king is dead! Urban is dead! old mother Pumpe is dead!' (Büsching's Wöch. nachr. 1, 99. 101); the old schumpe is dead! (Legend of Bonikau), MHG. schumpfe, Fragm. 36c; conf. Bange's Thür. chron. 49ª, where again they say 'king knoblauch (garlic) is dead!' Taking into account the saying in Saxony, 'de gaue fru ist nu al dot!' with evident allusion to the motherly goddess (p. 253), and the similar phrase in Scandinavia, 'nu eru dauðar allar disir!' [NF: All the dísir are dead!] (p. 402); all these exclamations seem to give vent to a grief, dating from the oldest times, for the death of some superior being (see Suppl.). Back

32. I cannot yet make out the name arweggers, by which the earth-men are called up in Kinderm. 2, 163-4. [erd-wihte? v. ar- for erd-, p. 467, 1.3; and weglin, p. 449]. The ON. árvakr [[early awake]] is hardly the same (see Suppl.). In Pruss. Samogitia 'de underhördschkes'; the tales about them carefully collected by Reusch, no. 48-59. The Wends of Lüneburg called subterranean spirits görzoni (hill-mannikins, fr. gora, hill), and the hills they haunted are still shown. When they wished to borrow baking utensils of men, they gave a sign without being seen, and people placed them outside the door for them. In the evening they brought them back, knocking at the window and adding a loaf by way of thanks (Jugler's Wörterb.). The Esthonian mythology also has its subterraneans (ma allused, under ground). Back

33. Other instances are collected in Ir. Elfenm. lxxvi. 'den bere bûten wildiu getwerc,' wild dwarfs inhabited the hill, Sigenot 118. Back

34. Sliefen is said of them as of the fox in Reinh. xxxi.; our subst. schlucht stands for sluft (beschwichtigen, lucht, kracht, for swiften, luft, kraft), hence a hole to slip into. Back

35. Conf. Deutsche sagen, no. 383, on Theoderic's soul, how it is conveyed into Vulcan's abyss

[EG]

Und dunket mich, wie si gê zuo mir dur ganze mûren,


ir trôst und ir helfe lâzent mich niht trûren;


swenne si wil, so vüeret sie mich hinnen


mit ir wîzen hant hôhe über die zinnen.


ich wæne sie ist ein Vênus hêre.


(Methinks she comes to me through solid walls, Her help, her comfort lets me nothing fear; And when she will she wafteth me from here With her white hand high o'er the pinnacles. I ween she is a Venus high.) He compares her then to a Venus or Holda, with the elvish power to penetrate through walls and carry you away over roof and tower (see chap. XXXI., Tannhäuser; and Suppl.). Accordingly, when a Hessian nursery-tale (no. 13) makes three haule-männerchen appear, these are henchmen of Holle, elves in her retinue, and what seems especially worthy of notice is their being three, and endowing with gifts: it is a rare thing to see male beings occupy the place of the fortune-telling wives. Elsewhere it is rather the little earth-wives that appear; in Hebel (ed. 5, p. 268) Eveli says to the wood-wife: 'God bless you, and if you're the earth-mannikin' wife, I won't be afraid of you.' (36)


There is another point of connexion with Holda: the expressions 'die guten holden' (p. 266), 'guedeholden' penates (Teutonista), or holdichen, holdeken, holderchen seem perfectly synonymous with 'the good elves;' holdo is literally a kind, favourably disposed being, and in Iceland liuflîngar (darlings) and huldufôlk, huldumenn (p. 272) are used for âlfar. The form of the Dan. hyldemänd is misleading, it suggests the extraneous notion of hyld (sambucus, elder-tree), and makes Dame Holda come out as a hyldemoer or hyldeqvind, viz., a dryad incorporated with that tree (Thiele 1, 132); but its real connexion with the huldre is none the less evident. Thus far, then, the elves are good-natured helpful beings; they are called, as quoted on p. 452, the stille volk (Deut. sagen, No. 30-1), the good people, good neighbours, peaceful folk (Gael. daoine shi, Ir. daoine maith, Wel. dynion mad). When left undisturbed it their quiet goings on, they maintain peace with men, and do them services when they can, in the way of smith-work, weaving and baking. Many a time have they given to people of their new-baked bread or cakes (Mone's Anz. 7, 475). They too in their turn require man's advice and assistance in certain predicaments, among which are to be reckoned three cases in particular. In the first place, they fetch goodwives, midwives, to assist she-dwarfs in labour; (37) next; men of understanding to divide a treasure, to settle a dispute; (38) thirdly, they borrow a hall to hold their weddings in; (39) but they requite every favour be bestowing jewels which bring luck to the man's house and to his descendants. They themselves, however, have much knowledge of occult healing virtues in plants and stones. (40) In Rudlieb xvii. 18, the captured dwarf retorts the taunt of treachery in the following speech:


Absit ut inter nos unquam regnaverit hace fraus!


non tam longaevi tunc essemus neque sani.


Inter vos nemo loquitur nisi corde doloso,


hinc neque ad aetatem maturam pervenietis:


pro cujusque fide sunt ejus tempora vitae.


Non aliter loquimur nisi sicut corde tenemus,


neque cibos varios edimus morbos generantes,


longius incolumes hinc nos durabimus ac vos.


Thus already in the 10th century the dwarf complains of the faithlessness of mankind, and partly accounts thereby for the shortness of human life, while dwarfs, because they are honest and feed on simple viands, have long and healthy lives. More intimately acquainted with the secret powers of nature, they can with greater certainty avoid unwholesome food. This remarkable passage justifies the opinion of the longevity of dwarfs; and their avoidance of human food, which hastens death, agrees with the distinction drawn out on p. 318 between men and gods (see Suppl.).


Whilst in this and other ways the dwarfs do at times have dealings with mankind, yet on the whole they seem to shrink from man; they give the impression of a downtrodden afflicted race, which is on the point of abandoning its ancient home to new and more powerful invaders. There is stamped on their character something shy and something heathenish, which estranges them from intercourse with christians. They chafe at human faithlessness, which no doubt would primarily mean the apostacy from heathenism. In the poems of the Mid. Ages, Laurîn is expressly set before us as a heathen. It goes sorely against the dwarfs to see churches built, bell-ringing (supra, p. 5) disturbs their ancient privacy; they also hate the clearing of forests, agriculture, new fangled pounding-machinery for ore. (41) Breton legend informs us: A man had dug a treasure out of a dwarf's hole, and then cautiously covered his floor with ashes and glowing embers; so when the dwarfs came at midnight to get their property back, they burnt their feet so badly, that they set up a loud wail (supra, p. 413) and fled in haste, but they smashed all his crockery. Villemarqué 1, 42 (see Suppl.).


From this dependence of the elves on man in some things, and their mental superiority in others, there naturally follows a hostile relation between the two. Men disregard elves, elves do mischief to men and teaze them. It was a very old belief, that dangerous arrows were shot down from the air by elves; this evidently means light elves, it is never mentioned in stories of dwarfs, and the AS. formula couples together 'êsagescot and ylfagescot,' these elves apparently armed with weapons like those of the gods themselves; (42) the divine thunderbolt is even called an albschoss (pp. 179, 187), and in Scotland the elf-arrow, elf-flint, elf-bolt is a hard pointed wedge believed to have been discharged by spirits; the turf cut out of the ground by lightning is supposed to be thrown up by them. (43) On p. 187 I have already inferred, that there must have been some closer connexion, now lost to us, between elves and the Thundergod: if it be that his bolts were forged for him by elves, that points rather to the black elves.


Their touch, their breath may bring sickness or death on man and beast; (44) one whom their stroke has fallen on, is lost or incapable (Danske viser 1, 328): lamed cattle, bewitched by them, are said in Norway to be dverg-****en (Hallager p. 20); the term elbentrötsch for silly halfwitted men, whom their avenging hand has touched, was mentioned on p. 443. One who is seduced by elves is called in Danish ellevild, and this ellevildelse in reference to women is thus described: 'at elven legede med dem.' Blowing puffing beings languae itself shows them to be from of old: as spiritus comes from spirare, so does geist, ghost from the old verb gîsan (flari, cum impetu ferri); the ON. gustr [[gust]], Engl. gust, is flatus, and their is a dwarf named Gustr (Sæm. 181b); (45) other dwarfs, Austri, Vestri, Norðri, Suðri (Sæm. 2b. Sn. 9. 15. 16) betokens the four winds, while Vindâlfr, still a dwarf's name, explains itself. (46) Beside the breathing, the mere look of an elf has magic power: this our ancient idiom denominates intsehan (torve intueri, Gramm. 2, 810), MHG. entsehen: 'ich hân in gesegent (blessed), er was entsehen,' Eracl. 3239; 'von der elbe wirt entsehen vil maneger man,' MS. 1, 50b (see Suppl.).


The knot-holes in wood are popularly ascribed to elves. In Småland a tale is told about the ancestress of a family whose name is given, that she was an elfmaid, that she came into the house through a knot-hole in the wall with the sunbeams; she was married to the son, bore him four children, then vanished the same way as she had come. Afzelius 2, 145. Thiele 2, 18. And not only is it believed that they themselves can creep through, but that whoever looks through can see things otherwise hidden from him; the same thing happens if you look through the hole made in the skin of a beast by an elf's arrow. In Scotland a knot-hole is called elfbore, says Jamieson: 'a hole in a piece of wood, out of which a knot has dropped or been driven: viewed as the operation of the fairies.' They also say auwisbore, Jutish ausbor (Molbech's Dial. lex. p. 22. 94). If on the hill inhabited by elves the following rhyme be uttered 15 times:



ENDNOTES:


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36. One winter Hadding was eating his supper, when suddenly an earth-wife pushed her head up through the floor by the fireside, and offered him green vegetables. Saxo, p. 16, calls her cicutarum gerula, and makes her take Hadding into the subterranean land, where are meadows covered with grass, as in our nurserytales which describe Dame Holla's underground realm. This grass-wife resembles a little earth-wife. Back

37. Ranzan, Alvensleben, Hahn. (Deut. sag. no. 41, 68-9): Müllenh. Schlesw. holst. sag. no. 443-4. Asbiörn Norw. s. 1, 18. Irish legends and fairy tales 1, 245-250. Mone's Anz. 7, 475; conf. Thiele 1, 36.---Hülpher's Samlingen om Jämtland (Westeras 1775, p. 210) has the following Swedish story:---'år 1660, då jag tillika med min hustru var gången til fädoberne, som ligga 3/4 mil ifrån Ragunda prästegård, och der sent om qvällen suttit och talt en stund, kom en liten man ingående genom dören, och bad min hustru, det ville hon hjelpa hans hustru, som då låg och qvaldes med barn. karlen var eljest liten til växten, svart i synen, och med gamla grå kläder försedd. Jag och min hustru sutto en stund och undrade på denne mannen, emedan vi understodo, at han var et troll, och hört berättas, det sådane, af bondfolk vettar kallade, sig altid i fäbodarne uppehålla, sedan folket om hösten sig derifrån begifvit. Men som han 4 à 5 gånger sin begäran påyrkade, och man derhos betänkte, hvad skada bondfolket berätta sig ibland af vettarne lidit, då de antingen svurit på dem, eller eljest vist dem med vrånga ord til helvetet; ty fattade jag då til det rådet, at jag läste öfver min hustru någre böner, välsignade henne, och bad henni i Guds namn följa med honom. Hon tog så i hastighet någre gamla linkläder med sig, och fölgde honom åt, men jag blef qvar sittande. Sedan har hon mig vid återkomsten berättat, at då hon gått med mannen utom porten, tykte hon sig liksom föras udi vädret en stund, och kom så uti en stuga, hvarest bredevid var en liten mörk kammare, das hans hustru låg och våndades med barn i en säng, min hustru har så stigit til henne, och efter en liten stund hjelpt henne, då hon födde barnet, och det med lika åtbörder, som andra menniskor pläga hafva. Karlen har sedan tilbudit henne mat, men som hon dertil nekade, ty tackade han henne och fölgde henne åt, hvarefter hon åter likasom farit i vädret, och kom efter en stund til porten igen vid passklockan 10. Emedlertid voro en hoper gamla silfverskedar lagde på en hylla i stugan, och fann min hustru dem, då hon andra dagen stökade i vråarne: kunnandes förstâ, at de af vettret voro dit lagde. At så i sanning är skedt, vitnar jag med mitt nams undersättande. Ragunda, d. 12 april, 1671. Pet. Rahm.' [Substance of the foregoing:---I, undersigned, and my wife were accosted by a little man with black face and old gray clothes, who begged my wife to come and aid his wife then in labour. Seeing he was a troll, such as the peasantry call vettar (wights), I prayed over my wife, blessed her, and bade her go. She seemed for a time to be borne along by the wind, found his wife in a little dark room, and helped, etc. Refused food, was carried home in the same way; found next day a heap of old silver vessels brought by the vettr.] In Finland the vulgar opinion holds, that under the altars of churches there live small mis-shapen beings called kirkonwäki (church-folk); that when their women have difficult labour, they can be relieved by a Christian woman visiting them and laying her hands on them. Such service they reward liberally with gold and silver. Mnemosyne, Abo 1821, p. 313. Back

38. Pref. p. xxx. Neocorus 1, 542. Kinderm. 2, 43. 3, 172. 225. Nib. 92, 3. Bit. 7819. Conf. Deutsche heldensagen, p. 78. Back

39. Hoia (Deut. sagen, no. 35). Bonikau (Elisabeth von Orleans, Strassb. 1789, p. 133; Leipzig 1820, p. 450-1). Büsching's Wöchentl. nachr. 1, 98; conf. 101. Back

40. The wounded härdmändle, p. 450-1. Here are two Swedish stories given in Ödman's Bahuslän pp. 191, 224:---Biörn Mårtensson, accompanied by an archer, went hunting in the high woods of Örnekulla; there they found a bergsmed (mountain-smith) asleep, and the huntsman ordered the archer to seize him, but he declined: 'Pray God shield you! the bergsmith will fling you down the hill.' But the huntsman was so daring, he went up and laid hands on the sleeper; the bergsmith cried out, and begged they would let him go, he had a wife and seven little ones, and he would forge them anything they liked, they had only to put the iron and steel on the cliff, and they´d presently find the work lying finished in the same place. Biörn asked him, whom he worked for? 'For my fellows,' he replied. As Biörn would not release him, he said: 'Had I my cap-of-darkness (uddehat, p. 463), you should not carry me away; but if you don't let me go, none of your posterity will attain the greatness you enjoy, but will go from bad to worse.' Which afterwards came true. Biörn secured the bergsmith, and had him put in prison at Bohus, but on the third day he had disappeared. ...........At Mykleby lived Swen, who went out hunting one Sunday morning, and on the hill near Tyfweholan he spied a fine buck with a ring about his neck; at the same instant a cry came out of the hill: 'Look, the man is shooting our ring-buck!' 'Nay,' cried another voice, 'he had better not, he has not washed this morning' (i.e., been sprinkled with holy water in church). When Swen heard that, he immediately ---- -----, washed himself in haste, and shot the ring-buck. Then arose a great screaming and noise in the hill, and one said: 'See, the man has taken his belt-flask and washed himself, but I will pay him out.' Another answered: 'You had better let it be, the white buck will stand by him.' A tremendous uproar followed, and a host of trolls filled the woods all round. Swen threw himself on the ground, and crept under a mass of roots; then came into his mind what the troll had said, that the white buck, as he contemptuously called the church, would stand by him. So he made a vow, that if God would help him out of the danger, he would hand over the buck's ring to Mykleby church, the horns to Torp, and the hide to Langeland. Having got home uninjured, he performed all this: the ring, down to the year 1732, has been the knocker on Mykleby church door, and is of some unknown metal, like iron ore; the buck's horn was preserved in Torp church, and the skin in Langeland church. Back

41. More fully treated of in Ir. Elfenm. xciv. xcv. ; conf. Theile 1, 42. 2, 2. Faye p. 17, 18. Heinchen driven away by grazing herds and tinkling sheepbells, Variscia 2, 101. Hessian tales of wichtelmännerchen, Kinderm. no. 39, to which I add the following one:---On the Schwalm near Uttershausen stands the Dosenberg; close to the river's bank are two apertures, once the exit and entrance holes of the wichtelmänner. The grandfather of farmer Tobi of Singlis often had a little wichtelmann come to him in a friendly manner in his field. One day, when the farmer was cutting corn, the wichtel asked him if he would undertake a cartin job across the river that night for a handsome price in gold. The farmer said yes, and in the evening the wichtel brought a sack of wheat to the farmhouse as earnest; so four horses were harnessed, and the farmer drove to the foot of the Dosenberg. Out of the holes the wichtel, brought heavy invisible loads to the waggon, which the farmer took through the water to the other side. So he went backwards and forwards from ten in the evening till four in the morning, and his horses at last got tired. Then said the wichtel: 'That will do, now you shall see what you have been carrying.' He bid the farmer look over his right shoulder, who then saw the whole wide field full of little wichtelmen. Said the wichtel: 'For a thousand years we have dwelt in the Dosenberg, our time is up now, we must away to another country; but there is money enough left in the mountain to content the whole neighbourhood.' He then loaded Tobi's waggon full of money, and went his way. The farmer with much trouble got his treasure home, and was now a rich man; his descendants are still well-to-do people, but the wichtelmen have vanished from the land for ever. n the top of the Dosenberg is a bare place where nothing will grow, it was bewitched by the wichtel holding their trysts upon it. Every seven years, generally on a Friday, you may see a high blue flame over it, covering a larger space of ground than a big caldron. People call it the geldfeuer, they have brushed it away with their feet (for it holds no heat), in hopes of finding treasure, but in vain: the devil had always some new hocuspocus to make some little word pop out of their mouths............Then, lastly, a Low Saxon story of the Aller country:---Tau Offensen bin Kloster Wienhusen was en groten buern, Hövermann nenne he sick, die harre ok en schip up der Aller. Eins dages komt 2 lüe tau jüm un segget, he schölle se over dat water schippen. Tweimal fäuert hei over de Aller, jedesmal na den groten rume, den se Allerô heiten dauet, dat is ne grote unminschliche wische lang un breit, dat man se kums afkiken kann. Ans de buer taun tweitenmale over efäuert is, segt ein von den twarmen to öme: 'Wut du nu ne summe geldes hebben, oder wut du no koptal betalt sin?' 'Ick will leiver ne summe geld nemen' sä de buer. Do nimt de eine von den lütjen lüen sinen haut af, un settet den dem schipper up: 'Du herrst dik doch beter estan, wenn du na koptal efodert herrst' segt de twarm; un de buer, de vorher nichts nich seien harre, un den et so lichte in schipp vorkomen was, ans of he nichts inne herre, süt de ganze Allerô von luter lütjen minschen krimmeln un wimmeln. Dat sind de twarme west, dei wier trökken sind. Von der tit heft Hövermanns noch immer vull geld, ehat, dat se nich kennen dêen, averst nu sind se sau ein nan annern ut estorven, un de hof is verkoft. 'Wann ist denn das gewesen?' Vor olen tien, ans de twarme noch sau in der welt wesen sind, nu gift et er wol keine mehr, vor drüttig, virzig jaren. [Substance of the foregoing:---Hövermann, a large farmer at Offensen, had also a ship on the R. Aller. Two little men asked him to ferry them over. He did so twice, each time to a large open space called Allerô. Dwarf: 'Will you have a lump sum, or be paid so much a head?' Farmer: 'A lump sum.' Dwarf: 'You'd better have asked so much a head.' He put his own hat on the farnmer's head, who then saw the whole Allerô swarming with little men, who had been ferried across. The Hövermanns grew rich, have now all died out, farm sold. 'When did that happen?' Ages ago, in the olden time, when dwarfs were in the world, 30 or 40 years ago.] Back

42. Arrows of the Servian vila, p. 436. The Norw. äli-skudt, elf-shotten, is said of sick cattle, Sommerfelt Saltdalens prästegield, p. 119. Scot. elfshot. Back

43. Irish Elf-stories xlv. xlvi. cii. Back

44. Ibid. ciii. Back

45. Norweg. alvgust, an illness caused by having been breathed upon by elves, Hallager 4b. Back

46. Old French legend has an elf called Zephyr; there is a German home-sprite Blaserle, Mone's Anzeiger 1834, p. 260

[EG]

ällkuon, ällkuon, est du her inn,


saa ska du herud paa 15 iegepinn!


(elf-woman, art thou in here, so shalt thou come out through 15 oak knot-holes, egepind), the elfin is bound to make her appearance, Molb. Dial. 99 (see Suppl.).


In name, and still more in idea, the elf is connected with the ghostlike butterfly, the product of repeated changes of form. An OHG. gloss (Graff 1, 243) says: brucus, locusta quae nondum volavit, quam vulgo albam vocant. The alp is supposed often to assume the shape of a butterfly, and in the witch-trials the name of elb is given by turns to the caterpillar, to the chrysalis, and to the insect that issues from it. And these share even the names of gute holden and böse dinger (evil things) with the spirits themselves.


These light airy sprites have an advantage over slow unwieldy man in their godlike power (p. 235) of vanishing or making themselves invisible. (47) No sooner do they appear, than they are snatched away from our eyes. Only he that wears the ring can get a sight of Elberich, Ortn. 2, 68. 70. 86. 3, 27. With the light elves it is a matter of course, but neither have the black ones forfeited the privalege. The invisibility of dwarfs is usually lodged in a particular part of their dress, a hat or a cloak, and when that is accidentally dropt or cast aside, they suddenly become visible. The dwarf-tales tell of nebelkappen (Deut. sag. nos. 152-3-5), of gray coats and red caps (Thiele 1, 122. 135), of scarlet cloaks (supra, p. 451n.). (48) Earlier centuries used the words helkappe, helkeplein, helkleit (Altd. bl. 1, 256), nebelkappe (MS. 2, 156ª. 258b; Morolt 2922. 2932) and tarnkappe. By Alberîch's and afterwards Sigfrit's tarnkappe (Nib. 98, 3. 336, 1. 442, 2. 1060, 2) or simply kappe (335, 1) we must understand not a mere covering for the head, but an entire cloak; for in 337, I we have also tarnhût, the protecting skin, and the schretel's 'rôtez keppel' becomes in H. Sachs 1, 280b a 'mantel scharlach rot des zwergleins.' Beside invisibility, this cloak imparts superior strength, and likewise control over the dwarf nation and their hoard. In other instances the cap alone is meant: A Norwegian folk-tale in Faye p. 30 calles it uddehat (pointed hat?), and a home-sprite at Hildesheim bears the name of Hôdeken from the felt hat he wore. Probably the OHG. helothelm (latibulum), Gl. Hrab. 969ª, the OS. helith-helm, Hel. 164, 29, AS. heolðhelm, Cod. Exon. 362, 31, hœlðhelm, Cædm. 29, 2, ON. hialmr [[hjalmr - helm]] huliz (an Eddic word for cloud), Sæm. 50ª, (49) and the AS. grîmhelm, Cædm. 188, 27. 198, 20. Beow. 666, all have a similar meaning, though the simple helm and grîme (p. 238) already contain the notion of a covering and a mask; for helm is from helan (celare) as huot, hood, or hat, from huotan (tegere). No doubt other superior beings, besides elves and dwarfs, wore the invisible-making garment; I need only mention Oðin's hat with turned-up brim (p. 146), Mercury's petasus, Wish's hat, which our fairy-tales still call wishing-hat, (50) and Pluto's or Orcus's helmet (Aidoj kuneh, Il. 5, 845. Hesoid, Scut. 227). The dwarfs may have stood in some peculiar, though now obscured, relation to Oðinn, as the hat-wearing pataeci, cabiri and Dioscuri did to Jupiter (see Suppl.).


From such ability to conceal their form, and from their teazing character in general, there will arise all manner of deception and disappointment (conf. Suppl. to p. 331), to which man is exposed in dealing with elves and dwarfs. We read: der alp triuget (cheats), Fundgr. 327, 18; den triuget, weiz Got, nicht der alp, not even the elf can trick him, Diut. 2, 34; Silvester 5199; die mag triegen wol der alp, Suchenwirt xxxi. 12; ein getroc daz mich in dem slâfe triuget, Ben. 429; dich triegen die elbin (l. elbe, rhyme selbe), Altd. bl. 1, 261; elbe triegent, Amgb. 2b; diu elber triegent, Herbort 5b; in bedûhte daz in trüge ein alp, Ir. elfenm. lvii.; alfs ghedroch, Elegast 51, 775. Reinh. 5367, conf. Horae Belg. 6, 218-9; alfsche droch, Reinaert (prose lxxii.ª). In our elder speech gitroc, getroc, âgetroc, abegetroc, denotes trickery especially diabolic, proceeding from evil spirits (Gramm. 2, 709. 740-1). (51) To the same effect are some other disparaging epithets applied to elves: elbischez getwâs, elbischez âs, elbischez ungehiure, as the devil himself is called a getwâs (fantasma) and a monster. So, of the morbid oppression felt in sleep and dreaming, it is said quite indifferently, either: 'the devil has shaken thee, ridden thee,' 'hînaht rîtert dich satanas (Satan shakes thee to-night),' Fundgr. 1, 170; or else the elf, the nightmare (52): 'dich hat geriten der mar,' 'ein alp zoumet dich (bridles thee).' And as Dame Holle entangles one's spinning or hair (p. 269), as she herself has tangled hair, (53) and as stubbly hair is called Hollenzopf; (54) the nightmare, rolls up the hair of men or the manes and tails of horses, in knots, or chews them through: alpzopf, drutenzopf, wichtelzopf, weichselzopf (of which more hereafter), in Lower Saxony mahrenlocke, elfklatte (Brem. wörtb. 1, 302), Dan. marelok, Engl. elflibbles (Nares sub v.), elvish knots, and in Shakspeare to elf means to mat: 'elf all my hair in knots,' K. Lear ii. 3. Here will come in those 'comae equorum diligenter tricatae,' when the white women make their midnight rounds (supra, p. 287). The Lithuanian elf named aitwaras likewise mats the hair: aitwars yo plaukus suzindo, suwele (has drawn his hair together). Lasicz 51 has: aitwaros, incubus qui post sepes habitat (from twora sepes, and ais pone). Some parts of Lower Saxony give to the wichtelzopf (plica plonica) the name of selkensteert, selkin's tail (Brem. wörtb. 4, 749), sellentost (Hufeland's Journal 11. 43), which I take to men tuft of the goodfellow, homesprite (gesellchen). (55) In Thuringia saellocke, Prætorius's Welbeschr. 1, 40. 293 (see Suppl.).


The Edda nowhere represents either âlfar or dvergar as mounted, whilst our poems of the Mid. Ages make both Elberich and Laurîn come riding. Heinrich von Ofterdingem bestows on them a steed 'als ein geiz (goat),' and Ulrich's Alexander gives the dwarf king Antilois a pony the size of a roe, (56) Antilois is richly dressed, bells tinkle on his bridle-reins; he is angry with Alexander for spoiling his flower-garden, as Laurîn is with Dietrich and Wittich. The Welsh stories also in Crofton Croker 3, 306 say: 'they were very diminutive persons riding four abreast and mounted on small white horses no bigger than dogs' (see Suppl.).


All dwarfs and elves are thievish. Among Eddic names of dwarfs is an Alþiofr, Sæm. 2b; Alpris, more correctly Alfrîkr dvergr, in Vilk. saga cap. 16, 40. is called 'hinn mikli stelari'; and in the Titurel 27, 288 (Hahn 4105), a notorious thief, who can steal the eggs from under birds, is Elbegast (corrupted into Elegast, Algast). In our Low German legends they lay their plans especially against the pea-fields. (57) Other thefts of dwarfs are collected in Elfenm. xcii. xciii., and their longing for children and blooming maids is treated of, p. civ. cv. Dwarf-kings run away with maidens to their mountains: Laurîn with the fair Similt (Sindhilt?), Goldemar or Volmar with a king's daughter (Deut. heldensag. 174, Haupt's Zeitschr. 6, 522-3); the Swed. folk-lay 'Den bergtagna' (-taken) tells of a virgin, who spends eight years with a mountain-king, and brings him seven sons and a daughter, before she sees her home again. (58) The following legend from Dorste near Osterode, it will be seen, transfers to dwarfs what the Kindermächen No. 46 relates of a sorcerer:---Et was enmal en mäken int holt nan arberen egan, da keimen de twarge un neiment mêe. Da se na örer hülen keimen, da verleifde sek de eine twarg in se, un da solle se öne ok frien, awer iest (erst) wollen de twarge de andern twarge taur hochtit bidden, underdes solle dat mäken in huse alles reine maken un taur hochtit anreien. Awer dat mäken, dat wolle den twarg nich frien, da wollet weglopen, awer dat se't nich glik merken, tug et sin teug ut un tug dat ne strawisch an, un da sach et ne tunne vul hunig, da krup et rinder (hinein), un da sach et ok ne tunne vul feddern, un da krup et ok rinder, un da et wedder ruter kam, was et gans vul feddern, un da leip et weg un steig upn hoagen boam. Da keimen de twarge derbunder (darunter) vorbi, un da se't seichen, meinen se, et wöre en vugel, da reipen se't an un sêen:


'Wohen, woher du schöäne feddervugel?'


'Ek kome ut der twarges hüle.'


'Wat maket de schöäne junge brût?'


'Dei steit metn bessen un keret dat hus.'


'Juchhei! sau wil wie ok hen.'




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47. 'Hujus tempore principis (Eeinrici ducis Karinthiae) in montanis suae ditionis gens gnana in cavernis montium habitavit, cum hominibus vescebantur, ludebant, bibebant, choreas ducebant, sed invisibiliter. Literas scribebant, rempublicam inter se gerebant, legem habentes et principem, fidem catholicam profitentes, domicilia hominum latenter intrantes, hominibus consedentes et arridentes.........Principe subducto, nihil de eis amplius est auditum. Dicitur quod gemmas gestant, quae eos reddunt invisibiles, quia deformitatem et parvitatem corporum erubes****.' Anon. Leobiens. ad ann. 1335 (Pez 1, 940ª). Back

48. Ol. Wormius's pref. to Claussön's Dan. transl. of Snorre, Copenh. 1633: 'derfor signis de (dverger) at hafve hätte paa, huormid kunde giöre sig usynlig.' Other proofs are collected in Ir. Elfenm. lxxiv. lxxv. A schretel wears a rôtez keppel on him (not on his head), ibid. cxvi. Rollenhagen's 'bergmännlein' wear little white shirts and pointed caps, Froschmeuseler . v(b). Maugis, the Carolingian sorcerer, is called 'lerres (latro) o le noir chaperon.' [[thief (latro = thief in Latin) of the black hat]] Back

49. Fornm. sög. 2, 141 says of Eyvindr the sorcerer: 'giörði þeim hulidshialm,' made for them a mist, darkness. hulinhialmr, Fornald. sög. 3, 129; kuflshöttr 1, 9. 2, 20. See Rafn's Index sub v. dulgerfi. Back

50. A weighty addition to the arguments for the identity of Wuotan and Mercury; conf. p. 419 on the wishing rod. Back

51. Daz analutte des sih pergenten trugetieveles, N. Bth. 44; gidrog phantasma, O. iii. 8, 24; gedrog, Hel. 89, 22; tievels getroc, Karl 62ª; 'ne dragu ic ênic drugi thing,' Hel. 8, 10. The dwarf Elberich (Ortn. 3, 27. 5, 105) is called 'ein trügewîz': conf. infra. bilwîz. Back

52. Our nachtmar I cannot produce either in OHG. or MHG. Lye gives AS. 'mære fæcce' incubus, ephialtes, but I do not understand fæcce. Nearly akin is the Pol. mora, Boh. mura, elf and evening butterfly, sphinx. In the Mark they say both alb and mahre, Adalb. Kuhn, p. 374. French cauchemare, cochemar, also chaucheville, chauchi vieilli (Mém. des Antiq. 4. 399; J. J. Champollion Figeac patois, p. 125); Ital. pesaruole, Span. pesadilla, O. Fr. appesart; these from caucher (calcare), and pesar (to weigh down). Back

53. In Kinderm. 3, 44, Holle gets her terrible hair combed out, which had not been combed for a year. A girl, whom she has gifted, combs pearls and precious stones out of her own hair. Back

54. Hess. Hollezaul (for -zagel, tail), Hollezopp, Schmidt's Westerw. idiot. 341. Adelung has: 'höllenzopf, plica polonica, Pol. koltun, Boh. koltaun.' Back

55. Ogonezyk Zakrzewski, in his Hist. of plica polonica (Vienna, 1830), observes, that its cure also is accomplished with superstitious ceremonies. In Podlachia the elftuft is solemnly cut off at Easter time and buried. In the Skawina district about Cracow, it is partially cropped with redhot shears, a piece of copper money tied up in it, and thrown into the ruins of an old castle in which evil spirits lodge; but whoever does this must not look round, but hasten home as fast as he can. Superstitious formulas for the cure of plica are given by Zakrzewski, p. 20, out of an Old Boh. MS. of 1325. Back

56. Wackernagel's Basel MSS. p. 28. Back

57. Deut. sagen. nos 152, 155; to which I will here add two communicated by Hr. Schambach. The first is from Jühnde, near Göttingen:---Vor nich langer tid gaf et to Jüne noch twarge. Düse plegten up et feld to gan, un den lüen de arften (leuten die erbsen) weg to stelen, wat se üm sau lichter konnen, da se unsichtbar wören dor (durch) ene kappe, dei se uppen koppe harren (hatten). Sau wören nu ok de twarge enen manne ümmer up sin grat arflibblee egan, un richteden öne velen schâen darup an. Düt duerde sau lange, bet hei up den infal kam, de twarge to fengen. Hei tog alsau an hellen middage en sel (seil) rings üm dat feld. As nu de twarge unner den sel dorkrupen wollen, fellen önen de kappen af, se seiten nu alle in blaten köppen, un wörren sichtbar. De twarge, dei sau efongen wören, geiwen öne vele gaue wore, dat he dat sel wegnömen mögde, un versproken ene mette (miethe) geld davor to gewen, hei solle mant vor sunnenupgange weer (wieder) an düse stêe komen. En ander man segde öne awer, hei mögde nich gegen sunnenupgang, sundern schon üm twölwe hengan, denn da wöre de dag ok schon anegan. Düt dê he, und richtig wören de twarge da met ener mette geld. Davon heiten de lüe, dei dei mette geld ekregen harren, Mettens. [Epitome:---Dwarfs at Jühnde preyed on the pea-fields; wore caps which made them invisible. ne man at high noon stretched a cord round his field. Dwarfs, creeping under it, brushed their caps off, became visible and were caught; promised him money, if he came there again before sunrise. A friend advised him to go as early as 12, for even the day (of the dwarfs?) was begun. He did so, and got his meed.]........The second story is from Dorste in Osterode bailiwick:---En buere harre arften buten stan, dei wören öne ümmer utefreten. Da word den bueren esegt, hei solle hengan un slaen met wêenrauen (weidenruten) drupe rüm, sau sleugde gewis einen de kappe af. Da geng he ok hen met sinnen ganzen lüen, un funk ok enen twarg, dei sîe (sagte) tau öne, wenn he öne wier las lan (wieder los lassen) wolle, sau wolle öne enn wagen vul geld gewen, hei möste awer vor sunnenupgange komen. Da leit ne de buere las, un de twarg sîe öne, wo sine hüle wöre. Do ging de buere henn un frang enn, wunnir dat denn die sunne upginge? Dei sîe tau öne, dei ginge glocke twölwe up. Da spanne ok sinen wagen an, un tug hen. Asse (as he) vor de hülen kam, do juchen se drinne un sungen:-----Dat ist gaut, dat de büerken dat nich weit, dat de sunne üm twölwe up geit!--- Asse sek awer melle, wesden se öne en afgefillet perd, dat solle mêe (mit) nömen, wîer (weiter) können se öne nits gewen. Da was de buere argerlich, awer hei wolle doch fleisch vor sine hunne mêe nömen, da haude en grat stücke af, un laud et upen wagen. Asser mêe na hus kam, da was alles schire gold. Da wollet andere noch nae langen, awer da was hüle un perd verswunnen. [Epitome:---A farmer, finding his peas eaten, was advised to beat all around with willow twigs, sure to knock a dwarf's cap off. Caught a dwarf, who promised a waggon full of money if he'd come to his cave before sunrise. Asked a man when sunrise was? 'At twelve.' Went to the cave, heard shouting and singing: ' 'Tis well the poor peasant but little knows that twelve is the time when the sun up goes!' Is shown a skinned horse, he may take that! Gets angry, yet cuts a great piece off for his dogs. When he got home, it was all sheer gold. Went for the rest; cave and horse were gone.]........ The remarkable trysting-time before sunrise seems to be explained by the dwarf-kind's shyness of daylight, which appears even in the Edda, Sæm. 51b: they avoid the sun, they have in their caves a different light and different time from those of men. In Norse legends re-appears the trick of engaging a troll in conversation till the sun is risen: when he looks round and sees the sun, he splits in two; Asbiörnsen and Moe, p. 186. [The märchen of Rumpelstilzchen includes the dwarfs' song, ' 'Tis well,' etc., the splitting in two, and the kidnapping presently to be mentioned.] Back

58. But she-dwarfs also marry men; Ödman (Bahuslän, p. 78-9, conf. Afzelius 2, 157) relates quite seriously, and specifying the people's names:---Reors föräldrar i Hogen i Lurssockn, some bodde i Fuglekärr i Svarteborgssockn; hvars farfar var en skött, ok bodde vid et berg, ther flibble han se mitt på dagen sitjande en vacker piga på en sten, ther med at fånga henne, kastade han stål emellan berget ok henne, hvarpå hennes far gasmade eller log in i berget, ok öpnade bergets dörr, tilfrågandes honom, om han vill ha hans dotter? Hvilket han med ja besvarade, ok efter hon var helt naken, tog han sina kläder ok hölgde ofver henne, ok lät christna henne. Vid afträdet sade hennes far til honom: 'när tu skalt ha bröllup, skalt tu laga til 12 tunnor öl ok baka en hop bröd ok kiött efter 4 stutar, ok kiöra til jordhögen eller berget, ther jag håller til, ok när brudskänken skall utdelas, skall jag väl ge min'; hvilket ok skedde. Ty när andre gåfvo, lyfte han up tacket ok kastade en så stor penningeposse ther igenom, at bänken så när gådt af, ok sade thervid: 'ther är min skänk!' ok sade ytterligare: 'när tu skal ha tin hemmagifta, skaltu kiöra med 4 hästar hit til berget ok få tin andel.' Tå han sedermera efter hans begäran kom tit, fik han kopparkättlar, then ene större än then andre, tils then yttersta störste kättelen blef upfyld med andra mindre; item brandcreatur, som voro hielmeta, af hvilken färg ok creatur****, som äro stora ok frodiga, the än ha qvar på rik, i Tanums gäll beläget. Thenne mannen Reors far i Foglekärsten benämd, aflade en hop barn med thenna sin således från berget afhämtade hustru, bland hvilka var nämnemannen Reor på Hogan; so har Ola Stenson i stora Rijk varit Reors systerson, hvilken i förledit år med döden afgik. [Epitome:---Reor's father dwelt, etc. One, an archer, lived near a hill, saw one day at noon a fine girl sitting on a stone; to get her, he three three steel between her and the hill. Her father opened the door of the hill, asked him if he wanted his daughter. He answered yes, and as she was naked, threw some of his clothes over her; had her christened. Father: 'At thy wedding bring ale, bread and horseflesh to my hill, and I will give thee a wedding gift.' This being done, he lifted their roof and threw in a great sum of money. 'Now for house-furniture, come here with four horses.' The man did so, and received copper kettles of all sizes, one inside the other, etc., etc. By this wife, thus fetched from the hill, he had many children; one was Reor, whose nephew O.S. died only last year.]

[EG]

All elves have an irresistible fondness for music and dancing. By night you see them tread their round on the moonlit meadows, and at dawn perceive their track in the dew: Dan. älledands, Swed. älfdands, Engl. fairy rings, fairy green. The sight of mountain-spirits dancing on the meadows betokens to men a fruitful year (Deut. sag. no. 298). An Austrian folk-song in Schottky, p. 102, has: 'und duärt drobn afm beargl, da dânzn zwoa zweargl, de dânzn so rar.' In Laurin's mountain, in Venus's mountain, there murmurs a gay seductive music, dances are trod in them (Laurin, 24); in the Ortnit (Ettm. 2, 17) there is 'ein smalez pfat getreten mit kleinen füezen,' a small path trod by little feet. Songs of elfins allure young men up the mountain, and all is over with them (Svenska fornsänger 2, 305. Danske viser 1, 235-240). (62) This performance is called elffrus lek, elfvelek. The ordinary fornyrðalag (63) bears among Icelandic poets the name liuflîng**** (carmen genii), Olafsen p. 56; in Norway that kind of sweet music is called huldreslât (supra, p. 271). One unprinted poem in MHG. (Cod. pal. 341. 357ª) contains the remarkable passage: 'there sat fiddlers, and all fiddled the albleich (elf-lay)'; and another (Altd. bl. 2, 93) speaks of 'seiten spil und des wihtels schal': it must have been a sweet enchanting strain, whose invention was ascribed to the elves. (64) Finn Magnusen derives the name of the dwarf Haugspori (Sæm. 2b) from the footmarks printed on grass by an elf roaming over the hills at night. And a song in Vellemarqué 1, 39 makes the dwarfs dance themselves out of breath (see Suppl.).


This fondness of elves for melody and dance links them with higher beings, notably with half-goddesses and goddesses. In the ship (of Isis) songs of joy resound in the night, and a dancing multitude circles round it (p. 258). In Dame Holda's dwelling, in Dame Venus's mountain, are the song and the dance. Celtic traditions picture the fays as dancing (Mém. de l'acad. celt. 5, 108); these fays stand midway between elfins and wise women. (65) The Hymn to Aphrodite 260 says of the mountain-nymphs:


dhron men zwousi kai ambroton eidar edousi,


kai te met aqanatoisi kalon copon errwsanto.

      (On deathless food they feed, and live full long, And whirl with gods through graceful dance and song.) No wonder our sage elves and dwarfs are equally credited with having the gift of divination. As such the dwarf Andvari appears in the Edda (Sæm. 181ª), and still more Alvîs (all-wise); dwarf Eugel (L. Germ. Ögel) prophesies to Siegfried (Hürn. Sîfr. 46, 4. 162, 1), so does Grîpir in the Edda, whose father's name is Eylimi; in the OFr. Tristran, the nains (nanus) Frocin is a devins (divinator), he interprets the stars at the birth of children (ll. 318-326. 632). When, in legends and fairy tales, dwarfs appear singly among men, they are sage counsellors and helpful, but also apt to fire up and take offence. Such is the character of Elberich and Oberon; in a Swiss nursery-tale (no. 165), 'e chlis isigs mandle' (a little ice-grey mannikin), 'e chlis mutzigs mandle' (stumpy m.), appears in an 'isige chläidle' (grey coat), and guides the course of events; elves forewarn men of impending calamity or death (Ir. Elfenm. lxxxvi.). And in this point of view it is not without significanc, that elves and dwarfs ply the spinning and weaving so much patronized by Dame Holda and Frikka. The flying gossamer in autumn is in vulgar opinion the thread spun by elves and dwarfs; the Christians named it Marienfaden (-thread), Mariensommer, because Mary too was imagined spinning and weaving. The Swed. dverg signifies araneus as well as nanus, and dvergs-nät a cobweb. (66) The ON. saga of Samson hinn fagri mentions in cap. 17 a marvellous 'skickja, sem âlfkonurnar höfðu ofit,' mantle that elfins had woven. On a hill inhabited by spirits you hear at night the elfin (which 'troldkone' here must mean) spinning, and her wheel humming, says Thiele 3, 25. Melusina the fay is called alvinne in a Mid. Nethl. poem (Mone's Niederl. Volkslit. p. 75).----On the other hand, the male dwarfs forge jewels and arms (supra, p. 444-7, and in fuller detail in Ir. Elfenm. lxxxviii.). (67) To bring pig-iron to dwarfs, and find it the next morning outside the cave, ready worked for a slight remuneration, is a feature of very ancient date; the scholiast on Apollon. Rhod. (Argon. 4, 761) illustrates the akmonej Hfaistoio (anvils of H.) by a story of the volcanic isles about Sicily taken from Pytheas's Travels: to de palaion elegeto ton boulomenon arlon sidhron apoferein kai epi thn aurion elqonta lambanin h xifoj h ei ti allo hqele kataskeuasai, katabalonta misqon (see Suppl.).


What I have thus put together on the nature and attributes of elves in general, will be confirmed by an examination of particular elvish beings, who come forward under names of their own.


Among these I will allot the first place to a genius, who is nowhere to be found in the Norse myths, and yet seems to be of ancient date. He is mentioned in several MHG. poems:


Sie wolten daz kein pilwiz


si dâ schüzze durch diu knie. Wh. 324, 8.


Er solde sîn ein guoter


und ein pilewis geheizen,


davon ist daz in reizen


die übeln ungehiure. Rüediger von zwein gesellen (Cod. regimont.) 15b.


Dâ kom ich an bulwechsperg gangen,


dâ schôz mich der bulwechs,


dâ schôz mich die bulwechsin,


dâ schôz mich als ir ingesind. Cod. vindob. 2817. 71ª.


Von scrabaz pilwihten. Titur. 27, 299 (Hahn 4116).


Sein part het manchen pilbiszoten. Casp. von der Rön. heldenb. 156b.




ENDNOTES:


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59. Translation:---Once a girl had gone into the wood after strawberries, when the dwarfs came and carried her off. When they got to their cave, one dwarf fell in love with her, and she was to marry him; but first the dwarfs were going to bid the other dwarfs to the wedding, in the meantime the girl was to make the house clean and prepare it for the wedding. But the girl, she did not want to marry the dwarf, so she would run away; but that they might not notice it at once, she pulled her dress off and put it round a bundle of straw; then she saw a tub full of honey and crept into it, and then she saw a tub full of feathers and crept into that also, and when she came out again, she was all over feathers; then she ran away, and climbed up a high tree. Then the dwarfs came past under it, and when they saw her, they thought she was a bird, and called to her and said: 'Whither and whence, thou pretty feathered bird?'---'I come out of the dwarf's hole'---'What does the pretty young bride?'---'She stands with a besom and sweeps the house.'---'Hurra! then we'll go there too.'---And when they got there, they said to the bride 'good morning,' and said other things too; but as she never answered, they boxed her ears, and down she fell. ....... Assuredly the dwarfs in this story are genuine and of old date. Besides, it can be supplemented from Kinderm. 3, 75, where the returning dwarfs are preceded by foxes and bears, who also go past and question the 'Fitcher's fowl.' There the tub of honey in the dwarf's house is a cask of blood, but both together agree wonderfully with the vessels which the dwarfs Fialar and Galar keep filled with Kvâsi's precious blood and with honey. Sn. 83. 84. Back

60. Dresd. saml. no. 15, of the 'müllers sun.' A foolish miller begs a girl to teach him the sweetness of love. She makes him lick honey all night, he empties a big jar, gets a stomach-ache, and fancies himself about to become a parent. She sends for a number of old women to assist him: 'da fragt er, war sein kind wer komen (what's come of the baby)? sei sprachen: hastu nit vernommen? ez was ain rehter wislonbalk (regular changeling), und tett als ein guoter schalk: da er erst von deinem leib kam (as soon as born), da fuer ez pald hin und entran hin uff zuo dem fürst empor. Der müller sprach: pald hin uff daz spor! vachent ez (catch him)! pringent ez mir herab!' They bring him a swallow in a covered pot.---Again a Hessian folk-tale: A woman was cutting corn on the Dosenberg, and her infant lay beside her. A wichtel-wife crept up, took the human child, and put her own in its place. When the woman looked for her darling babe, there was a frightful thickhead staring in her face. She screamed, and raised such a hue and cry, that at last the thief came back with the child; but she would not give it up till the woman had put the wichtelbalg to her breast, and nourished it for once with the generous milk of human kind. Back

61. The Finns call a changeling luoti: monstrum nec non infans matre dormiente a magis suppositus, quales putant esse infantem rachitide laborantem (Renvall). A Breton story of the korrigan changing a child is in Villemarqué 1, 25. Back

62. Folk-tale of the Hanebierg in the Antiqvariske Annaler 1, 331-2. Back

63. Forn-yrða-lag, ancient word-lay, the alliterative metre of narrative verse, in which the poems of the Elder Edda are written.---Trans. Back

64. Conf. Ir. Elfenm. lxxxi.-lxxxiii., and the wihtel-show above, p. 441 note; Ihre sub v. älfdans; Arndt's Journey to Sweden 3, 16. Back

65. Like the Servian vily, who hold their dance on the mountain and mead, p. 436. Back

66. So the Breton korr is both dwarf and spider. Back

[EG]

Out of all these it is hard to pick out the true name. Wolfram makes pilwiz (var. pilbiz, bilwiz, bilwitz) rhyme with biz (morsus), where the short vowel in the last syllable seems to point to pilwiht; the same with bilbis in another poem, which would have spelt it bilbeis if it had been long; so that we cannot connect it with the OS. balowîs, nor immediately with the bilwîs and balwîs contrasted on p. 374. The varying form is a sign that in the 13-14th century the word was no longer understood; and later on, it gets further distorted, till bulwechs makes us think of a totally unconnected word balwahs (hebes). (68) A confession-book of the first half of the 15th century (Hoffmann's Monatschr. 753) has pelewysen synonymous with witches, and Colerus's Hausbuch (Mainz 1656), p. 403, uses bihlweisen in the same sense; several authorities for the form pilbis are given in Schm. 4, 188. We welcome the present Westph. Nethl. belewitten in the Teutonista, where Schuiren considers it equivalent to guede holden and witte vrouwen (penates). Kilian has belewitte (lamia); and here comes in fitly a passage from Gisb. Vœtius de miraculis (Disput., tom. 2, 1018): 'De illis quos nostrates appellant beeldwit et blinde belien, a quibus nocturna visa videri atque ex iis arcana revelari putant.' Belwit then is penas, a kindly disposed home-sprite, a guote holde (supra, p. 266), what Rüediger calls 'ein guoter und ein pilewiz.' Peculiar to AS. is an adj. bilwit, bilewit, Cædm. 53, 4. 279, 23, which is rendered mansuetus, simplex, but might more exactly mean aequus, justus. God is called 'bilewit fæder' (Andr. 1996), Boeth. metr. 20, 510. 538; and is also addressed as such in Cod. exon. 259, 6; again, 'bilwitra breoste' (bonorum, aequorum pectus), Cod. exon. 343, 23. The spelling bilehwit (Beda 5, 2, 13, where it translates simplex) would lead to hwît (albus), but then what can bil mean? I prefer the better authorized bilewit, taking 'wit' to mean scius, and bilwit, OHG. pilawiz, pilwiz? to mean aequum (69) sciens, aequus, bonus, although an adj. 'vit, wiz' occurs nowhere else that I know of, the ON. vitr [[wise]] (gen. vitrs) being provided with a suffix -r. If this etymology is tenable, bilwiz is a good genius, but of elvish nature; he haunts mountains, his shot is dreaded like that of the elf (p. 460), hair is tangled and matted by him as by the alp (p. 464. One passage cited by Schm. 4, 188, deserves particular notice: 'so man ain kind oder ain gewand opfert zu aim pilbispawn,' if one sacrifice a child or garment to a pilbis-tree, i.e., a tree supposed to be inhabited by the pilwiz, as trees do contain wood-sprites and elves. Börner's Legends of the Orlagau, p. 59. 62, name a witch Bilbze. The change of bilwiz, bilwis into bilwiht was a step easily taken, as in other words also s and h, or s and ht interchange (lios, lioht, Gramm. 1, 138), also st and ht (forest, foreht, Gramm. 4, 416); and the more, as the compound bilwiht gave a not unsuitable meaning, 'good wight.' The Gl. blas. 87ª offer a wihsilstein (penas), nay, the varying form of our present names for the plica (p. 464), weichselzopf, wichselzopf, wichtelzopf (bichtelzopf) makes the similar shading off of bilweichs, bilwechs, bilwicht probable: I have no doubt there is even a bilweichszopf, bilwizzopf to be found. (70)


Popular belief in the last few centuries, having lost the old and higher meaning of this spiritual being, has retained, as in the case of the alb, of Holla and Berhta, only the hateful side of its nature: a tormenting terrifying spectre, tangling your hair and beard, cutting up your corn, it appears mostly in a female form, as a sorceress and witch. Martin von Amberg's Mirror of Confession already interprets pilbis by devil, as Kilian does belewitte by lamia, strix. The tradition lingers chiefly in Eastern Germany, in Bavaria, Franconia, Vogtland and Silesia. H. Sachs uses bilbitzen of matting the hair in knots, pilmitz of tangled locks: 'ir har verbilbitzt, zapfet und stroblet, als ob sie hab der rab gezoblet,' i. 5, 309b. ii. 2, 100d; 'pilmitzen, zoten und fasen,' iii. 3, 12ª. In the Ackermann von Böhmen, cap. 6, pilwis means the same as witch; 'pielweiser, magician, soothsayer,' Böhme's Beitr. zum schles. recht 6, 69. 'an. 1529 (at Schweidnitz), a pielweiss buried alive,' Hoffmann's Monatschr. p. 247. '1582 (at Sagan), two women of honest carriage rated for pilweissen and ----,' ibid. 702. 'du pileweissin!' A. Gryphius, . 828. 'Las de deine bilbezzodn auskampln' says the angry mother to her child, 'i den bilmezschedl get nix nei,' get your b. clots combed out, you don't come in in that shaggy scalp, Schm. 1, 168. pilmeskind, a curse like devil's child, Delling's Bair. idiot. 1, 78. On the Saale in Thuringia, bulmuz is said of unwashed or uncombed children; while bilbezschnitt, bilwezschnitt, bilfezschnitt, pilmasschnied (Jos. Rank. Böhmerwald, p. 274) denotes a cutting through a field of corn, which is regarded as the work of a spirit, a witch, or the devil.


This last-mentioned belief is also one of long standing. Thus the Lex Bajuvar. 12 (13), 8: 'si quis messes alterius initiaverit maleficis artibus, et inventus fuerit, cum duodecim solidis componat, quod aranscarti (71) di****,' I dare say such a delinquent was then called a piliwiz, pilawiz? On this passage Mederer remarks, p. 202-3: An honest countryman told me about the so-called bilmerschnitt, bilberschnitt, as follows: 'The spiteful creature, that wants to do his neighbour a rascally mischief, goes at midnight, stark naked, with a sickle tied to his foot, and repeating magic spells, through the middle of a field of corn just ripe. From that part of the field that he has passed his sickle through, all the grains fly into his barn, into his bin.' Here everything is attributed to a charm practised by man. (72) Julius Schmidt too (Reichenfels, p. 119) reports from the Vogtland: The belief in bilsen- or bilver-schnitter (-reapers) (73) is tolerably extensive, nay, there seem to be certain persons who believe themselves to be such: in that case they go into the field before sunrise on St. John's day, sometimes on Walpurgis-day (May 1), and cut the stalks with small sickles tied to their great toes, stepping slantwise across the field. Such persons must have small three-cornered hats on (bilsenschnitter-hütchen); if during their walk they are saluted by any one, they must die that year. These bilsenschnitter believe they get half the produce of the field where they have reaped, and small sickle-shaped instruments have been found in some people's houses, after their death. If the owner of the field can pick up any stubble of the stalks so cut, and hangs it in the smoke, the bilsenschnitter will gradually waste away (see Suppl.).


According to a communication from Thuringia, there are two ways of baffling the bilms- or binsen-schneider (-cutter), whichever he is called. One is, on Trinity Sunday or St. John's day, when the sun is highest in the sky, to go and sit on an elderbush with a looking-glass on your breast, and look round in every quarter, then no doubt you can detect the binsenschneider, but not without great risk, for if he spies you before you see him, you must die and the binsenschneider remain alive, unless he happen to catch sight of himself in the mirror on your breast, in which case he also loses his life that year. Another way is, to carry some ears that the binsenschneider has cut to a newly opened grave in silence, and not grasping the ears in your bare hand; if the least word be spoken, or a drop of sweat from your hand get into the grave with the ears, then, as soon as the ears rot, he that threw them in is sure to die.


What is here imputed to human sorcerers, is elsewhere laid to the devil (Superst. no. 523), or to elvish goblins, who may at once be known by their small hats. Sometimes they are known as bilgenschneider, as pilver- or hilperts-schnitter, sometimes by altogether differing names. Alberus puts sickles in the hands of women travelling in Hulda's host (supra, p. 269 note). In some places, acc. to Schm. 1, 151, they say bockschnitt, because the goblin is supposed to ride through the cornfield on a he-goat, which may well remind us of Dietrich with the boar (p. 214). The people about Osnabrück believe the tremsemutter walks about in the corn: she is dreaded by the children. In Brunswick she is called kornwif: when children are looking for cornflowers, they will not venture too far into the green field, they tell each other of the cornwife that kidnaps little ones. In the Altmark and Mark Brandenburg they call her roggenmöhme (aunt in the rye), and hush crying children with the words: 'hold your tongue, or roggenmöhme with the long black teats wil come and drag you away!' (74) Others say 'with her long iron teats,' which recalls iron Berhta: others again name her rockenmör, because like Holla and Berhta, she plays all manner of tricks on idle maids who have not spun their distaffs clear during the Twelves. Babes whom she puts to her black breast are likely to die. Is not the Bavarian preinscheuhe the same kind of corn-spectre? In the Schräckengast, Ingolst. 1598, there are coupled together on p. 73, 'preinscheuhen und meerwunder,' and p. 89 'wilde larvenschopper und preinscheuhen.' This prein, brein, properly pap (puls), means also grain-bearing plants like oats, millet, panicum, plantago (Schm. 1, 256-7); and breinscheuhe (-scare) may be the spirit that is the bugbear of oat and millet fields?


In all this array of facts, there is no mistaking the affinity of the bilwisses with divine and elvish beings of our heathenism. They mat the hair like dame Holla, dame Berhta, and the alb, they wear the small hat and wield the shot of the elves, they have at last, like Holla and Berhta, sunk into a children's bugbear. Originally 'gute holden,' sociable and kindly beings, they have twisted round by degrees into uncanny fiendish goblins, wizards and witches. And more, at the back of these elvish beings there may lurk still higher divine beings. The Romans worshipped a Robigo, who could hinder blight in corn, and perhaps, if displeased, bring it on. The walking of the bilwiss, of the Roggenmuhme in the grain had at first a benevolent motive: as the names mutter, muhme, mör teach us, she is a motherly guardian goddess of spindle and seedfield. Fro upon his boar must have ridden through the plains, and made them productive, nay, even the picture of Siegfried riding through the corn I incline to refer to the circuit made by a god; and now for the first time I think I understand why the Wetterau peasant to this day, when the corn-ears wave in the wind, says the boar walks in the corn. It is said of the god who causes the crops to thrive. Thus, by our study of elves, with whom the people have kept up acquaintance longer, we are led up to gods that once were. The connexion of elves with Holla and Berhta is further remarkable, because all these beings, unknown to the religion of the Edda, reveal an independent development or application of the heathen faith in continental German

[EG]

What comes nearest the hairy shaggy elves, or bilwisses, is a spirit named scrat or scrato in OHG. documents, and pilosus in contemporary Latin ones. The Gl. mons. 333 have scratun (pilosi); the Gl. herrad. 200b waltschrate (satyrus); the Sumerlat. 10, 66 srate (lares mali); so in MHG. scrâz; Reinh. 597 (of the old fragment), 'ein wilder waltschrat;' Barl. 251, 11. Aw. 3, 226. Ulr. Lanz. 437 has 'von dem schraze' = dwarf; 'sie is villîhte ein schrat, ein geist von helle;' Albr. Titur. 1, 190 (Hahn 180). That a small elvish spirit was meant, is plain from the dimin. schretel, used synonymously with wihtel in that pretty fable, from which our Irish elf-tales gave an extract, but wich has since been printed entire in Mone's treatise on heroic legend, and is now capped by the original Norwegian story in Asbiörnsen and Moe, No. 26 (one of the most striking examples of the tough persistence of such materials in popular tradition); both the schretel and the word wazzerbern answer perfectly to the trold and the hvidbiörn. Vintler thinks of the schrättlin as a spirit light as wind, and of the size of a child. The Vocab. of 1482 has schretlin (penates); Dasypodius nachtschrettele (ephialtes); later ones spell it schrättele, schrättel, schrettele, schrötle, conf. Stald. 2, 350. Schmid's Schwäb. wörtb. 478. In the Sette comm. schrata or schretele is a butterfly, Schm. 3, 519. A Thidericus Scratman is named in a voucher of 1244; Spilcker 2, 84. A district in Lower Hesse is called the Schratweg, Wochenbl. 1833, 952. 984. 1023. And other Teutonic dialects seem to know the word: AS. scritta, Eng. scrat (hermaphroditus), (76) ON. skratti [[wicked sorcerer]] (malus genius, gigas); a rock on the sea is called skrattasker (geniorum scopulus), Fornm. sög. 2, 142. Comparing these forms with the OHG. ones above, we miss the usual consonant-change: the truth is, other OHG. forms do show a z in place of the t: scraz, Gl. fuld. 14; screza (larvae, lares mali), Gl. lindenbr. 996b; 'srezze vel strate' (not: screzzol scraito), Sumerlat. 10, 66; 'unreiner schrâz,' Altd. w. 3, 170 (rhymes vrâz). (77) And Upper Germ. dictionaries of the 16th cent. couple schretzel with alp; Höfer 3, 114, has 'der schretz,' and Schm. 3, 552, 'der schretzel, das schretzlein.' According to Mich. Beham 8. 9 (Mone's Anz. 4, 450-1), every house has its schrezlein; if fostered, he brings you goods and honour, he rides or drives the cattle, prepares his table on Brecht-night, etc. (78)


The agreement of Slavic words is of weight. O. Boh. scret (daemon), Hanka's Zbirka 6b; screti, scretti (penates intimi et secretales), ibid. 16b; Boh. skret, skrjtek (penas, idolum); Pol. skrzot, skrzitek; Sloven. zhkrát, zhkrátiz, zhkrátelj (hill-mannikin). To the Serv. and Russ. dialects the word seems unknown.


I can find no satisfactory root for the German form. (79) In Slavic skrýti (celare, occulere) is worth considering. [A compound of krýti, to cover, root krý, krov, kruptw. If Slav. skrý, why not AS. scrûd, shroud?].


Going by the sense, schrat appears to be a wild, rough, shaggy wood-spirit, very like the Lat. faun and the Gr. satyr, also the Roman silvanus (Livy 2, 7); its dimin. schrätlein, synonymous with wichtel and alp, a home-sprite, a hill-mannikin. But the male sex alone is mentioned, never the female; like the fauns, therefore, they lack the beauty of contrast which is presented by the elfins and bilwissins. We may indeed, on the strength of some similarity, take as a set-off to these schrats those wild women and wood-minnes treated of at the end of chapter XVI. The Greek fiction included mountain-nymphs (numfai oreskqoi) and dryads (druadej, Englished wuduœlfenne in AS. glosses), whose life was closely bound up with that of a tree (loc. princ., Hymn to Aphrodite 257-272; and see Suppl.).


Another thing in which the schrats differ from elves is, that they appear one at a time, and do not form a people.


The Fichtelberg is haunted by a wood-sprite named the Katzenveit, with whom they frighten children: 'Hush, the Katzenveit will come!' Similar beings, full of dwarf and goblin-like humours, we may recognise in the Gübich of the Harz, in the Rübezal of Riesengebirge. This last, however, seems to be of Slav origin, Boh. Rybecal, Rybrcol. (80) In Moravia runs the story of the seehirt, sea-herd, a mischief-loving sprite, who, in the shape of a herdsman, whip in hand, entices travellers into a bog (see Suppl.). (81)


The gloss in Hanka 7b. 11ª has 'vilcodlac faunus, vilcodlaci faunificarii, incubi, dusii', in New Boh. it would be wlkodlak, wolf-haired; the Serv. vukodlac is vampire (Vuk sub v.). It is not surprising, and it offers a new point of contact between elves, bilwisses, and schrats, that in Poland the same matting of hair is ascribed to the skrzot, and is called by his name, as the skrjtek is in Bohemia; (82) in some parts of Germnay schrötleinzopf.


People in Europe began very early to think of dæmonic beings as pilosi. The Vulgate has 'et pilosi saltabunt ibi,' Isaiah 13, 21, where the LXX. had daimonia ekei orchsontai, conf. 34, 14. (83) Isidore's Etym. 8, cap. ult. (and from it Gl. Jun. 399): 'pilosi qui graece panitae, latine incubi nominantur,---hos daemones Galli dusios nuncupant. (84) Quem autem vulgo incubonem vocant, hunc Romani faunum di****.' Burcard of Worms (App. Superst. C) is speaking of the superstitious custom of putting playthings, shoes, bows and arrows, in cellar or barn for the home-sprites, (85) and these genii again are called 'satyri vel pilosi.' The monk of St. Gall, in the Life of Charles the Great (Pertz 2, 741), tells of a pilosus who visited the house of a smith, amused himself at night with hammer and anvil, and filled the empty bottle out of a rich man's cellar (conf. Ir. elfenm. cxi. cxii.). Evidently a flibbleing, dancing, whimsical homsesprite, rough and hairy to look at, 'eislich getân,' as the Heidelberg fable says, and rigged out in the red little cap of a dwarf, loving to follow his bent in kitchens and cellars. A figure quite in the foreground in Cod. palat. 324 seems to be his very portrait.


Only I conceive that in earlier times a statelier, larger figure was allowed to the schrat, or wood-schrat, then afterwards the merrier, smaller one to the schrettel. This seems to follow from the ON. meaning of skratti gigas, giant. These woodsprites must have been, as late as the 6-7th cent., objects of a special worship: there were trees and temples dedicated to them. Quotations in proof have already been given, pp. 58. 68: 'arbores daemoni dedicatae,' and among the Warasken, a race akin to the Bavarian, 'agrestium fana, quos vulgus faunos vocat.'


Some remarkable statements are found in Eckehart's Waltharius. Eckevrid of Saxony accosts him with the bitter taunt (761):


Die, ait, an corpus vegetet tractabile temet,


sive per aërias fallas, maledicte, figuras?


saltibus assuetus faunus mihi quippe videris.


Walthari replies in mockery (765):


Celtica lingua probat te ex illa gente creatum,


cui natura dedit reliquas ludendo praeire;


at si to propius venientem dextera nostra


attingat, post Saxonibus memorare valebis,


te nunc in Vosago fauni fantasma videre.



If you come within reach of my arm, I give you leave then to tell your Saxon countrymen of the 'schrat' you now see in the Wasgau (Vosges). When Eckevrid has hurled his spear at him in vain, Walthari cries:


Haec tibi silvanus transponit munera faunus.


Herewith the 'wood-schrat' returns you the favour. (86)



Here the faun is called fantasma, phantom; OHG. giscîn, T. 81 (Matt. xiv. 26), otherwise scînleih (monstrum), Gl. hrab. 969b. Jun. 214; AS. scînlâc (portentum); or gitroc, p. 464. Phantasma vagabundum (Vita Lebuini, Pertz 2, 361); 'fantasma vult nos pessundare' (Hroswitha in Dulcicius); 'fantasia quod in libris gentilium faunus solet appellari,' Mabillon, Analect. 3, 352. A 'municipium,' or 'oppidum mons fauni,' in Ivonis Carnot. epist. 172, and conf. the doc. quoted in the note thereon, in which it is monsfaunum. Similarly in OFr. poems: 'fantosme nous va faunoiant' Méon 4, 138; fantosme qui me desvoie, demaine,' ibid. 4, 140. 4. 402. A passage from Girart de Rossillon given in Mone's Archiv 1835. 210 says of a mountain: 'en ce mont ha moult de grans secrez, trop y a de fantomes.' Such are the fauni ficarii and silvestres homines, with whom Jornandes makes his Gothic aliorunes keep company (p. 404). Yet they also dip into the province of demigods heroes. Miming silvarum satyrus, and Witugouwo (silvicola) seem to be at once cunning smith-schrats and heroes (pp. 376-379). A valkyr unites herself with satyr-like Völundr, as the aliorunes did with fauns. The wild women, wood-minne (pp. 432-4), and the wilde man (Wigamur 203) come together. Wigal. 6286 has wildes wîp, and 6602 it is said of the dwarf Karriôz:




ENDNOTES:


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76. Already in Sachsensp. 1, 4 altvile and dverge side by side; conf. RA. 410. Back

77. A contraction of schrawaz? Gudr. 448, schrawaz und merwunder; Albr. Titur. 27, 299 has schrabaz together with pilwiht; schrawatzen und merwunder, Casp. von der Rön's Wolfdieterich 195. Wolfd. und Saben 496. ['Probably of different origins' says Suppl.] Back

78. Muchar, Römisches Noricum 2, 37, and Gastein 147, mentions a capricious mountain-spirit, schranel. Back

79. The ON. skratti [[wicked sorcerer]] is said to mean terror also. The Swed. skratta, Dan. skratte, is to laugh loud. Does the AS. form scritta allow us to compare the Gr. skirtoj, a hopping, a leaping goblin or satyr (from skirtaw, I bound)? Lobeck's Aglaoph., 1311. Back

80. In Slav. ryba is fish, but cal, or col (I think) has no meaning. The oldest Germ. docs. have Rube-zagil, -zagel, -zagl (-tail); Rube may be short for the ghostly 'knecht Ruprecht,' or Robert. Is Rubezagel our bobtail, of which I have seen no decent etymology?---Trans. Back

81. Sagen aus der vorzeit Mährens (Brünn, 1817), pp. 136-171. Back

82. The plica is also called koltun, and again koltki are Polish and Russian home-sprites. Back

83. Luther translates feldteufel; the Heb. sagnir denotes a shaggy, goat-like being. Radevicus frising. 2, 13, imitates the whole passage in the prophet: 'ululae, upupae, bubones toto anno in ectis funebria personantes lugubri voce aures omnium repleverunt. Pilosi quos satyros vocant in domibus plerunque auditi.' Again 2, 24: 'in aedibus tuis lugubri voce respondeant ululae, saltent pilosi.' Back

84. 'Daemones quos duscios Galli nuncupant.' Augustine, Civ. Dei, c. 23. The name duz still lives in Bretagne, dimin. duzik (Villemarqué 1, 42). Back

85. In the same way the jüdel (I suppose güetel, the same as guote holde) has toys placed for him, Superst. I, no. 62; conf. infra, the homesprites. Back

86. The dialogue is obscure, and in the printed edition, p. 86, I have endeavoured to justify the above interpretation

[EG]

Sîn muoter was ein wildez wîp...........His mother was a wild woman,


dâ von was sîn kurzer lîp............therefrom was his short body


aller rûch unde stark,...............all over hairy and strong,


sîn gebein was âne mark..............his bones without marrow (solid)


nach dem geslehte der muoter sîn,...............after his mother's stock,


deste sterker muoser sîn. ................the stronger must he be.



In the Wolfdietrich a wild man like this is called waltlunder, and in Laurîn 173. 183 waltmann. The ON. mythology knows of wild wood-wives by the names îviðjur [[giantesses, orgresses]], Sæm. 88ª. 119b, and iarnviðjur [[jarnviðjur: literally - iron-wires. Giants were often associated with iron]], Sn. 13. About the îviðja [[giantesses]] we find at the beginning of the Hrafnagaldr the obscure statement 'elr îviðja [[the giantesses bring forth]],' alit, auget, parit, gignit dryas; îviðja [[giantess, orgress]] is derived from a wood or grove îviðr, of which the Völuspâ 1ª makes mention: 'nio man ek heima, nio îviði' [[I nine worlds remember, nine trees]]; so iarnviðja from iarnviðr, iron wood (see Suppl.). (87)


I cannot properly explain these ON. îviðjur and iarnviðjur [[literally - iron-wire. Giants were often associated with iron]]. The popular belief of today in South-eastern Germany presents in a more intelligible shape the legend of the wild-folk, forest-folk, wood-folk, moss-fok, who are regarded as a people of the dwarfkind residing together, though they come up singly too, and in that case the females especially approximate those higher beings spoken of on p. 432. They are small of stature, but somewhat larger than elves, grey and oldish-looking, hairy and clothed in moss: 'ouch wâren ime diu ôren als eime walttôren vermieset,' his ears like a forest-fool's bemossed (?), Iw. 440. Often holzweibel alone are mentioned, seldomer the males, who are supposed to be not so good-natured and to live deeper in the woods, wearing green garments faced with red, and black three-cornered hats. H. Sachs 1, 407ª brings up holzmänner and holzfrauen, and gives 1, 348c the lament of the wild woodfolk over the faithless world. Schmidt's Reichenfels, pp. 140-8 tells us the Voigtland tradition, and Börner, pp. 188-242 that of the Orlagau; from them I borrow what is characteristic. The little wood-wives come up to wood-cutters, and beg for something to eat, or take it themselves out of their pots; but whatever they have taken or borrowed they make good in some other way, not seldom by good advice. At times they help people in their kitchen work and at washing but always express a great fear of the wild huntsman that pursues them. On the Saale they tell you of a bush-grandmother and her moss-maidens; this sounds like a queen of elves, if not like the 'weird lady of the woods' (p. 407). The little wood-wives are glad to come when people are baking, and ask them, while they are about it, to bake them a loaf too, as big as half a millstone, and it must be left for them at a specified place; they pay it back afterwards, or perhaps bring some of their own baking, and lay it in the furrow for the ploughman, or on the plough, being mightily offended if you refuse it. At other times the wood-wife makes her appearance with a broken little wheelbarrow, and begs you to mend the wheel; then, like Berhta she pays you with the fallen chips, which turn to gold; or if you are knitting, she gives you a ball of thread which you will never have done unwinding. Every time a man twists (driebt, throws) the stem of a young tree till the bark flies off, a wood-wife has to die. When a peasant woman, out of pity, gave the breast to a crying wood-child, the mother came up and made her a present of the bark in which the child was cradled; the woman broke a splinter off and threw it in to her load of wood, but when she got hom she found it was of gold (see Suppl.).


Wood-wives, like dwarfs, are by no means satisfied with the ways of the modern world; but to the reasons given on p. 459 they add special ones of their own. There's never been a good time since people took to counting the dumplings they put in the pot, the loaves they put in the oven, to 'pipping' their bread and putting caraway-seeds in it. Hence their maxim:


Schäl keinen baum, ............No tree ever shall,


erzähl keinen traum, ...........no dream ever tell,


back keinen kümmel ins brot,............bake in thy bread no cummin-seed,


so hilft dir Gott aus aller noth. ..........and God will help in all thy need.


The third line may be 'pip kein brod,' don't pip a loaf. A wood-wife, after tasting some newly-baked bread, ran off to the forest, screaming loud:


Sie haben mir gebacken kümmelbrot,


das bringt diesem hause grosse noth!



(They've baked me caraway-bread, it will bring that house great trouble). And the farmer's prosperity soon declined, till he was utterly impoverished. To 'pip' a loaf is to push the tip of your fingers into it, a common practice in most places. Probably the wood-wives could not carry off a pricked loaf, and therefore disliked the mark; for a like reason they objected to counting. Whether the seasoning with cummin disgusted them as an innovation merely, or in some other connection, I do not know. The rhyme runs thus: 'kümmelbrot, unser tod!' the death of us; or ---'kümmelbrot macht angst und noth.'---Some wood-mannikins, who had long done good service at a mill, were scared away by the miller's men leaving out clothes and shoes for them, Jul. Schmidt, p. 146 (see Suppl.). (88) It is as though, by accepting clothes, the spirits were afraid of suddenly breaking off the relation that subsisted between themselves and mankind. We shall see presently that the home-sprites proper acted on different principles, and even bargained for clothes.


The more these wood-folk live a good many together, the more do they resemble elves, wichtels, and dwarfs; the more they appear singly, the nearer do the females stand to wise women and even goddesses, the males to gigantic fauns and wood-monsters, as we saw in Katzenveit, Gübich and Rübezahl (p. 480). The salvage man with uprooted fir-tree in his hand, such as supports the arms of several princes in Lower Germany, represents this kind of faun; it would be worth finding out at what date he is first mentioned. Grinkenschmied in the mountain (Deut. sag. 1, 232) is also called 'der wilde man.'


In the Romance fairy-tales an old Roman god has assumed altogether the nature of a wood-sprite; out of Orcus (89) has been made an Ital. orco, Neapol. huorco, Fr. ogre (supra, p. 314): he is pictured black, hairy, bristly, but of great stature rather than small, almost gigantic; children losing their way in the wood come upon his dwelling, and he sometimes shows himself good-natured and bestows gifts, oftener his wife (orca, ogresse) protects and saves. (90) German fairy-tales hand over his part to the devil, who springs even more directly from the ancient god of the lower world. Of the invisible-making helmet the orco has nothing left him, on the other hand a dæmonic acuteness of scent is made a characteristic feature, he can tell like a sea-monster the approach of human flesh: 'je sens la chair fraiche,' 'ich rieche, rieche menschenfleisch,' 'ich wittere, wittere menschenfleisch,' 'i schmöke ne Crist,' 'I smell the blood,' 'jeg lugter det paa min höire haand (right hand),' 'her lugter saa kristen mands been,' (91) exactly as the meerminne already in Morolt 3924 says: 'ich smacke diutsche îserngewant,' coats of mail (see Suppl.). The Ital. however has also an uom foresto, Pulci's Morgante 5, 38.


The Gothic neut. skôhsl, by which Ulphilas renders daimonion, Matth. 8, 31. Lu. 8, 27 (only in margin; texts reads unhulþô). 1 Cor. 10, 20. 21, I am disposed to explain by supposing a skôhs, gen. skôhis, or rather skôgs (the h being merely the g softened before sl). It would answer to the ON. skôgr [[forest]] (silva); in all our Gothic fragments the word for forest never occurs, so that in addition to a vidus (p. 376) we may very well conjecture a skôgs. In Sweden the provincialisms skogsnerte, skogsnufva (92) are still used; snerte appears to contain snert gracilis, and snufva to mean anhelans. (93) Now if skôhsl is wood-sprite, (94) there may have been associated with it, as with daimonion, the idea of a higher being, semi-divine or even divine. When we call to mind the sacred, inviolable trees inhabited by spirits (chap. XXI, and Superst. Swed. no. 110, Dan. no. 162), and the forest-worship of the Germani in general (pp. 54-58. 97-8); we can understand why wood-sprites in particular should be invested with a human or divine rather than elvish nature.


Water-sprites exhibit the same double aspect. Wise-women, valkyrs, appear on the wave as swans, they merge into prophetic merwomen and merminnes (p. 434). Even Nerthus and dame Holla bathe in lake or pool, and the way to Holla's abode is through the well, Kinderm. 24. 79.




ENDNOTES:


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87. Afzelius 2, 145-7, mentions Swed. löfjerskor, leaf-maids, forest-maids, and compares them with Laufey (p. 246), but the people have little to say about them. Back

88. This agrees wonderfully with what Reusch, pp. 53-5, reports from Prussian Samland:--- A householder at Lapöhnen, to whom the subterraneans had done many services, was grieved at their having such poor clothes, and asked his wife to put some new little coats where they would find them. Well, they took their new outfit, but their leave at the same time, crying, 'paid up, paid up!' Another time they had been helping a poor smith, had come every night and turned out a set of little pots, pans, plates and kettles as bright as could be; the mistress would set a dish of milk for them, which they fell upon like wolves, and cleared to the last drop, washed up the plates and then set to work. The smith having soon become a rich man, his wife sewed them each a pretty little red coat and cap, and left them lying. 'Paid up, paid up!' cried the undergrounders, then quickly slipt into their new finery, and were off, without touching the iron left for them to work at, or ever coming back.---- Another story of the Seewen-weiher (-pond), near Rippoldsau, in the Black Forest (Mone's Anz. 6, 175):--- A lake mannikin liked coming to the folks at Seewen farm, would do jobs there all day, and not return into his lake till evening; they used to serve him up breakfast and dinner by himself. If in giving out tasks they omitted the phrase 'none too much and none too little,' he turned cross, and threw all into confusion. Though his clothes were old and shabby, he never would let the Seewen farmer get him new ones; but when this after all was done, and the new coat handed to the lake-mannikin, one evening, he said, 'When one is paid off one must go; beginning from to-morrow, I come to you no more;' and in spite of all the farmer's apologies he was never seen again.----Jos. Rank's Böhmerwald, p. 217, tells a pretty story of a waschweibel (see washerwife), for whom the people of the house wanted to have shoes made, but she would not hold out her little foot to be measured. They sprinkled the floor with flour, and took the measure of her footprints. When the shoes were made and placed on the bench for her, she fell a-sobbing, turned her little smock-sleeves down again, unlooped the skirt of her flibble, then burst away, lamenting loudly, and was seen no more.' That is to say, the wee wife, on coming into the house, had turned up the sleeves of her smock, and looped up her flibble, that she might the more easily do any kind of work. Similar tales are told of the brownie, R. Chambers, p. 33. And the same idea lies at the bottom of the first story about wichtelmännerchen in Kinderm. 39. It is a common characteristic, that holds good of wichtels, of subterraneans, of lake-sprites and of wood-folk, but chiefly of male ones who do service to mankind. [Might the objection of showing their feet arise from their being web-footed, like the Swiss härdmändle, especially in the case of water-sprites?] Back

89. See App., Superst. A, 'Orcum invocare' together with Neptune and Diana; Superst. G, extr. from Vintler, 1. 83: 'er hab den orken gesechen.' Beow. 224 has orcneas. pl. of orcne. Back

90. Pentamerone, for the orco 1, 1. 1, 5. 2, 3. 3, 10. 4, 8. For the orca 2, 1. 2, 7. 4, 6. 5, 4. Back

91. Perrault's Petit poucet; Kinderm. 1, 152. 179. 2, 350. 3, 410; Musæus 1, 21; Danske viser 1, 220; Norske folkeeventyr, p. 35. Back

92. Linnæus's Gothlandske resa, p. 312. Faye, p. 42. Back

93. In 1298 Torkel Knutson founded on the Neva a stronghold against the Russians, called Landskrona. An old folk-tale says, there was heard in the forest near the river a continual knocking, as of a stone-cutter. At last a peasant took courage and penetrated into the forest; there he found a wood-sprite hewing at a stone, who, on being asked what that should mean, answered: 'this stone shall be the boundary between the lands of the Swedes and Moskovites.' Forsell's Statistik von Schweden, p. 1. Back

94. To make up an OHG. skuoh and skuohisal is doubtless yet more of a venture. Our scheusal (monstrum), if it comes from scheuen (sciuhan), to shy at, has quite another fundamental vowel; it may however be a corruption. The only very old form I know is the schusel given in the foot-note on p. 269. But the Vocab. of 1482 has scheuhe (larva).

[EG]

Hence to the general term holde or guoter holde (genius, bonus genius) is added a wazzerholde (p. 266), a brunnenholde (p. 268); to the more general minni a meriminni and marmennill (p. 433). Other names, which explain themselves, are: MHG. wildiu merkint, wildiu merwunder, Gudrun 109, 4. 112, 3. wildez merwîp, Osw. 653. 673; Mod. HG. meerwunder, wassermann (Slav. vodnik), seejungfer, meerweib; ON. haf-frû [[sea-woman]], œs-kona, hafgýgr, margýgr; Dan. havmand, bröndmand (man of the burn or spring), Molb. Dial. p. 58; Swed. hafsman, hafsfru, and more particularly strömkarl (river sprite or man). Wendish vodny muz, water man. The notion of a water-king shows itself in waterconink, Melis Stoke 2, 96. Certain elves or dwarfs are represented as water-sprites: Andvari, son of Oin, in the shape of a pike inhabited a fors, Sæm. 180-1; and Alfrikr, acc. to Vilk. saga, cap. 34, haunted a river (see Suppl.).


The peculiar name of such a watersprite in OHG. was nihhus, nichus, gen. nichuses, and by this term the glossists render crocodilus, Gl. mons. 332, 412. Jun. 270. Wirceb. 978b; the Physiologus makes it neuter: daz nikhus, Diut. 3, 25. Hoffm. Fundgr. 23. Later it becomes niches, Gl. Jun. 270. In AS. I find, with change of s into r, a masc. nicor, pl. niceras, Beow. 838. 1144. 2854, by which are meant monstrous spirits living in the sea, conf. nicorhûs, Beow. 2822. This AS. form agrees with the M. Nethl. nicker, pl. nickers, (Horae Belg. p. 119); Reinaert prose MIIIIIb has 'nickers ende wichteren'; necker (Neptunus), Diut. 2, 224b. 'hêft mi die necker bracht hier?' (has the devil brought me here?), Mone's Ndrl. volkslit. p. 140. The Mod. Nethl. mikker means evil spirit, devil, 'alle nikkers uit de hel;' so the Engl. 'old Nick,' We have retained the form with s, and the original sense of a watersprite, a male nix and a female nixe, i.e., niks and nikse, though we also hear of a nickel and nickelmann. In MHG. Conrad uses wassernixe in the sense of siren: 'heiz uns leiten ûz dem bade der vertânen (accursed) wassernixen, daz uns ir gedœne (din) iht schade' (MS. 2, 200b). (95)


The ON. nikr [[a kind of water spirit, often described as in the form of a horse]] (gen. niks?) is now thought to mean hippopotamus only; the Swed. näk, nek, and the Dan. nök, nok nocke, aanycke (Molb. Dial. p. 4) express exactly our watersprite, but always a male one. The Danish form comes nearest to a Mid. Lat. nocca, spectrum marinum in stagnis et fluviis; the Finn. näkki, Esth. nek (watersprite) seem borrowed from the Swedish. Some have brought into this connexion the much older neha nehalennia (pp. 257, 419), I think without good reason: the Latin organ had no occasion to put h for c, and where it does have an h in German ords (as Vahalis, Naharvali), we have no business to suppose a tenuis; besides, the images of Nehalennia hardly indicate a river-goddess.


I think we have better reason for recognising the water-sprite in a name of Oðinn, who was occasionally conceived of as Neptune (p. 148), and often appears as a sailor and ferryman in his bark. The AS. Andreas describes in a detail, how God Himself, in the shape of a divine shipman escorts one over the sea; in the Legenda Aurea it is only an angel. Oðinn, according to Sn. 3, is called Nikarr or Hnikarr, and Nikuz or Hnikuðr. In Sæm. 46ª, b we read Hnikarr, Hnikuðr, and in 91ª 184ª,b Hnikarr again. Nikarr would correspond to AS. Nicor, and Nikuz to OHG. Nichus. Snorri's optional forms are remarkable, he must have drawn them from sources which knew of both; the prefixing of an aspirate may have been merely to humour the metre. Finn Magnusen, p. 438, accutely remarks, that wherever Oðinn is called Hnikarr, he does appear as a sea-sprite and calms the waves. For the rest, no nickar (like âlfar and dvergar) are spoken of in either Edda. Of the metamorphoses of the nickur (hippop.) the ON. uses the expression "nykrat eða finngâlkat [[the nykr or the great monster]]," Sn. 317 (see Suppl.).


Plants and stones are named after the nix, as well as after gods. The nymphæa (numfaia from numfh) we still call nixblume as well as seeblume, seelilie, Swed. näckblad, Dan. nökkeblomster, nökkerose; the conferva rupestris, Dan. nökkeskäg (nix-beard); the haliotis, a shellfish, Swed. näcköra (nix-ear); the crumby tufa-stone, tophus, Swed. näckebröd, the water sprite's bread. Finn. näkinkenka (mya margaritifera) näkin waltikka (typha angustifolia); the Lausitz Wends call the blossoms or seedpots of certain reeds 'vodneho muzha porsty, potaczky [piorsty, perczatky?], lohszy,' water-man's fingers or gloves. We ourselves call the water-lily wassermännlein, but also mummel, mümmelchen = müemel, aunty, water-aunt, as the merminne in the old lay is expressly addressed as Morolt's 'liebe muome,' and in Westphalia to this day watermöme is a ghostly being; in Nib. 1479, 3 Siglint the one merwoman says of Hadburc the other:


Durch der wæte liebe hât mîn muome dir gelogen,


'tis through love of raiment (weeds) mine aunt hath lied to thee; these merwomen belong, as swan-maidens, to one sisterhood and kindred (p. 428), and in Oswald 673-9 'ein ander merwîp' is coupled with the first. Several lakes inhabited by nixes are called mummelsee (Deut. sag. nos. 59. 331. Mone's Anz. 3, 92), otherwise meumke-loch, e.g., in the Paschenburg of Schaumburg. This explains the name of a little river Mümling in the Odenwald, through old docs. spelling it Mimling. Mersprites are made to favour particular pools and streams, e.g., the Saale, the Danube, the Elbe, (96) as the Romans believed in the bearded river-gods of individual rivers; it may be that the name of the Neckar (Nicarus) is immediately connected with our nicor, nechar (see Suppl.).


Biörn gives nennir as another ON. name for hippopotamus, it seems related to the name of the goddess Nanna (p. 310). (97) This nennir or nikur presents himself on the sea-shore as a handsome dapple-grey horse, and is to be recognised by his hoofs looking the wrong way; if any one mounts him, he plunges with his prey into the deep. There is a way however to catch and bridle him, and break him in for a time to work. (98) A clever man at Morland in Bahus fastened an artfully contrived bridle on him, so that he could not get away, and ploughed all his land with him; but the bridle somehow coming loose, the 'neck' darted like fire into the lake, and drew the harrow in after him. (99) In the same way German legends tell of a great hulking black horse, that had risen out of the sea, being put to the plough, and going ahead at a mighty pace, till he dragged both plough and ploughman over the cliff. (100) Out of a marsh called the 'taufe,' near Scheuen in Lower Saxony, a wild bull comes up at certain times, and goes with the cows of the herd (Harry's Sagen, p. 79). When a thunderstorm is brewing, a great horse with enormous hoofs will appear on the water (Faye, p. 55). It is the vulgar belief in Norway, that whenever people at sea go down, a söedrouen (sea sprite) shows himself in the shape of a headless old man (Sommerfelt, Saltdalens prästegjeld, Trondhjem 1827, p. 119). In the Highlands of Scotland a water sprite in the shape of a horse is known by the name of water-kelpie (see Suppl.).


Water-sprites have many things in common with mountain-sprites, but also some peculiar to themselves. The males, like those of the schrat kind, come up singly rather than in companies. The water man is commonly represented as oldish and with a long beard, like the Roman demigod out of whose urn the river spouts; often he is many-headed (conf. p. 387), Faye p. 51. In a Danish folk-song the nökke lifts his beard aloft (conf. Svenska visor 3, 127. 133), he wears a green hat, and when he grins you see his green teeth (Deut. sag. no. 52). He has at times the figure of a wild boy with shaggy hair, or else with yellow curls and a red cap on his head. (101) The näkki of the Finns is said to have iron teeth. (102) The nixe (fem.), like the Romance fay and our own wise-women, is to be seen sitting in the sun, combing her long hair (Svenska vis. 3, 148), or emerging from the waves with the upper half of her body, which is exceedingly beautiful. The lower part, as with sirens, is said to consist of a fish-like tail; but this feature is not essential, and most likely not truly Teutonic, for we never hear of a tailed nix, (103) and even the nixe, when she comes on shore among men, is shaped and attired like the daughters of men, being recognised only by the wet skirt of her dress, the wet tips of her apron. (104) Here is another point of contact with swan-maidens, whose swan-foot betrays them: and as they have their veils and clothes taken from them, the nixie too is embarrassed by the removal and detention of her gloves in dancing (Deut. sag. nos. 58. 60). Among the Wends the water-man appears in a linen smockflibble with the bottom of its skirt wet; if in buying up grain he pays more than the market price, a dearth follows, and if he buys cheaper than others, prices fall (Lausitz. monatschr. 1797, p. 750). The Russians name their water-nymphs rusálki: fair maidens with green or garlanded hair, combing themselves on the meadow by the waterside, and bathing in lake or river. They are seen chiefly on Whitsunday and in Whitsun-week, when the people with dance and song plait garlands in their honour and throw them into the water. The custom is connected with the German river-worship on St. John's day. Whitsun-week itself was called by the Russians rusaldnaya, in Boh. rusadla, and even in Wallachian rusalie. (105)




ENDNOTES:


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95. Gryphius (mihi 743) has a rhyme: 'die wasserlüss auf erden mag nicht so schöne werden,' apparently meaning a water-wife or nixe. In Ziska's Östr. volksm. 54 a kind wassernix, like dame Holla, bestows wishing-gifts on the children. Back

96. The Elbjungfer and Saalweiblein, Deut. sag. no. 60; the river-sprite in the Oder, ibid. no . 62. Back

97. Muchar, in Norikum 2, 37, and in Gastein p. 145, mentions an Alpine sprite Donanadel; does nadel here stand for nandel? A misprint for madel (girl) is scarcely conceivable. Back

98. Landnâmabôk, 2, 10 (Islend. sög. 1, 74). Olafsen's Reise igiennem Island, 1, 55. Sv. vis. 3, 128. Back

99. P. Kalm's Westgöta och Bahusländska resa, 1742, p. 200. Back

100. Letzner's Dasselsche chronik 5, 13. Back

101. The small size is implied in the popular rhyme: 'Nix in der grube (pit), du bist ein böser bube (bad boy); wasch dir deine beinchen (little legs) mit rothen ziegelsteinchen (red brick).' Back

102. On the grass by the shore a girl is seized by a pretty boy wearing a handsome peasant's belt, and is forced to scratch his head for him. While she is doing so, he slips a girdle round her unperceived, and chains her to himself; the continued friction, however, sends him to sleep. In the meantime a woman comes up, and asks the girl what she is about. She tells her, and, while talking, releases herself from the girdle. The boy was more sound asleep than ever, and his lips stood pretty wide apart; then the woman, coming up closer, cried out: 'why, that's a neck, look at his fish's teeth!¨' In a moment the neck was gone (Etwas über die Ehsten, p. 51) Back

103. But we do of nixes shaped like men above and like horses below; one water-sprite takes his name from his slit ears, Deut. sag. no 63. Back

104. In Olaf the Saint's saga (Fornm. sög. 4, 56. 5, 162) a margýgr is pictured as a beautiful woman, from the girdle downward ending in a fish, lulling men to sleep with her sweet song; evidently modelled on the Roman siren. Pretty stories of nixes are told in Jul. Schmidt's Reichenfels, p. 150 (where the word docken = dolls, puppets) and 151. Water-wives when in labour send for human assistance, like she-dwarfs (p. 457). 'They spake at Dr. M. L.'s table of spectra and of changelings, then did Mistress Luther, his goodwife, tell an history, how a midwife at a place was fetched away by the devil to one in childbed, with whom the devil had to do, and that lived in a hole in the water in the Mulda, and the water hurt her not at all, but in the hole she sat as in a fair chamber.' Table-talk 1571. 440b. Back

105. Schafarik in the Casopis cesk. mus. 7, 259 has furnished a full dissertation on the rusalky [from rusy, blond; but there is also ruslo, river's bed, deepest part].


Further Reading

[EG]

Further Reading

[EG]

The Creation of Dwarves


The creation of dwarfs is related in two passages which do not altogether agree. Sn. 15 tells us, when the gods sat in their chairs judging, they remembered that in the dust and the earth dwarfs had come alive, as maggots do in meat (see Suppl.). They were created and received life first of all in Ymir's flesh. By the decree of the gods these maggots now obtained understanding and human shape, but continued to live in the earth and in stones. Sæm. 2 says on the contrary, that the holy gods in their chairs consulted, who should make the nation of dwarfs out of Brîmir's flesh and his black bones; then up sprang Môtsognir, prince of all dwarfs, and after him Durinn, and they two formed a multitude of manlike dwarfs out of the earth.


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