FOOTNOTES:
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Keightley, Thomas
[566] This proverbial expression is to be met with in various languages: see Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 802.
[567] See above, p. 458.
[568] Mnemosyne, Abo 1821, ap. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 426.
[569] Rühs, Finland und seine Bewohner.
[570] Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 459.
[571] Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 979. This is the fourth place where we have met this story. Could they have all come from the Odyssey, the hero of which tells the Cyclops, whom he blinds, that his name is Nobody?
[572] Gaal, Märchen der Magyaren. Wien, 1822.
[573] Mailath, Magyarische Sagen Mährchen, etc., 2 vols, 8vo. Stutg. 1837.
[574] Delrio, Lib. ii. Sect. 2. Boxhorn Resp. Moscov. Pars I.
[575] Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 447.
[576] Mone, vol. i. p. 144. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 460.
[577] Grimm, ut sup. p. 480.
[578] Published by Wuk and translated by Talvi and others into German, by Bowring into English.
[579] Bowring, p. 175. Sabejam oblake, Cloud-gatherer, is an epithet of the Vila, answering to the Νεφεληγερετης of the Grecian Zeus.
[580] Death of Kralwich Marko. Bowring, p. 97.
[581] The building of Skadra. Ibid. p. 64.
[582] We have made this translation from a German version in the Wiener Jahrbücher, vol. xxx. which is evidently more faithful than Bowring's.
[583] Bowring, This version differs considerably from the German one of Talvi. We feel quite convinced that the English translator has mistaken the sense.
[584] Dalmatia and Montenegro, etc.
[585] The Pang (Span. paño, cloth) is an oblong piece of cotton cloth, which the natives manufacture and wear wrapped round their bodies.
[586] For the preceding account of the Yumboes we are indebted to a young lady, who spent several years of her childhood at Gorce. What she related to us she had heard from her maid, a Jaloff woman, who spoke no language but Jaloff.
[587] שרים from שרר to lay waste, Deut. xxxii. 17.
[588] שעירים from שער horreo, Isaiah, xiii. 22.
[589] מויקין from נוק to hurt.
[590] Moses Edrehi, our informant, says that the Mazikeen are called in the Arabic language, znoon (), i. e. Jinn.
[591] Comp. Lane, Thousand and One Nights, iii. p. 91.
[592] To signify that he appealed to them.
[593] From a rabbinical book called Mahasee Yerusalemee, i. e. History of a Hebrew of Jerusalem.—"Very old," says Moses Edrehi, "and known by the Hebrews to be true." "Moreover," saith he of another tale, "it really happened, because every thing that is written in the Jewish books is true; for no one can print any new book without its being examined and approved of by the greatest and chiefest Rabbin and wise men of that time and city, and the proofs must be very strong and clear; so that all the wonderful stories in these books are true." The Jews are not singular in this mode of vouching for the truth of wonderful stories.
[594] The moral here is apparent.
[595] From a very ancient rabbinical book called R. H. It is needless to point out its resemblance to German and other tales.
[596] See Davis's translation of The Fortunate Union, i. 68.
[597] Under the title Similar Legends in the Index, legends of this kind are arranged with references to the places where they occur.
[598] The legends from the German and other languages are, in general, faithfully translated, whence the style is at times rude and negligent; English legends are for the most part, also, merely transcribed.
[599] As we have above given an etymon of cobweb, we will here repeat our note on the word gossamer in the Fairy Legends.
"Gossamers, Johnson says, are the long white cobwebs which fly in the air in calm sunny weather, and he derives the word from the Low Latin gossapium. This is altogether unsatisfactory. The gossamers are the cobwebs which may be seen, particularly of a still autumnal morning, in such numbers on the furze-bushes, and which are raised by the wind and floated through the air, as thus exquisitely pictured by Browne in his Britannia's Pastorals (ii. 2),
The milk-white gossamers not upwards snowed.
Every lover of nature must have observed and admired the beautiful appearance of the gossamers in the early morning, when covered with dew-drops, which, like prisms, separate the rays of light, and shoot the blue, red, yellow, and other colours of the spectrum, in brilliant confusion. Of King Oberon we are told—
A riche mantle he did wear, Made of tinsel gossamer, Bestrew'd over with a few Diamond drops of morning dew.
A much more probable origin of gossamer than that proposed by Johnson is suggested by what has been now stated. Gossamer is, we think, a corruption of gorse, or goss samyt, i. e. the samyt, or finely-woven silken web that lies on the gorse or furze. Voss, in a note on his Luise (iii. 17), says that the popular belief in Germany is, that the gossamers are woven by the Dwarfs.
[600] In the notes on this story Mr. Croker gives the following letter:—