FOOTNOTES:
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Keightley, Thomas
[266] This tale was orally related to MM. Grimm in Saxony. They do not mention the narrator's rank in life.
[267]
Dat is gaut dat de büerkem dat nich weit Dat de sunne üm twölwe up geit.
[268] Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 434. Both legends are in the Low-Saxon dialect.
[269] The terms used in the original are Wichtelmänner, Wichtelmännerchen, and Wichtel.
[270] The Saxon ó seems to answer to the Anglo-Saxon I, Irish Inis: see below, Ireland.
[271] Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 428. The latter story is in the Low-Saxon dialect.
[272] In Scandinavia the Dwarfs used to borrow beer, even a barrel at a time, which one of them would carry off on his shoulders, Thiele i. 121. In the Highlands of Scotland, a firlot of meal. In all cases they paid honestly. On one occasion, a dwarf came to a lady named Fru (Mrs.) Mettè of Overgaard, in Jutland, and asked her to lend her silk gown to Fru Mettè of Undergaard, for her wedding. She gave it, but as it was not returned as soon as she expected, she went to the hill and demanded it aloud. The hill-man brought it out to her all spotted with wax, and told her that if she had not been so impatient, every spot on it would have been a diamond. Thiele iii. 48.
The Vends of Lüneburg, we are told, called the underground folk Görzoni (from gora, hill), and the hills are still shown in which they dwelt. They used to borrow bread from people; they intimated their desire invisibly, and people used to lay it for them outside of the door. In the evening they returned it, knocking at the window, and leaving an additional cake to express their thankfulness. Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 423.
[273] See above, p. 225.
[274] Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 437.
[275] Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 453.
[276] See Grimm, ut sup., p. 447 seq.
[277] Deutsche Sagen, from Prætorius., Agricola, and others.
[278] Grimm, Deut. Mythol., pp. 451, 881.
[279] Kohl, Die Marschen und Inseln der Herzogthümer Schleswig und Holstein.
[280] These terms all signify Underground folk.
[281] See above, p. 116.
[282] The Puk is also called Niss-Puk, Huis-Puk, Niske, Niske-Puk, Nise-Bok, Niss-Kuk—all compounds or corruptions of Nisse and Puk. He is also named from his racketing and noise Pulter-Claas, i. e. Nick Knocker, (the German Poltergeist,) Claas being the abbreviation of Nicolaus, Niclas; see above, p. 139, for this same origin of Nisse.
[283] All relating to the Wild-women and the Wunderberg is given by MM. Grimm from the Brixener Volksbuch, 1782. For an account of the various Bergentrückte Helden, see the Deutsche Mythologie, ch. xxxii.
[284] In a similar tradition (Strack, Beschr. von Eilsen, p. 120) the wife cuts off one of her fair long tresses, and is afterwards most earnestly conjured by her to restore it.
[285] Given by Büsching (Volks-sagen Märchen und Legenden. Leipzig, 1820), from Hammelmann's Oldenburg Chronicle, 1599. Mme. Naubert has, in the second volume of her Volksmärchen, wrought it up into a tale of 130 pages.
The Oldenburg horn, or what is called such, is now in the King of Denmark's collection.
[286] This word is usually derived from the Greek κοβαλος, a knave, which is found in Aristophanes. According to Grimm (p. 408) the German Kobold is not mentioned by any writer anterior to the thirteenth century, we find the French Gobelin in the eleventh; see France.
[287] In Hanover the Will-o'the-wisp is called the Tückebold, i. e. Tücke-Kobold, and is, as his name denotes, a malicious being. Voss. Lyr. Ged., ii. p. 315.
[288] Deutsche Sagen, i. p. 103. Feldmann's work is a 12mo vol. of 379 pages.
[289] Heinze is the abbreviation of Heinrich (Henry). In the North of Germany the Kobold is also named Chimmeken and Wolterken, from Joachim and Walther.
[290] This is a usual measure of size for the Dwarfs, and even the angels, in the old German poetry; see above, p. 208. In Otnit it is said of Elberich: nu bist in Kindes mâze des vierden jâres alt; and of Antilois in Ulrich's Alexander: er war kleine und niht grôz in der mâze als diu kint, wenn si in vier jâren sint, Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 418. We meet with it even in Italian poetry:
E sovra il dorso un nano si piccino Che sembri di quattr' anni un fanciullino. B. Tasso, Amadigi, C. c. st. 78.
[291] The feats of House-spirits, it is plain, may in general be ascribed to ventriloquism and to contrivances of servants and others.
[292] Von Steinen, Westfäl. Gesch. ap. Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 477.
[293]Oral. Cölns Vorzeit. Cöln. 1826.
[294] This legend seems to be connected with the ancient idea of the water-deities taking the souls of drowned persons to themselves. In the Edda, this is done by the sea-goddess Ran.
[295] Grimm, ut sup. p. 463.
[296] Grimm, ut sup. p. 453.
[297] A tale of this kind is to be seen in Luther's Table-talk, told by die frau doctorin, his wife. The scene of it was the river Mulda.
[298] In Swiss Härdmandle, pl. Härdmändlene.
[299] Wyss, Reise in das Berner Oberland, ii. 412. Servants is the term in the original.
[300] This Scottish word, signifying the summer cabin of the herdsmen on the mountains, exactly expresses the Sennhütten of the Swiss.
[301] Alpenrosen for 1824, ap. Grimm, Introd. to Irish Fairy Legends.