Chapter 17

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 10^th 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-slagen (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:

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. Back