Chapter 17

Und da se hen keimen, sêen se taur brut 'gûen morgen,' un sêen noch mehr dertau; awer da se nich antwure, sleuchten se'r hinder de aren, un da fell se hen (59) (see Suppl.)

They abstract well-shaped children from the cradle, and substitute their own ugly ones, or even themselves. These supposititious creatures are called changelings, cambiones (App., Superst. E.); OHG. wihselinga (N. Ps. 17, 46. Cant. Deuteron. 5), our wechselbälge; Swed. bytingar, Dan. bittinger; also our kielkröpfe, dickköpfe from their thick necks and heads. (Stories about them in Thiele 1, 47. 3, 1. Faye p. 20. Ir. Elfenm. xli.-xlv. cv. Deut. sag. nos. 81-2, 87-90) (60) So early as in the poem 'Zeno' (Bruns p. 27 seq.) it is the devil that fills the place of a stolen child. The motive of the exchange seems to be, that elves are anxious to improve their breed by means of the human child, which they design to keep among them, and for which they give up one of their own. A safeguard against such substitution is, to place a key, or one of the father's clothes, or steel and needles in the cradle (App., Superst. Germ. 484. 744. Swed. 118). (61)

One of the most striking instances of agreement that I know of anywhere occurs in connection with prescriptions for getting rid of your changeling.

In Hesse, when the wichtelmann sees water boiled over the fire in eggshells, he cries out: 'Well, I am as old as the Westerwald, but I never saw anything boiled in eggshells;' Km. no. 39. In Denmark a pig stuffed with skin and hair is set before the changeling: 'Now, I have seen the wood in Tisö young three times over, but never the likes of this': Thiele 1, 48. Before an Irish changeling they also boil eggshells, till he says: 'I've been in the world 1500 yers, and never seen that'; Elfenm. p. 38. Before a Scotch one the mother puts twenty-four eggshells on the hearth, and listens for what he will say; he says: 'I was seven before I came to my nurse milkpans;' Scott's Mintrelsy 2, 174. In the Breton folksong (Villemarqué 1, 29) he sees the mother cooking for ten servantmen in one eggshell, and breaks out into the words: 'I have seen the egg before [it became] the white hen, and the acorn before the oak, seen it acorn and sapling and oak in Brezal wood, but never aught like this.' This story about the changeling is also applied to Dame Gauden's little dog, chap. XXXI. Villemarqué 1, 32, quotes in addition a Welsh legend and a passage from Geoffrey of Monmouth, in which the Breton and Welsh formula for great age is already put into the mouth of Merlin the wild; in each case an ancient forest is named. In all these stories the point was, by some out-of-the-way proceeding, to get the changeling himself to confess his age, and consequently the exchange. Such traditions must have been widely spread in Europe from the earliest times; and it was evidently assigned them from that of the human race (see Suppl.).

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 liuflîngslag (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:

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

67. Here is one more legend from Ödman's Bahuslän, p. 79:---Thessutan har man åtskillige berättelser ok sagor om smedar, så i högar som bärg, såsom här i Fossumstorp högar, hvarest man hördt, at the smidt liksom i en annan smidja om aftonen efter solenes nedergång, ok eljest mitt på höga middagen. För 80 år sedan gik Olas fadar i Surtung, benämd Ola Simunsson, här i församlingen från Slångevald hafvandes med sig en hund, hvilken tå han blef varse mitt på dagen bärgsmannen, som tå smidde på en stor sten, skiälde han på honom, hvar på bärgsmeden, som hade en liusgrå råk ok blåvulen hatt, begynte at snarka åt hunden, some tillika med husbonden funno rådeligast, at lemna honom i fred. Thet gifvas ok ännu ibland gemene man små crucifixer af metall, som gemenligen halles före vara i fordna tider smidde i bärg, hvilka the oförståndige bruka at hänga på boskap, som hastigt fådt ondt ute på marken, eller som säges blifvit väderslagne, hvarigenom tro them bli helbregda. Af sådana bärgsmiden har jag ok nyligen kommit öfver ett, som ännu är i förvar, ok på ofvannämde sätt gik i lån at bota siukdommar. [Epitome:---Many stores of smiths in the mountains, who worked as at any other smithy, ofter sunset or else at high noon. Eighty years ago Ola Simunsson was coming, etc.; had with him a dog, which, on seeing a hill-man forging on a great stone, barked at him; but the hill-smitt, who wore a light-grey coat and blue woollen cap, snarled at the dog, etc. There are small metal crucifixes held to have been forged in the hills in former times, which simple folk still hang on cattle hurt in the field or weather-stricken, whereby they trow them to get healed. Of such hill-wrought things I have lately met with one, that used to be lent out to cure sicknesses.] Back