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Grimm's TM - Chap. 33 Chapter 33
What has a more direct bearing on our investigation is, that some
of the ON legends speak of a gefaz Oðni (giving oneself to O.) exactly as the
christian Mid. Ages do of writing or vowing oneself into the Devil's hands.
Indeed 'gefa' seems the most genuine expression, because the free man, who of
his own accord enters into service and bondage, gives, yields himself: giafþræl,
servus dedititius (RA. 327); 'begeben' is used in MHG. of maidens giving themselves
up to the church. The Olaf Tryggvas. saga tells how king Eirîkr of Sweden gave
himself to Oðinn (at hann gafsc Oðni) in return for his lending him victory
for ten years long, Fornm. sög. 5, 250 and 10, 283; and this last account calls
Oddiner a devil (so in 10, 303 a 'diöfull með âsiônu Oðins,' looking like O.).
That the ancient god of victory here sinks into the Enemy of good, is, from
the legend's point of view, quite in order. The only question is, whether the
loan for ten years, and after that, the king's forfeiture to the god, were taken
over from christian stories of the devil, or had their ground in heathen opinion
itself. In the latter case it may have been these heathen traditions that first
suggested to christians the wild fiction of a league with the devil. It is true
the Norse authorities say nothing about a bond signed in blood, nor about fetching
away upon forfeiture (see Suppl.). How to call to the Devil, when one wishes to have dealings with
him, we learn from a Dan. superstition (no. 148): Walk three times round the
church, and the third time stand still in front of the church-door, and cry
'come out!' or whistle to him through the keyhole. That is exactly how spirits
of the dead are summoned up (Superst. G, line 206 seq.). The kiss, by which
homage was rendered to the devil, does not occur till we come to heretics and
the later witches; it seems either copied from the secular homagium, or a parody
of the christian kiss of peace during Adoration. The devil in some stories, who brings money or
corn to his friends and favourites, approximates to good-natured homesprites
or elves; and in such cases nothing is said about a bond or about abjuring God.
He is usually seen as a fiery dragon rushing through the air and into chimneys
(Superst. I, nos. 6. 253. 520-2-3. 858). The Esthonians say, red streaks of
cloud shew the dragon is flying out, the dark that he is returning with booty
(Superst. M, no. 102); so the Lithuanians about the red alb and the blue (N,
no. 1). In Lausitz they tell of a corn-dragon (ïitny smij) who fills
his friend's thrashing floor, a milk-dragon (mlokowy smij) who purveys for the
goodwife's dairy, and a penny-dragon (peneïny smij) who brings wealth. The way
to get hold of such a one is the following: you find a threepenny piece lying
somewhere today; if you pick it up, there'll be a sixpenny piece in the same
place tomorrow, and so the value of what you find will keep rising till you
come to a dollar. If you are so greedy as to take the dollar too, you get the
dragon into your house. He demands respectful treatment and good fare (like
a homesprite); if goodman or goodwife neglect it, he sets the house on fire
over thier heads. The only way to get rid of him is to sell the dollar, but
below its price, and so the buyer is aware and silently consents.
(52) It is the same with the alraun and the gallows-mannikin
(p. 513n.). If given away, these breeding-dollars always come back (Superst.
I, no. 781). But nowhere does the Devil savour so much of heathenism as where
he has stept into the place of the old giant (pp. 999. 1005. 1023-4). Both of
them the thunder-god pursues with his hammer; as the sleeping giant is struck
by Thôr's miölnir, so is the devil by the blacksmith's hammer (p. 1011); (53)
the devil with three golden hairs (KM. no. 29) has already been likened to the
ON. Ugarthilocus (p. 244). And more especially is he giant-like, where the people
credit him with stupendous feats of building and stone-throwing: here he puts
on completely the burly, wrathful, spiteful and loutish nature of the iötunn
(pp. 534. 543-54); stupid devil is used like stupid giant (p. 528). The building
of christian churches is hateful to him, and he tries to reduce them to ruins;
but his schemes are sure to be foiled by some higher power or by the superior
craft of man. Like the giant, he often shews himself a skilful architect, and
undertakes to build a castle, bridge or church, only bargaining for the soul
of him who shall first set foot in the new building. What was once told of the giant is now told of the devil, but
a harsher crueller motive usually takes the place of milder ones. The giant
in building has commonly some sociable neighbourly purpose (pp. 535-54), the
devil wishes merely to do mischief and entrap souls. Norway has many legends
of giant's bridges. The jutul loves a huldra on the other side of the water;
to be able to visit her dryshod, he sets about building a bridge, but the rising
sun hinders its completion (Faye 15. 16). Another time two jutuls undertake
the work to facilitate their mutual visits. Over the Main too the giants propose
to build a bridge (p. 547), though the motive is no longer told. When the Devil
builds the bridge, he is either under compultion from men (Thiele 1, 18), or
is hunting for a soul (Deut. sag. nos. 185. 336); but he has to put up with
the cock or chamois which is purposely made to run first across the new bridge.
(54) A Swiss shepherd in a narrow glen, finding he could
not drive his flock over the brook, wished the devil would bridge it over for
him; instantly the fiend appeared and offered to do the work on condition that
the first thing that crossed would be his: it was a goat that led the way (Tobler
214a). In one French story, having reserved for himself every thirteenth creature
that should cross the bridge, he has already clutched numbers of men and beasts,
when a holy man, being a thirteenth, confronts and conquers him (Mém. de l'acad.
celt. 5, 384). (55) The church-building devils also
have bargained for the soul of the first that should enter, they make a wolf
scamper through the door (Deut. sag. no. 186); he in a rage flies up through
the roof, and leaves a gap that no mason can fill up (the last incident is in
nos. 181-2). On the mountains he builds mills, and destroys them again (nos.
183. 195). (56) His wager with the
architect of Cologne cathedral is remarkable: that he will lead a rivulet from
Treves to Cologne, (57) before the other can finish
his church (no. 204). In the same way a giantess wagers to throw a stone bridge
over a strait of the sea, before St. Olaf shall have brought his church-building
to an end; but the bridge was not half done, when the bells pealed out from
the sacred pile. She in vexation hurled the stones she was building with at
the churchtower, but never once could she hit it; then she tore off one of her
legs, and flung it at the steeple. Some accounts say she knocked it down, others
that she missed; the leg fell in a bog, which is still named Giögraputten (Faye
p. 119). Bell-ringing is hated by dwarfs (p. 459), giants (Faye p. 7. 17. Thiele
1, 42), and devils, (58) who keep
retiring before it: these legends all signalize the triumph of Christianity.
Out of some churches the devil drags the bells away (Deut. sag. 202): at first
he does not know what the new structure is for, and is pacified by evasive answers
(no. 181); but when it stands complete, he tries to batter it down with stones.
Devil's stones are either those he has dropt as he bore them through the air
for building, or those he carried up the hills when undoing some work he had
begun, or those he has thrown at a church (nos. 196-8-9. 200. 477). Scandinavian
stories of stones hurled by the giant race at the first christian church are
in Thiele 2, 20. 126-7. Faye pp. 16. 18; a Shetland one in Hilbert p. 433. Frequently
such fragments of rock have the fingers of the devil's hands imprinted on them;
a stone on which he has slept shews the mark of his ear, Deut. sag. 191. At
Limburg near Türkheim in the Palatinate is a stone, which the Evil one was bringing
to fling at the church; but being only a young devil, he tired of the heavy
load, and lay down to sleep on it; his figure printed itself on the rock, and
he overslept the time during which the throw ought to have been made. In the
vale of Durbach, on a hill of the Stollenwald, stand eleven large stones; the
twelfth and largest one the devil was carrying off, to batter down the Wendels-kirk
with; he had got across the Rappenloch with it, and halfway up the Schiehald,
when he laid his burden down, and had a rest. But after that he could no longer
lift the heavy stone, its pointed end stuck fast in the mountain, and you may
still see the round hole made in it by the devil's shoulder-bone. So the church
was spared, but the devil still drives about the place now and then with six
he-goats, and at midnight you hear the crack of his whip (Mone's Anz. 3, 91).---
Devil's Dikes (59) are explained
by the people as built by the Devil to mark the boundary of his kingdom (Deut.
sag. 188); he is imagined then as the ruler of a neighbouring and hostile kingdom
(a Iötunheimr), nay, as disputing with God the possession of the earth, till
at last they agree to divide it, and the Devil builds the boundary-wall (no.
189). But these devil's walls and devil's ditches alike gather additional significance
for us. The people call the Roman fortifications in Bavaria, Swabia, Franconia
and the Wetterau, not only devil's walls, but pfalgraben, pohlgraben, pfahltöbel
(-mounds), and even simply pfal, pl. pfäle, which is explained as our pfahl,
pale or stake, a word early borrowed from Lat. pälus (Graff 3, 331). But these
walls have no stakes in them, only stones and bricks; it seems more correct
to trace the name to our old friend Phol; the form Wulsgraben, which occurs
in the Wetterau (Dieffenb. Wett. p. 142) and is merely a softened pronunciation
of Phulsgraben, is clearly in favour of it; and we have seen several instances
in which Phol, Pfal, Pful interchange. What is more, in various places the devil's
wall is also called the schweingraben (swinedike), and a remarkable Swabian
folktale says it was scratched up and rooted up out of the ground in the night
by a chanticleer and a hog. (60)
Does not that unmistakably point to pfol the boar (p. 996)? I have scarcely
a doubt that popular tradition and local names will yield some further confirmations.
On this devil's wall the devil is said to come driving on Christmas night (Abh.
der Münchn. acad. 1, 23, conf. 38), as nearly all the heathen gods are astir
from then to Twelfthday. Nor ought we to overlook, that in such districts we
also come across teufelsgraben, dükersgraben, e.g. in Lower Hesse, where Roman
walls never came: any rocks and walls that strike the eye are traced back by
popular imagination either to giants and devils, or to Romans (p. 85) and Hellenes
(p. 534). One piece of rock the Devil puts on as a hat, to shew his enormous
strength; then comes the Saviour, and slips the same on his little finger (Deut.
sag. no. 205), just as Thôrr keeps outdoing the giant (p. 545): doubtless a
fiction of primitive times. But when footprints of the Saviour and the Devil
are pointed out on high cliffs, from which the tempter shewed and offered to
his Lord the landscape invitingly spread out below (DS. 184. 192), that seems
to be founded on the Bible. (61)
Projecting crags are called devil's pulpits (Stald. 2, 85, känzeli, fluhkanzel),
whence he is said to have preached to the assembled people (DS. 190. Bechst.
3, 222); perhaps in olden times a heathen priest stood there, or a divine image?
or are they simply ancient Woden's hills? The devil's beds may be placed by
the side of the Brunhilde beds and the like (see Suppl.). Here I will make room for a few detailed narratives. The Devil
is represented as a masterful giant who will have his tithe and toll: sometimes
he appropriates the first who crosses the bridge, at other times the last. So
from the wheel of fortune (p. 868) he every year made the last pupil drop off,
(62) and took him to himself. A Spanish legend has it,
that there was a cave at Salamanca, where he constantly maintained seven scholars,
on condition that when they had finished their studies, the seventh should pay
the lawing. Once, when a set of students were taking their leave, and the last
was ordered to stay, he pointed to his shadow, saying 'he is the last!' So the
devil had to take the shadow, and the pupil escaping remained without a shadow
all his life. Jamieson gives the details of a Scotch superstition: 'Losing one's
shadow arrives to such as are studying the art of necromancy. When a class of
students have made a certain progress in their mystic studies, they are obliged
to run through a subterraneous hall, where the devil literally catches the hindmost
in the race, unless he crosses the hall so speedily that the Arch-enemy can
only apprehend his shadow. In the latter case the person of the sage never after
throws any shade, and those who have thus lost their shadow always prove the
best magicians.' The devil is cheated of his prey, and has to put up with the
bare shadow, like the dishonest man in the sham penance (RA. 678)
(63) (see Suppl.). That significant Norrland story of the giant Wind and Weather
(p. 548), whose connexion with the Devil is placed beyond a doubt by the observations
on pp. 1000-14, is related by Thiele 1, 45 in the following shape. Esbern Snare
wished to build Kallundborg church, but his means not sufficing, a trold offered
his assistance on condition that, when the church was finished, Esbern should
be able to tell the trold's name, or else forfeit to him his heart and eyes.
The work went rapidly forward, and only half a pillar was wanting, when Esbern
began to be alarmed, because he knew not yet the trold's name. Anxious and sad
he wandered in the fields, when at the top of a rock he heard the voice of a
trold-wife: 'hush, hush, my child, tomorrow comes thy father Fin bringing thee
Esbern Snare's heart and eyes to play with.' Esbern came home comforted; he
stept into the church, the trold was just bringing up the stone shaft that was
still wanting, when Esbern hailed him by the name of Fin! In a rage the trold
shot up into the air with the half-pillar: that is why the church stands on
three pillars and a half only. Finnr is the name of a dwarf in the Edda. ---The
German legend on p. 549 is told thus in Lower Hesse: A peasant on the Ellenbach
(by the Sandershäuser mt. near Cassel) had so much corn to gather in, that he
knew not how to house it all: his barn was to small, and he had not the money
to build a larger. As, thoughtful and anxious, he paced his fields, a gray old
mannikin stept up to him, and asked the reason of his sadness. When the peasant
had told him the plight he was in, Graymannikin smiled and said: 'a barn I would
doubtless build for thee, so roomy that thou canst garner all thy crop therein,
and ere tomorrow's dawn shall it stand ready in thy yard, if thou wilt make
over to me whatsoever hidden property thou ownest.' (64)
The peasant thought of treasures underground, which could do him no good till
they were lifted, and he closed with the stranger's offer: not till he turned
to leave did he notice a cow's foot and horse's foot peep out from under the
gray coat. He went home, and told his wife what had happened to him in the field:
'my God! what hast thou done? I have a child unborn, and thou hast signed it
away to the Evil one.' The moment it was dark, a tremendous din arose in the
farmyard, carters, carpenters, masons working away together, the Devil as architect
directing the whole business, which advanced with incredible speed: a few hours
more, and the barn stood ready built, the roof was thatched, the walls filled
up, only a square or two stood open in the gable. Then the cunning wife, dressed
in her husband's clothes, crept across the yard to the henhouse, clapt her hands,
(65) and mimicked the crow of a cock, and all the cocks
set up a crowing one after the other. The evil spirits scuttled away with a
great uproar, leaving but one gablesquare of the new barn empty: one carter
had just come up with a large stone drawn by four chestnuts, when the Devil
caught him up and smashed him, cart and steeds and all, against the barn; his
figure was printed on the same stone for a remembrance, and may be seen there
now. The barn-gable no human hand has ever been able to close up; what was built
in by day would always fall out again by night. (66)
52. Lausitz. monatsschr. 1797, p. 755-6. Conf. the Flem. oorem, Haupt's Zeitschr. 7, 532. Back 53. It is no contradiction, that in other stories the Devil has the opposite part of Donar with his hammer and bolt handed over to him, or again that of the smith, the limping Hephæstus. A preacher of the 14th cent. (Leyser 77, 10) speaks of the evil devil's blow-bellows. Back 54. Before entering a new house, it is safest to let a cat or dog run in first, Superst. I, 499. Back 55. The devil is shut up in a tower, where he may get out at the top, but only by mounting one stair a day, and there being 365 of them, the journey takes him a whole year. Back 56. A mountain called Teufelsmulin at the source of the rivulet Alp is ment. in Dumbek's Geogr. pagor. p. 79; and a mill Duvelmolen near Soest in Seibertz 1, 622. Bechst. Franken p. 107. Baader's Bad. sag. no. 487. Back 57. By this was meant the old Roman aqueduct (Gelenius de admir. Col. p. 254), of which an equally fabulous account stands in the Annolied 510: 'Triere was ein burg alt, si zierte Rômâre gewalt, dannin man undir der erdin den wîn santi verre, mit steinin rinnin, den hêrrin al ci miunin, di ci Colne wârin sedilhaft.' Back 58. In the Mid. Ages bells were rung to keep off lightning (the heathen Donar) and the devil. Back 59. Dike has the double sense of ditch and earth-wall, both being made by digging; hence also any wall. The Germ. graben, ditch, has in some old words the meaning of wall. ---Trans. Back 60. Prescher's Hist. bl., Stuttg. 1818, p. 67. Where the wall runs over the Kochersberg to the R. Murr, the country people all call it schweingraben. Back 61. Ulrichs in his Journey through Greece 1, 44 gives the story of a devil's stone (logári) from which the Devil preached (logoj). Back 62. 'Da nu einer ins teufels reder sesse, oder gar in sumpf gefallen were, oder des tods schwaden hette ihn ergriffen,' Mathesius 140b. Back 63. Chamisso's Peter Schlemihl rests, no doubt, on a legend substantially the same. Of the homesprite Vollmar, on the contrary, nothing was seen but the shadow, p. 509. Back 64. Höttr (hat, gray hat), i.e. Oðinn (p. 146), after giving Geirhildr his spittle to be the barm of the ale she was brewing (conf. p. 902), demands what is between her and the vat, viz. her unborn child, Fornald. sög. 2, 26. The wilde walrabe (p. 997) requires of the queen 'det du haver under belte dit,' DV. 1, 187. If only for this one incident, I hold the Hessian tale to be of heathen origin. Back 65. Clapping of hands avails in enchantments. Wolfdietr. 1372 says of the heatheness Marpalie: 'sie sluog ir hend ze samen,' and immediately turned into a crow. Back 66. In any church the hole at which the devil has flown out can never be closed. Back << Previous Page Next Page >>
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