Chapter 31
There was once a rich lady of rank, named frau Gauden; so passionately
she loved the chase, that she let fall the sinful word, 'could she but always
hunt, she cared not to win heaven.'' Four and twenty daughters had dame Gauden,
who all nursed the same desire. One day, as mother and daughters, in wild delight,
hunted over woods and fields, and once more that wicked word escaped their lips,
that 'hunting was better than heaven,' lo, suddenly before their mother's eyes
the daughters' dresses turned into tufts of fur, their arms into legs, and four
and twenty bitches bark around the mother's hunting-car, four doing duty as
horses, the rest encircling the carriage; and away goes the wild train up into
the clouds, there betwixt heaven and earth to hunt unceasingly, as they had
wished, from day to day, from year to year. They have long wearied of the wild
pursuit, and lament their impious wish, but they must bear the fruits of their
guilt till the hour of redemption come. Come it will, but who knows when? During
the twölven (for at other times we sons of men cannot perceive her) frau Gauden
directs her hunt toward human habitations; best of all she loves on the night
of Christmas eve or New Year's eve to drive through the village streets, and
wherever she finds a street-door open, she sends a dog in. Next morning a little
dog wags his tail at the inmates, he does them no other harm but that he disturbs
their night's rest by his whining. He is not to be pacified, nor driven away.
Kill him, and he turns into a stone by day, which, if thrown away, comes back
to the house by main force, and is a dog again at night. So he whimpers and
whines the whole year round, brings sickness and death upon man and beast, and
danger of fire to the house; not till the twölven come round again does peace
return to the house. Hence all are careful in the twelves, to keep the great
house-door well locked up after nightfall; whoever neglects it, has himself
to blame if frau Gauden looks him up. That is what happened to the grandparents
of the good people now at Bresegardt. They were silly enough to kill the dog
into the bargain; from that hour there was no 'säg und täg' (segen bless, ge-deihen
thrive), and at length the house came down in flames. Better luck befalls them
that have done dame Gauden a service. It happens at times, that in the darkness
of night she misses her way, and gets to a cross-road. Cross-roads are to the
good lady a stone of stumbling: every time she strays into such, some part of
her carriage breaks, which she cannot herself rectify. In this dilemma she was
once, when she came, dressed as a stately dame, to the bedside of a labourer
at Boeck, awaked him, and implored him to help her in her need. The man was
prevailed on, followed her to the cross-roads, and found one of her carriage
wheels was off. He put the matter to rights, and by way of thanks for his trouble
she bade him gather up in his pockets sundry deposits left by her canine attendants
during their stay at the cross-roads, whether as the effect of great dread or
of good digestion. The man was indignant at the proposal, but was partly soothed
by the assurance that the present would not prove so worthless as he seemed
to think; and incredulous, yet curious, he took some with him. And lo, at daybreak,
to his no small amazement, his earnings glittered like mere gold, and in fact
it was gold. He was sorry now that he had not brought it all away, for in the
daytime not a trace of it was to be seen at the cross-roads. In similar ways
frau Gauden repaid a man at Conow for putting a new pole to her carriage, and
a woman at Göhren for letting into the pole the wooden pivot that supports the
swing-bar: the chips that fell from pole and pivot turned into sheer glittering
gold. In particular, frau Gauden loves young children, and gives them all kinds
of good things, so that when children play at fru Gauden, they sing:
fru Gauden hett mi'n lämmken geven,
darmitt sall ik in freuden leven.
Nevertheless in course of time she left the country; and this
is how it came about. Careless folk at Semmerin had left their street-door wide
open one St. Silvester night; so on New-year's morning they found a black doggie
lying on the hearth, who dinned their ears the following night with an intolerable
whining. They were at their wit's end how to get rid of the unbidden guest.
A shrewd woman put them up to a thing: let them brew all the house-beer through
an 'eierdopp.' They tried the plan; an eggshell was put in the tap-hole of the
brewing-vat, and no sooner had the 'wörp' (fermenting beer) run through it,
than dame Gauden's doggie got up and spoke in a distinctly audible voice: 'ik
bün so old as Böhmen gold, äwerst dat heff ik min leder nicht truht, wenn man
't bier dorch 'n eierdopp bruht,' after saying which he disappeared, and no
one has seen frau Gauden or her dogs ever since (27)
(see Suppl.).
This story is of a piece with many other ancient ones. In the
first place, frau Gauden resembles frau Holda and Berhta, who likewise travel
in the 'twelves,' who in the same way get their vehicles repaired and requite
the service with gold, and who finally quit the country (pp. 268, 274-6). Then
her name is that of frau Gaue, frau Gode, frau Wode (p. 252-3) who seems to
have sprung out of a male divinity fro Woden (p. 156), a matter which is placed
beyond doubt by her identity with Wodan the wild hunter. The very dog that stays
in the house a year, Hakelberg's (p. 921) as well as frau Gauden's, is in perfect
keeping. The astonishment he expresses at seemingly perverse actions of men,
and which induces him, like other ghostly elvish beings, to speak and begone,
is exactly as in the stories given at p. 469.
At the same time the transformation of the wild hunter into goddesses
appears to be not purely arbitrary and accidental, but accounted for by yet
other narratives.
E.M. Arndt (28) tells
the tale of the wild hunter (unnamed) in the following shape: In Saxony there
lived in early times a rich and mighty prince, who loved hunting above all things,
and sharply punished in his subjects any breach of the forest laws. Once when
a boy barked a willow to make himself a whistle, he had his body cut open and
his bowels trained round the tree (RA. 519-20. 690); a peasant having shot at
a stag, he had him fast riveted to the stag. At last he broke his own neck hunting,
by dashing up against a beech-tree; and now in his grave he has no rest, but
must hunt every night. He rides a white horse whose nostrils shoot out sparks,
wears armour, cracks his whip, and is followed by a countless swarm of hounds:
his cry is 'wod wod, hoho, hallo!' (29)
He keeps to forests and lonely heaths, avoiding the common highway; if he happens
to come to a cross-road, down he goes horse and all, and only picks himself
up when past it; he hunts and pursues all manner of weird rabble, thieves, robbers,
murderers and witches.
A Low Saxon legend of the Tilsgraben or devil's hole between Dahlum
and Bokenem (Harrys 1, 6) says, the wild knight Tils was so fond of the chase
that he took no heed of holidays, and one Easter Sunday he had the presumption
to say 'he would bring a beast down that day if it cost him his castle.' At
evening the cock crew out that the castle would sink before night; and soon
after it sank in the lake with all that was in it. A diver once on reaching
the bottom of the lake, saw the ritter Tils sitting at a stone table, old and
hoary, with his white beard grown through the table.
In the Harz the wild chase thunders past the Eichelberg with its
'hoho' and clamour of hounds. Once when a carpenter had the courage to add to
it his own 'hoho,' a black mass came tumbling down the chimney on the fire,
scattering sparks and brands about the people's ears: a huge horse's thigh lay
on the hearth, and the said carpenter was dead. The wild hunter rides a black
headless horse, a hunting whip in one hand and a bugle in the other; his face
is set in his neck, and between the blasts he cries 'hoho hoho;' before and
behind go plenty of women, huntsmen and dogs. At times, they say, he shews himself
kind, and comforts the lost wanderer with meat and drink (Harrys 2, 6).
In Central Germany this ghostly apparition is simply
called the wild huntsman, or has some other and more modern name attached to
him. By Wallrod near Schlüchtern in Hanau country are seen tall basaltic crags
standing up like ruins: there in former times was the wild man's house, and
you may still see his grey gigantic figure make its rounds through the forest,
over heath and field, with crashing and uproar (conf. 432. 482). A Thuringian
story contains (and in a clearer form) that Bavarian chase after the holzweiblein.
The wild hunter pursues the moss-folk, the little wood-wives (30)
he remains unseen, but you hear him bluster in the air, so that it 'crickles
and crackles.' A peasant of Arntschgerente near Saalfeld had the impudence,
when he heard shouting and the bark of dogs in the wood, to put in his tongue
and mimic the huntsmen's cry: the next morning he found the quarter of a little
moss-wife hung up outside his stable door, as if to pay him for his share in
the hunt. (31) 'Dixerunt majores
nostri, tempore melioris et probioris aevi, concubinas sacerdotum in aëre a
daemonibus, non aliter quam feras sylvestres a canibus venaticis, agitari atque
tandem discerptas inveniri: quod si hominum quispiam haec [hanc?] audiens venationem
suo clamore adjuverit, illi partem vel membrum concubinae dissectum ad januam
domus mane a daemonibus suspensum.' Bebelii Facetiae (Tub. 1555) p. 11a. Here
the wood-wives are replaced by priests' wives, but the same may already have
been done in the 13th
cent. folktale. Our German tradition says nothing about the reason
why the airy hunter pursues the wood-wife; (32)
among the people of Upper Germany the wild women themselves play a leading part
in the 'twelve nights,' and in Lent they are part and parcel of this heathenish
spectredom. Even among the Vicentine and Veronese Germans, the keenest sportsman
will not venture on the track of game at the seasons just mentioned, for fear
of the wild man and the wood-wife. No herdman will drive cattle out, the flocks
and herds are watered in the stable, children fetching the water in earthen vessels
from the nearest spring. For the wood-wife the women spin a portion of hair (flax)
on their distaffs, and throw it in the fire as a peace-offering to her (Hormayr's
Tyrol 1, 141). The legend of the wild hunt extends to the Ardennes, and Wolf in
his Niederl. sagen nos. 516-7 (conf. p. 706) justly lays stress on thefact that
the object hunted is usually the boar, that a woodcutter who had taken part in
the hunt was a whole fortnight salting boar's flesh; which reminds us of the boar
of the einheriar (pp. 318, 386), the caro aprina, and the roast boar in the legend
of Walther (Waltharius p. 105); and Hackelberg's dream (p. 921) is about the boar
(see Suppl.). The people dread having to do with these powerful spirits, and
whoever breaks through this backwardness pays for it heavily. The Westphalian
peasant (p. 921) fared worse than he of Saalfeld; so did a tailor in the Münsterland.
When the wild hunt swept over his house, he mocked the hunter by repeating his
huhu, klifklaf after him; then a horse's foot came through the window, and knocked
him off his table, while a terrible voice rang out of the air: 'willstu mit
mir jagen, sollst du mit mir knagen (gnaw)!' DS. no. 309. A girl at Delligsen
by Alfeld (Hildesheim country) tells the tale: Mine mutter vertelle, dat de
helljäger dorch de luft ejaget herre (had been hunting) un jimmer eraupen 'ha
ha! tejif, tejaf, tejaf!' De knechte (labourers) tau Hohne ut'n ganzen dörpe
keimen eins avens to hope, un brochten alle de hunne (dogs) ut'n dörpe mit,
umme dat se den helljäger wat brüen wollen. Da kumte ok dorch de luft en ejaget,
un wie hei ropt 'ha ha!' sau raupt de knechte ok 'ha ha!' un wie de hunne in'r
luft jilpert, sau jilpert un bleft de hunne ut'n dörpe ok alle; do smitt de
helljäger ön wat herunner (somewhat down to them) un schriet: 'wil ji mit jagen,
so könn ji ok mit gnagen!' Ans se den annern (next) morgen tau seien dauet (went
to see), wat ön de helljäger henne smetten herre, da ist'n olen perschinken
(an old gammon of boar).' An Austrian folktale in Ziska's Märchen p. 37 tells
of another fellow who, when the wilde gjoad swept past, had the audacity to
beg for a piece of game to roast; the same in a Nethl. story, Wolf no. 259.
On the other hand, a W. Preussen tale in Tettau and Temme no. 260 says, on the
Bullerberg in the forest of Skrzynka, Stargard circuit, the wild hunter carries
on his operations on Bartholomew's night, and once he flung a man's thigh out
of the air into the head forester's carriage, with the words: 'Something for
you out of our hunt!'
A Meissen folk-tale calls the spectre Hans Jagenteufel
and pictures him as a man booted and spurred, in a long grey coat, with a bugle
over his back, but no head, riding through the wood on a grey horse, DS. no.
309. They also tell of a wild hunter named Mansberg, of what district I do not
know. Swabian stories about Elbendrötsch's (33)
hunting, about the Muotes heer (34),
I should like to know more fully; the castle of junker Marten, a wild hunter
of Baden, stood at the village of Singen by the Pfinz, and his tombstone is
shewn in a chapel on the way to Königsbach; the people in the Bahnwald see him
at night with his dogs (Mone's Anz. 3, 363). Johann Hübner the one-eyed, rides
at midnight on a black horse, DS. no. 128. Other tales of S. Germany give no
names, but simply place at the head of the wild host a white man on a white
horse (Mone's Anz. 7, 370. 8. 306); an old lord of a castle rides a white horse,
which may be seen grazing the meadows, ibid. 3, 259, just as Oden pastured his
steed (p. 155n.). Even Michel Beheim (born 1416) made a meister-song on Eberhart,
count of Wirtenberg, who hears in the forest a 'sudden din and uproar vast,'
then beholds a spectre, who tells him the manner of his damnation. When alive
he was a lord, that never had his fill of hunting, and at last made his request
unto the Lord to let him hunt till the Judgment-day; the prayer was granted,
and these 500 years all but 50, he has hunted a stag that he never can overtake;
his face is wrinkled as a sponge. (35)
This is only another form of the L. Saxon legend of Hackelberg (see Suppl.).
ENDNOTES:
27. Lisch, Meckl. jb. 8, 202-5. In the Prignitz they tell the same story of frau Gode, Ad. Kuhn no. 217. Back
28. Märchen und jugenderinnerungen 1, 401-4. Back
29. 'Hoho, woit gut!' AW. 3, 144-5. Both wod and woit seem to me to refer to Wôdan, Wuotan, as exclamations are apt to contain the names of gods. Back
30. These moosleute and holzweibel belong to the class of wood-sprites (p. 483), forming a link between them and dwarfs; it is Voigtland legend that knows most about them. They look like three year old children, keep on friendly terms with men, and make them presents. They often help at haymaking, feed cattle, and sit down to table with men. At flax-harvest the countryman leaves three handfuls of flax lying in the field for the holzweibel (conf. pp. 448. 509); and in felling trees, during the brief time that the noise of the falling tree lasts, he marks three crosses on the trunk with his axe: in the triangle formed by these crosses the holzweibel sit and have respite from the wild hunter, who at all times is shy of the cross (conf. Deut. sag. no. 47). But Voigtland tradition makes the wild hunter himself have the figure of a small man hideously overgrown with moss, who roamed about in a narrow glen a league long (Jul. Schmidt 140). In the Riesengebirg the night-spirit is said to chase before him the rüttelweibchen, who can only find protection under a tree at the felling of which the words 'Gott walt's!' (not 'walt's Gott!) were uttered, Deut. sag. no. 270. Back
31. Deut. sag. no. 48. Jul. Schmidt p. 143; conf. no. 301, where the dwarf hangs a chamois before the huntsman's door. Back
32. See below, the story from Boccaccio and that of Grönjette. Back
33. Gräter's Iduna 1813, p. 88: 1814, p. 102. Conf. 'elbentrötsch' p. 461. Back
34. Wagner's Madame Justitia p. 22. Schmid's Wörtb. 391 'stürmet wia 's Muthesheer' 'seia verschrocka wia wenn (scared as if) 's Muathesheer anen vorbeizoga wär,' Neflen's Vetter aus Schwaben (Stutg. 1837), pp. 154, 253. Is it a corrup. of 'Wuotes hör,' Schm. 4, 202, like potz, kotz (p. 15)? or is it muot (ira) = wuot? Conf. Frômuot, p. 891. Back
35. Von der Hagen's (etc.) Sammlung (etc.) 1, 43-4.
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