Chapter 33
The hill where the gray man first appeared to the peasant is called Teufelsberg. ---Not far from Römhild stand the Gleichberge, high basaltic hills, one of which has its top encircled by a double ring of stones irregularly piled. Here the Devil once carried a wall round the castle of a knight, having bargained for the hand of his lordship's daughter. But before daybreak the young lady's nurse slapped her knees loudly with her hands, the cocks began to crow, and the devil lost his bet. Exasperated he destroyed his own work, therefore you see only ruins of the wall. Another version of the story (Bechst. Franken p. 261) is, that the nurse, having overheard the compact, stole out at early morn with a dark latern to the hen-roost; the cock, suddenly seeing the light, thought it was day, and crowed with all his might. (67) ---A mill at Coslitz being badly off for water, the Devil undertook to provide it with plenty by daybreak, before the cock should crow; the miller in return bound himself to give up his handsome daughter. In one night therefore the devil had nearly finished cutting the conduit from the Elbe to Coslitz, when the miller repented, and, some say by imitating the cock's cry, others by knocking his leather apron, made the cock crow before his time, whereupon the devil departed in anger, and the trench remained unfinished, Mitth. des Sächs. vereins, Dresd. 1835. 1, 11. ---At Geertsbergen in W. Flanders there goes a similar story of a devil's barn (duivelschuer), and here too the farmer is saved by the cunning of his wife: lang voor dat de haen gewoon is te kraeyen, sprong zy het bed uit, en liep naer buiten, waer zy een onnoemlyk getal werklieden bezig zag met de schuer op te maken, aen dewelke nog slechts een gedeelte van den zymuer ontbrak. Zy plaetste haren mond tusschen hare handen, en schreeuwde zoo schel als zy maer kon: ''oekeloren haen!' en alle de hanen in de rondte lieten hun eerste morgen-geschrei hooren. Het werkvolk was verdwenen, en de schuer stond er, doch met dien onvoltrokken gevel; men heft herhaelde malen beproefd het gat te stoppen: telkens komt Satan het's nachts openbreken, uit weerwraek dat de ziel van den boer hem zoo loos ontsnapt is. (68)
The Esthonians call a farm-servant who has charge of the barns
and grains 'riegenkerl.' Once a riegenkerl sat casting metal buttons, when the
Devil walked up to him, said good day, and asked, 'what are you doing there?'
'I am casting eyes.' 'Eyes? could you cast me a new pair?' 'Oh yes, but I've
no more left just now.' 'But will you another time?' 'Yes, I can,' said the
riegenkerl. 'When shall I come again?' 'When you please.' So the devil came
next day to have eyes cast for him. The riegenkerl said, 'Do you want them large
or small?' 'Very large indeed.' Then the man put plenty of lead over the fire
to melt, and said, 'I can't put them in as you are, you must let me tie you
down.' He told him to lie down on his back on the bench, took some stout cords,
and bound him very tight. Then the devil asked, 'what name do you go by?' 'Issi
(self) is my name.' 'A good name that, I never heard a better.' By this time
the lead was melted, and the devil opened his eyes wide, waiting for the new
ones. 'Now for it!' said the riegenkerl, and poured the hot lead into the devil's
eyes; the devil sprang up with the bench on his back, and ran away. He was running
past some ploughmen in the fields, who asked him, 'whose done that to you?'
He answered, 'issi teggi' (self did it). The men laughed and said, 'self done,
self have.' But he died of his new eyes, and nobody has ever seen the devil
since. (69) In this tale the Devil
is more a blundering giant than the malignant Foe of mankind; his blinding and
the name Issi reminds us of Homer's Polyphemus and Outij, as well as of the
oriental Depêghöz (p. 554). In our nursery-tale (KM. 2, 481, conf. Altd. bl.
1, 122) the giant's eyes are scalded out with oil, and in Lith. the devil is
called Aklatis, the blind, blinded. When other Esthonian tales explain thunder
by saying the devil is pursued by God, and fleeing for refuge to the rocks,
is smitten down (Superst. M, 61. 64); here also God resembles the Scand. Thôrr,
and the Devil a iötunn whom he slays (see Suppl.).
It is a vital part of the machinery of medieval poetry, for heroes
to be transported by the Devil through the air from distant countries to their
home, when there is urgent need of their presence there: some marriage is contemplated,
that would rob them of wife or lover. Thus king Charles (in the Spagna, canto
xxi) rides a devil, converted into a horse, from the East to France in one night;
later legends make an angel appear to him instead, and shew him a strong horse,
DS. no. 439. The angel visits the gentle Möringer in like distress (no. 523).
But Henry the Lion and Gerhart (Caes. Heisterb. 8, 59) travel with the devil's
aid. The mere fact that angel and devil can change places here, shews that no
evil spirit was originally meant; it is no other than Wuotan carrying through
the clouds his foster-son (p. 146); and so we get at the real meaning of the
question, what devil brings you here? A devil carries a belated canon from Bayeux
to Rome in time for pontifical mass; and by the same magic Klinsor and Ofterdingen
get from Hungary to the Wartburg.
There is no surer test of the mythic element having a deep foundation,
than its passing into the Beast-fable. The Esthonian tale of the man and the
bear going halves in the cultivation and produce of a field (Reinh. cclxxxviii),
which turns on the same distinction of upper and under growth that we saw at
p. 715, is told in our KM. no. 189 of a peasant and the devil, and in this form
we find it as early as Rabelais bk 4, cap. 45-47. Rückert's Poems p. 75 (Gödeke
2, 416) give it from an Arabian tradition, the source of which I should like
to learn; while the Dan. story in Thiele 4, 122 relates it of a peasant and
a trold. The common folk in Normandy have to this day a legend of their Mont
St. Michel, how Michael and the Devil disputed which could build the finer church.
The devil builds one of stone, Michael constructs a handsomer one of ice; when
that melts they both agree to till the soil, the devil choosing the upper herbs,
and Michael keeping what hides in the ground. In all these tales, the bear,
giant, troll or devil is the party outwitted, like the giant who built the castle
for the gods (see Suppl.).
Lastly, the old-heathen nature of the Devil is proved by animals
and plants being named after him, as they are after gods and giants (p. 532).
The libellula grandis, dragonfly, a delicate slender-limbed insect, is called
both enchanted maid and devil's horse, devil's bride, devil's nag, Dan. fandens
ridehest; in the I. of Mors a beetle, meloe proscarabaeus, fannens riihejst
(Schade p. 215); in Switz. the libellula, devil's needle, devil's hairpin, and
the caterpillar devil's cat. (70)
In the vale of Rimella the black snail, tiufulsnakke, and a tiny black beetle
s' bözios ajo, the evil one's mother, Albr. Schott pp. 275. 334, a counterpart
to the Marienkäfer, p. 694, but also suggestive both of 'devil's needle' and
of Loki's mother Nâl, p. 246; so that Dona-nadel (p. 490n.) may be correct,
as the name of an evil river-sprite. In Holland some herb, I know not which,
is called duivels naai-garen (sewing yarn). The alcyonium digitatum or palmatum
is devil's hand, manus diaboli, thief's hand, Engl. devil's hand or deadman's
hand, Nethl. doode mans hand, oude mans hand, Fr. main de diable, main de ladre,
de larron, conf. Forneotes folme, p. 240. Lycopodium clavatum, devil's claw;
euphorbia, devil's milk; clematis vitalba, devil's thread; scabiosa succisa,
devil's bite, Boh. …ert-kus; adonis, devil's eye; convolvulus arvensis, devil's
gut, etc., etc. (71) Probably the
folktales of an earlier time knew the exact reasons of such names, conf. Superst.
I, nos. 189, 190. 476. The thunderbolt, the elf-shot, was also called devil's
finger, pp. 179. 187 (see Suppl.).
In such various ways has a Being who, taken altogether, was unknown
to the heathen, pushed himself into the place of their gods, spirits, and giants,
and united in himself a number of similar or conflicting attributes. He resembles
Wuotan as the grayman and the cloaked wild hunter, who rides and carries through
the air; as sowing discord, playing dice, and taking into his service men that
vow themselves to him. His red beard, his hammer and bolt recall Donar. Phol
and Zio are connected with the storm-wind, and the former with devil's buildings.
As for giants, their whole being has most things in common with that of the
Devil.
Notes:
67. Same incident in a Thuringian story, Bechst. 3, 224. Back
68. Kunst en letterblad, Ghent 1840. p. 7; and from it Wolf no. 187, who gives similar stories in no. 186 and note p. 686. Back
69. Rosenplänter's Beiträge, part 6, p. 61. The devil's being buried by beasts is not in point here. Back
70. Caterpillars, through shedding their skins, becoming pupæ, and gradually changing from creeping and dead-like creatures into flying ones, have something uncanny, ghostly in them. Back
71. Hypericum perforatum, devil's flight, because it drives him away: 'dosten, harthun, weisse heid, thun dem teufel vieles leid.' Back
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