This reminds us of Holger Danske, who once wanted a new suit of clothes. Twelve tailors were employed: they set ladders to his back and shoulders, as was done to Gulliver, and they measured away; but the man that was highest on the right side ladder chanced, as he was cutting a mark in the measure, to clip Holger's ear. Holger, forgetting what it was, hastily put up his hand to his head, caught the poor tailor, and crushed him to death between his fingers.

[196] This tale was taken from oral recitation by Dr. Grimm, and inserted in Hauff's Märchenalmanach for 1827. Dr. Grimm's fidelity to tradition is too well known to leave any doubt of its genuineness.

[197] Aslög (Light of the Aser) is the name of the lovely daughter of Sigurd and Brynhilda, who became the wife of Ragnar Lodbrok. How beautiful and romantic is the account in the Volsunga Saga of old Heimer taking her, when an infant, and carrying her about with him in his harp, to save her from those who sought her life as the last of Sigurd's race; his retiring to remote streams and waterfalls to wash her, and his stilling her cries by the music of his harp!

[198] This is Saint Oluf or Olave, the warlike apostle of the North.

[199] A legend similar to this is told of Saint Oluf in various parts of Scandinavia. The following is an example:—As he was sailing by the high strand-hills in Hornsherred, in which a giantess abode, she cried out to him,

Oluf was incensed, and instead of guiding the ship through the rocks, he turned it toward the hill, replying:

and scarcely had he spoken when the hill burst and the giantess was turned into stone. She is still seen sitting on the east side with her rock and spindle; out of the opposite mass sprang a holy well. Grimm. Deutsche Mythologie, p. 516.

[200] Nisse, Grimm thinks (Deut. Mythol. p. 472) is Niels, Nielsen, i. e.

Nicolaus, Niclas, a common name in Germany and the North, which is also contracted to Klas, Claas.

[201] Wilse ap Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 479, who thinks he may have confounded the Nis with the Nöck.

[202] The places mentioned in the following stories are all in Jutland. It is remarkable that we seem to have scarcely any Nis stories from Sweden.

[203] This story is current in Germany, England, and Ireland. In the German story the farmer set fire to his barn to burn the Kobold in it. As he was driving off, he turned round to look at the blaze, and, to his no small mortification, saw the Kobold behind him in the cart, crying "It was time for us to come out—it was time for us to come out!"

[204] Afzelius, Sago Häfdar. , ii. 169. On Christmas-morning, he says, the peasantry gives the Tomte, his wages, i. e.

a piece of grey cloth, tobacco, and a shovelful of clay.

[205] Berg signifies a larger eminence, mountain, hill; Hög, a height, hillock. The Hög-folk are Elves and musicians.

[206] The Danish peasantry in Wormius' time described the Nökke (Nikke) as a monster with a human head, that dwells both in fresh and salt water. When any one was drowned, they said, Nökken tog ham bort (the Nökke took him away); and when any drowned person was found with the nose red, they said the Nikke has sucked him: Nikken har suet ham.—Magnusen, Eddalære. Denmark being a country without any streams of magnitude, we meet in the Danske Folkesagn no legends of the Nökke; and in ballads, such as "The Power of the Harp," what in Sweden is ascribed to the Neck, is in Denmark imputed to the Havmand or Merman.

[207] The Neck is also believed to appear in the form of a complete horse, and can be made to work at the plough, if a bridle of a particular description be employed.—Kalm's Vestgötha Resa.

[208] Afzelius, Sago-häfdar, ii. 156.

[209]

[210] As sung in West Gothland and Vermland.

[211] Fosse is the North of England force.

[212] Or a white kid, Faye ap. Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 461.

[213] The Strömkarl has eleven different measures, to ten of which alone people may dance; the eleventh belongs to the night spirit his host. If any one plays it, tables and benches, cans and cups, old men and women, blind and lame, even the children in the cradle, begin to dance. —Arndt. ut sup. , see above p.

80.

[214] In the Danske Viser and Folkesagn there are a few stories of Mermen, such as Rosmer Havmand and Marstig's Daughter, both translated by Dr. Jamieson, and Agnete and the Merman, which resembles Proud Margaret. It was natural, says Afzelius, that what in Sweden was related of a Hill King, should, in Denmark, be ascribed to a Merman.

[215] The appearance of the Wood-woman (Skogsfru) or Elve-woman, is equally unlucky for hunters. She also approaches the fires, and seeks to seduce young men.

[216] Arvidsson, ii. 320, ap. Grimm, p. 463.

[217] This is a ballad from Småland. Magnus was the youngest son of Gustavus Vasa. He died out of his mind. It is well known that insanity pervaded the Vasa family for centuries.

[218] This was plainly a theory of the monks. It greatly resembles the Rabbinical account of the origin of the Mazckeen, which the reader will meet in the sequel.

Some Icelanders of the present day say, that one day, when Eve was washing her children at the running water, God suddenly called her. She was frightened, and thrust aside such of them as were not clean. God asked her if all her children were there, and she said, Yes; but got for answer, that what she tried to hide from God should be hidden from man. These children became instantly invisible and distinct from the rest. Before the flood came on, God put them into a cave and closed up the entrance.

From them are descended all the underground-people. —Magnussen, Eddalære.

[219] This was one Janus Gudmund, who wrote several treatises on this and similar subjects, particularly one "De Alfis et Alfheimum," which the learned bishop characterises as a work "nullins pretii, et meras nugas continens. " We might, if we were to see it, be of a different opinion. Of Janus Gudmund Brynj Svenonius thus expresses himself to Wormius: Janus Gudmundius, ære dirutus verius quam rude donatus, sibi et aliis inutilis in angulo consenuit. Worm. , Epist.

, 970.

[220] The Icelandic dwarfs, it would appear, wore red clothes. In Nial's Saga (p. 70), a person gaily dressed (i litklædum) is jocularly called Red-elf (raud-álfr).

[221] There was a book of prophecies called the Kruckspá, or Prophecy of Kruck, a man who was said to have lived in the 15th century. It treated of the change of religion and other matters said to have been revealed to him by the Dwarfs. Johannæus says it was forged by Brynjalf Svenonius in or about the year 1660.

[222] Finni Johannæi Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiæ, tom. ii. p. 368. Havniæ, 1774.

We believe we might safely add, is held at the present day, for the superstition is no more extinct in Iceland than elsewhere.

[223] Svenska Visor, iii. 128. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. , p.

458. At Bahus, in Sweden, a clever man contrived to throw on him an ingeniously made bridle so that he could not get away, and he ploughed all his land with him. One time the bridle fell off and the Neck, like a flash of fire, sprang into the lake and dragged the harrow down with him. Grimm, ut sup. , see p.

148.

[224] Færoæ et Færoa reserata. Lond. 1676.

[225] Thiele, iii. 51, from the MS. Travels of Svaboe in the Feroes.

[226] Description of the Shetland Islands. Edinburgh, 1822.

[227] Edmonston's View, &c., of Zetland Islands. Edin. 1809.

[228] We need hardly to remind the reader that in what precedes Dr. Hibbert is to be regarded as the narrator in 1822.

[229] Edmonston, ut supra.

[230] Dr. Hibbert says he could get but little satisfaction from the Shetlanders respecting this submarine country.

[231] Stacks or skerries are bare rocks out in the sea.

[232] A voe is a small bay.

[233] See below, Germany.

[234] Description of Orkney, Zetland, &c. Edin. 1703.

[235] Reg. Scot. Discoverie of Witchcraft, b. 2. c.

4. Lond. 1665.

[236] Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. p. 367.

[237] Arndt, Märchen und Jugenderinnerungen. Berlin, 1818.

[238] See above p. 96.

[239] A Danish legend (Thiele, i. 79) tells the same of the sand-hills of Nestved in Zealand. A Troll who dwelt near it wished to destroy it, and for that purpose he went down to the sea-shore and filled his wallet with sand and threw it on his back. Fortunately there was a hole in the wallet, and so many sand-hills fell out of it, that when he came to Nestved there only remained enough to form one hill more. Another Troll, to punish a farmer filled one of his gloves with sand, which sufficed to cover his victim's house completely.

With what remained in the fingers he formed a row of hillocks near it.

[240] Grimm, Deut. Myth., p. 502.

[241] Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, i. p. 70.

[242] Grimm also appears to regard them as genuine.

[243] The population of Lusatia (Lausatz) is like that of Pomerania and Rügen, Vendish. Hence, perhaps, it is that in the Lusatian tale of the Fairy-sabbath, we meet with caps with bells, and a descent into the interior of a mountain in a kind of boat as in this tale: Wilcomm, Sagen und Märchen aus der Oberlausitz. Hanov. 1843. Blackwood's Magazine for June, 1844.

[244] Hinrich Vick's of course, for he is the narrator.

[245] The only remnant is Alp, the nightmare; the elfen of modern writers is merely an adoption of the English elves.

[246] The edition of this poem which we have used, is that by Schönhuth, Leipzig, 1841.

[247] Tarn from taren, to dare, says Dobenek, because it gave courage along with invisibility. It comes more probably we think from the old German ternen, to hide. Kappe is properly a cloak, though the Tarnkappe or Nebelkappe is generally represented as a cap, or hat.

[248] From hehlen, to conceal.

[249] Horny Siegfred; for when he slew the dragon, he bathed himself in his blood, and became horny and invulnerable everywhere except in one spot between his shoulders, where a linden leaf stuck. In the Nibelungen Lied, (st. 100), Hagene says,

[250] MM. Grimm thought at one time that this name was properly Engel, and that it was connected with the chances of Alp, Alf, to Engel (see above, p. 67). They query at what time the dim Engelein first came into use, and when the angels were first represented under the form of children—a practice evidently derived from the idea of the Elves. In Otfried and other writers of the ninth and tenth centuries, they say, the angels are depicted as young men; but in the latter half of the thirteenth, a popular preacher named Berthold, says: Ir schet wol daz si allesamt sint juncliche gemälet; als ein kint daz dá vünf jâr all ist swâ man sie mâlet.

[251] Elberich, (the Albrich of the Nibelungen Lied,) as we have said (above p. 40), is Oberon. From the usual change of l into u (as al, au, col, cou, etc. ), in the French language, Elberich or Albrich (derived from Alp, Alf) becomes Auberich; and ich not being a French termination, the diminutive on was substituted, and so it became Auberon, or Oberon; a much more likely origin than the usual one from L'aube du jour. For this derivation of Oberon we are indebted to Dr.

Grimm.

[252] Probably Saida, i.e. Sidon.

[253] i. e. Mount Tabor.

[254] This may have suggested the well-known circumstance in Huon de Bordeaux.