attendance on the real gift-giver, the infant Christ or dame Berhta: while these dole out their favours, those come on with rod and sack, threatening to thrash disobedient children, to throw them into the water, to puff their eyes out (Rockenphilos. 6, 353). Their pranks, their roughness, act as foil to the gracious higher being from whom the gifts proceed; they are almost as essential to the festival as Jackpudding to our old comedy. I can well imagine that even in heathen times the divinity, whose appearing heralded a happy time, had at his side some merry elf or dwarf as his attendant embodying to the vulgar eye the blessings that he brought. Strongly in favour of this view are the North Franconian names Hullepöpel (Popowitsch 522), Hollepeter (Schm. 2, 174), the Bavarian Semper, of whom they say he cuts naughty children's bodies open and stuffs them with pebbles (Schm. 3, 12. 250), exactly after the manner of Holla and Berhta (p. 273); and consider faithful Eckart, who escorts Holla. In Christian times they would at first choose some saint to accompany the infant Christ or the mother of God in their distribution of boons, but the saint would imperceptibly degenerate into the old goblin again, but now a coarser one. The Christmas plays sometimes present the Saviour with His usual attendant Peter, or else with Niclas, at other times however Mary with Gabriel, or with her aged Joseph, who, disguised as a peasant, acts the part of knecht Ruprecht. Nicolaus again has converted himself into a man Clobes' or Rupert; as a rule, it is true, there is still a Niclas, a saintly bishop and benevolent being, distinct from the 'man' who scares children; but the characters get mixed, and Clobes by himself acts the 'man' (Tobler 105", 106); the Austrian Grampus (Höfer 1, 313. Schm. 2, 110), Krämpus, Krambas, is possibly for Hieronymus, but how to explain the Swiss Schmutzli (Stald. 2, 337) I do not rightly know, perhaps simply from his smutty sooty aspect? Instead of Grampus there is also in Styria a Bärthel (pointing to Berhta, or Bartholomew ?) Schmutzbartel and Klaubauf, who rattles, rackets, and 6 1 Heinrich and Ruprecht were once common names for serving-men, as Hans and Claus are now. 2 Zember about Eger in German Bohemia (Popowitsch 523); at the same time the Lausitz idol Sompar (supra, p. 71 note) is worth considering. 3 The phrase he knows where Barthel gets his must,' notwithstanding other explanations, may refer to a home-sprite well-known in the cellar. throws nuts (Denis, Lesefr. 1, 131; see Suppl.). Further, on this point I attach weight to the Swedish jullekar, Dan. juleleger, yule-lays, undoubtedly of heathen origin, which at Christmastime present Christ and certain saints, but replace our man Ruprecht by a julbock, julebuk, i.e. a manservant disguised as a goat. This interweaving of jackpudding, fool, Klobes and Rüpel, of the yule-buck and at last of the devil himself, into the rude popular drama of our Mid. Ages, shows what an essential part of it the wihtels and tatermans formerly were, how ineradicable the elvish figures and characters of heathenism. The Greeks enlivened the seriousness of their tragedy by satyric plays, in which e.g. Proteus, similar to our sea-sprite (p. 434), played a leading part.2 There is yet another way in which a former connexion between gods, wise-women and these genii now and then comes to light. The elf who showers his darts is servant or assistant to the high god of thunder, the cunning dwarf has forged his thunderbolts for him; like gods, they wear divine helmets of invisibility, and the home-sprite has his feet miraculously shod as well; watersprites can assume the shape of fishes and sea-horses, and homesprites those of cats. The weeping nix, the laughing goblin are alike initiated in the mystery of magic tones, and will even unveil it to men that sacrifice. An ancient worship of genii and daemons is proved by sacrifices offered to spirits of the mountain, the wood, the lake, the house. Goblins, we may presume, accompanied the manifestation of certain deities among men, as Wuotan and Holda, and both of these deities are also connected with watersprites and swan-maids. Foreknowledge of the future, the gift of prophecy, was proper to most genii; their inexhaustible cheerfulness stands between the sublime serenity of gods 1 Read Holberg's Julestue, and look up julvätten in Finn Magn. lexicon, p. 326 note. 2 They frightened children with sooty Cyclops, and acc. to Callimachus (Hymn to Diana 66-71), Hermes, like our Ruprecht blackened with soot, struck terror into disobedient daughters even of gods: ἀλλ ̓ ὅτε κουράων τις ἀπειθέα μητέρι τεύχοι, and the solemn fates of mortals. They feel themselves drawn to men, and repelled by them. The downfall of heathenism must have wrought great changes in the old-established relationship: the spirits acquired a new and terrible aspect as ministers and messengers of Satan.1 Some put on a more savage look that savours of the giant, especially the woodsprites. Grendel's nature borders on those of giants and gods. Not so with the females however: the wild women and female nixes drop into the class of fortune-telling swan-maids who are of human kind, while the elfins that present the drinking-horn melt into the circle of valkyrs; and here again we recognise a general beauty pervading all the female spirits, and raising them above the males, whose characteristics come out more individually. In wichtels, dwarfs and goblins, especially in that children's bugbear the man Ruprecht, there shews itself a comic faculty derived from the oldest times. Through the whole existence of elves, nixes, and goblins there runs a low under-current of the unsatisfied, disconsolate: they do not rightly know how to turn their glorious gifts to account, they always require to lean upon men. Not only do they seek to renovate their race by intermarriage with mankind, they also need the counsel and assistance of men in their affairs. Though acquainted in a higher degree than men with the hidden virtues of stones and herbs, they yet invoke human aid for their sick and their women in labour (pp. 457. 492), they borrow men's vessels for baking and brewing (p. 454 n.), they even celebrate their weddings and hightides in the halls of men. Hence too their doubting whether they can be partakers of salvation, and their unconcealed grief when a negative answer is given. 1 Bruder Rausch (friar Rush) a veritable goblin, is without hesitation [described as being] despatched from hell among the monks; his name is to be derived from russ=fuligo (as kohlrausch was formerly spelt kolruss). CHAPTER XVIII. GIANTS. The relation in which giants stand to dwarfs and men has been touched upon in p. 449. By so much of bodily size and strength as man surpasses the elf or dwarf, he falls short of the giant; on the other hand, the race of elves and dwarfs has a livelier intellect and subtler sense than that of men, and in these points again the giants fall far below mankind. The rude coarsegrained giant nature is defiant in its sense of material power and might, the sly shy dwarf is conscious of his mental superiority. To man has been allotted a happy mean, which raises him above the giant's intractableness and the dwarf's cunning, and betwixt the two he stands victorious. The giant both does and suffers wrong, because in his stupidity he undervalues everybody, and even falls foul of the gods; 1 the outcast dwarf, who does discern good and evil, lacks the right courage for free and independent action. In order of creation, the giant as the sensuous element came first, next followed the spiritual element of elvish nature, and lastly the human race restored the equilibrium. The abruptness of these gradations is a good deal softened down by the giants or dwarfs forming frequent alliances with men, affording clear evidence that ancient fiction does not favour steep contrasts : the very earliest giants have sense and judgment ascribed to them (see Suppl.). On one side we see giants forming a close tie of brotherhood or servile dependence with human heroes, on the other side shading off into the type of schrats and woodsprites. There is a number of ancient terms corresponding in sense to our present word riese (giant).2 1 Not a trace of the finer features of gods is to be seen in the Titans. O. Müller's Proleg. 373. 2 Some are mere circumlocutions (a counterpart to those quoted on p. 450): der grôze man, Er. 5380. der michel man, Er. 5475. der michel knabe, Iw. 5056. The oldest and most comprehensive term in Norse is iötunn, pl. iötnar (not jötunn, jötnar); it is backed up by an AS. eoten, pl. eotenas, Beow. 223 (eotena cyn, 836. eotonisc, 5953), or eten, Lye sub v.; OE. etin, ettin, Nares sub v.; Scot. ettyn, eyttyn, Jamieson sub v.; an OS. etan, eten can be inferred with certainty from the name of a place in old docs., Etanasfeld, Etenesfeld (campus gigantis), Wigand's Archiv i. 4, 85. Möser nos. 2. 13. 18. 19. And what is more, the word must have lived on in later times, down to the latest, for I find the fem. eteninne (giantess) preserved at least in nursery-tales. Laurenberg (ed. Lappenberg, p. 26)1 has 'de olde eteninne,' and another Rostock book of the beginning of the 18th century 2 die alte eteninne'; I should like to know whence Adelung sub v. mummel gets the fact, that in Westphalia a certain terrible female with whom they frighten children is called etheninne? I have no doubt it is correct. The Saxon etan warrants us in conjecturing an OHG. ëzan, ëzzan, a Goth. ïtans, having for root the ON. eta, AS. etan, OHG. ezzan, Goth. ïtan (edere), and for meaning edo (gen. edonis), manducus, πoλvpáɣos, devourer. An AS. poem in Cod. exon. 425, 26 says: 'ic mesan mæg meahtelîcor and efn etan ealdum þyrre,' I can chew and eat more mightily than an old giant. Now the question arises, whether another word, which wants the suffix -n, has any business here, namely the ON. iotr,3 AS. eot, now only to be found in the compound Forniotr, Forneot (p. 240) and the national name Iotar, the Jutes? One thing that makes for it is the same omission of -n in the Swed. jätte (gigas), Dan. jette, pl. jetter; then, taking iötnar as = iotar (Goth. ïtanôs =ïtôs), we should be justified in explaining the names Jotar, Jotland by an earlier (gigantic?) race whom the advancing Teutons crowded out of the peninsula. In that case we might expect an OS. et, etes, an OHG. ez, ezes, with the 1 Johann Laurenberg, a Rostock man, b..1590, d. 1658. The first ed. of his poem appeared 1652. 2 Ern. Joach. Westphal, De consuetudine ex sacco et libro, Rost. 1726. 8. pp. 224-5; the catalogue there given of old stories of women is copied in Joh. Pet. Schmidt's Fastelabendssamlungen, Rostock (1742) 4. resp. 1752, p. 22, but here incorrectly' von der Arden Inn instead of Westphal's 'von der alten Eten Inne.' For iötr, as miolk for miölk, see Gramm. 1, 451. 482. 4 Beda 1, 15 has Juti, which the AS. version mistakenly renders Geátas (the ON. Gautar), though at 4, 16 it more correctly gives Eotaland for Jutorum terra, and the Sax. Chron. (Ingr. p. 14) has Iotum for Iutis, Iutnacynn for Iutorum gens. VOL. II. G |