Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 345, July, 1844

"In the duchy of Lorraine, when it belonged, as it long did, to Germany, the last count of Orgewiler ruled betwixt Nanzig and Luenstadt.[26 - LUNEVILLE.] He had no male heir of his blood, and upon his deathbed, shared his lands amongst his three daughters and sons-in-law. Simon of Bestein had married the eldest daughter, the lord of Crony the second, and a German Rhinegrave the youngest. Beside the lordships, he also distributed to his heirs three presents; to the eldest daughter a BUSHEL, to the middle one a DRINKING-CUP, and to the third a jewel, which was a RING, with an admonition that they and their descendants should carefully hoard up these pieces, so should their houses be constantly fortunate."

The tradition, how the things came into the possession of the count, the Marshal of Bassenstein,[27 - BASSOMPIERRE.] great-grandson of Simon, does himself relate thus:—[28 - Mémoires du Maréchal de BASSOMPIERRE: Cologne, 1666. Vol. I. PP. 4-6. The Marshal died in 1646.]

"The count was married: but he had beside a secret amour with a marvellous beautiful woman, which came weekly to him every Monday, into a summer-house in the garden. This commerce remained long concealed from his wife. When he withdrew from her side, he pretended to her, that he went, by night, into the Forest, to the Stand.

"But when a few years had thus passed, the countess took a suspicion, and was minded to learn the right truth. One summer morning early, she slipped after him, and came to the summer bower. She there saw her husband, sleeping in the arms of a wondrous fair female; but because they both slept so sweetly, she would not awaken them; but she took her veil from her head, and spread it over the feet of both, where they lay asleep.

"When the beautiful paramour awoke, and perceived the veil, she gave a loud cry, began pitifully to wail, and said:—

"'Henceforwards, my beloved, we see one another never more. Now must I tarry at a hundred leagues' distance away, and severed from thee.'

"Therewith she did 1eave the count, but presented him first with those afore-named three gifts for his three daughters, which they should never let go from them.

"The House of Bassenstein, for long years, had a toll, to draw in fruit, from the town of Spinal,[29 - EPINAL.] whereto this Bushel was constantly used."

THE HOUSEHOLD SPIRIT DOES HOUSEHOLD SERVICE IN A MILL.

No. LXXIII. The Kobold in the Mill

"Two students did once fare afoot from Rintel. They purposed putting up for the night in a village; but for as much as there did a violent rain fall, and the darkness grew upon them, so as they might no further forward, they went up to a near-lying mill, knocked, and begged a night's quarters. The miller was, at the first, deaf, but yielded, at the last, to their instant entreaty, opened the door, and brought them into a room. They were hungry and thirsty both; and because there stood upon a table a dish with food, and a mug of beer, they begged the miller for them, being both ready and willing to pay; but the miller denied them—would not give them even a morsel of bread, and only the hard bench for their night's bed.

"'The meat and the drink,' said he, 'belong to the Household Spirit. If ye love your lives, leave them both untouched. But else have ye no harm to fear. If there chance a little din in the night, be ye but still and sleep.'

"The two students laid themselves down to sleep; but after the space of an hour or the like, hunger did assail the one so vehemently that he stood up and sought after the dish. The other, a Master of Arts, warned him to leave to the Devil what was the Devil's due; but he answered, 'I have a better right than the Devil to it'—seated himself at the table, and ate to his heart's content, so that little was left of the cookery. After that, he laid hold of the can, took a good Pomeranian pull, and having thus somewhat appeased his desire, he laid himself again down to his companion; but when, after a time, thirst anew tormented him, he again rose up, and pulled a second so hearty draught, that he left the Household Spirit only the bottoms. After he had thus cheered and comforted himself, he lay down and fell asleep.

"All remained quiet on to midnight; but hardly was this well by, when the Kobold came banging in with so loud coil,[30 - Exactly so, the hairy THRESHING Goblin of Milton—at going out, again:—"Till, cropful, out o' door HE FLINGS."He, too, is paid for his work, with——"his CREAM-BOWL, duly set."] that both sleepers awoke in great fright. He bounced a few times to and fro about the room, then seated himself as if to enjoy his supper at the table, and they could plainly hear how he pulled the dish to him. Immediately he set it, as though in ill humour, hard down again, laid hold of the can, pressed up the lid, but straightway let it clap sharply to again. He now fell to his work; he wiped the table, next the legs of the table, carefully down, and then swept, as with a besom, the door diligently. When this was done, he returned to visit once more the dish and the beercan, if his luck might be any better this turn, but once more pushed both angrily away. Thereupon he proceeded in his labour, came to the benches, washed, scoured, rubbed them, below and above. When he came to the place where the two students lay, he passed them over, and worked on beyond their feet. When this was done, he began upon the bench a second time above their heads; and, for the second time likewise, passed over the visitants. But the third time, when he came to them, he stroked gently the one which had nothing tasted, over the hair and along the whole body, without any whit hurting him; but the other he griped by the feet, dragged him two or three times round the room upon the floor, till at the last he left him lying, and ran behind the stove, whence he laughed him loudly to scorn. The student crawled back to the bench; but in a quarter of an hour the Kobold began his work anew, sweeping, cleaning, wiping. The two lay there quaking with fear:—the one he felt quite softly over, when he came to him; but the other he flung again upon the ground, and again broke out, at the back of the stove, into a flouting horse-laugh.

"The students now no longer chose to lie upon the bench, rose, and set up, before the closed and locked door, a loud outcry; but none took any heed to it. They were at length resolved to lay themselves down close together upon the flat floor; but the Kobold left them not in peace. He began, for the third time, his game:—came and lugged the guilty one about, laughed, and scoffed him. He was now fairly mad with rage, drew his sword, thrust and cut into the corner whence the laugh rang, and challenged the Kobold with bravadoes, to come on. He then sat down, his weapon in his hand, upon the bench, to await what should further befall; but the noise ceased, and all remained still.

"The miller upbraided them upon the morrow, for that they had not conformed themselves to his admonishing, neither had left the victuals untouched. It was as much as their two lives were worth."

Three heads only of the ATTRACTION, above imputed to the Fairies towards our own kind, have been here imperfectly brought out; and already the narrowness of our limits warns us—with a sigh given to the traditions crowding upon us from all countries, and which we perforce leave unused—to bring these preliminary remarks to a close. Still, something has been gained for illustrating our Tale. The Hill-Manling at the dance diligently warns against PRIDE—the rank ROOT evil which the Fairies will weed out from the bosom of our heroine, whilst throughout a marked feature of the Fairy ways—"THE ACTIVE PRESENCE OF THE SPIRITS IN A HUMAN HABITATION" has forced itself upon us, in diverse, and some, perhaps, unexpected forms.

And still, our fuller examples, coming to us wholly from the Collection of the Two Brothers, and expressing the habitudes of various WIGHTS and ELVES, may furnish, for comparison with Ernst Willkomm's Upper Lusatian, an EXTRA Lusatian picture of the TEUTONIC FAIRYHOOD.

THE FAIRY TUTOR

"In days of yore there lived, alone in her castle, a maiden named Swanhilda. She was the only child of a proud father, lately deceased. Her mother she had lost when she was but a child; so that the education of the daughter had fallen wholly into the hands of the father.

"During the lifetime even of the old knight, many suitors had offered themselves for Swanhilda; but she seemed to be insensible to every tender emotion, and dismissed with disdainful haughtiness the whole body of wooers. Meanwhile she hunted the stag and the board, and performed squire's service for her gradually declining parent. This manner of life was so entirely to the taste of the maiden, notwithstanding that in delicacy of frame, and in bewitching gracefulness of figure, she gave place to none of her sex, that when at length her father died, she took upon herself the management of the castle, and lived aloof in pride and independence, in the very fashion of an Amazon. Maugre the many refusals which Swanhilda had already distributed on every side, there still flocked to her loving knights, eager to wed; but, like their predecessors, they were all sent drooping home again. The young nobility could at last bear this treatment no longer; and they, one and all, resolved either to constrain the supercilious damsel to wedlock, or to make her smart for a refusal. An embassy was dispatched, charged with notifying this resolution to the mistress of the castle. Swanhilda heard the speakers quietly to the end; but her answer was tuned as before, or indeed rang harsher and more offensive than ever. Turning her back upon the embassy, she left them to depart, scorned and ashamed.

"In the night following the day upon which this happened, Swanhilda was disturbed out of her sleep by a noise which seemed to her to ascend from her chamber floor; but let her strain her eyes as she might, she could for a long while discern nothing. At length she observed, in the middle of the room, a straying sparkle of light, that threw itself over and over like a tumbler, tittering, at the same time, like a human being. Swanhilda for a while kept herself quiet; but as the luminous antic ceased not practising his harlequinade, she peevishly exclaimed—'What buffoon is carrying on his fooleries here? I desire to be left in peace.' The light vanished instantly, and Swanhilda already had congratulated herself upon gaining her point, when suddenly a loud shrilly sound was heard—the floor of the apartment gave way, and from the gap there arose a table set out with the choicest viands. It rested upon a lucid body of air, upon which the tiny attendants skipped with great agility to and fro, waiting upon seated guests. At first Swanhilda was so amazed that her breath forsook her; but becoming by degrees somewhat collected, she observed, to her extreme astonishment, that an effigy of herself sat at the strange table, in the midst of the numerous train of suitors, whom she had so haughtily dismissed. The attendants presented to the young knights the daintiest dishes, the savour of which came sweetly-smelling enough to the nostrils of the proud damsel. As often, however, as the knights were helped to meat and drink, the figure of Swanhilda at the board was presented by an ill-favoured Dwarf, who stood as her servant behind her, with an empty basket, whereat the suitor's broke out into wild laughter. She also soon became aware, that as many courses were served up to the guests as she had heretofore dispensed refusals, and the amount of these was certainly not small.

"Swanhilda, weary of the absurd phantasmagoria, was going to speak again; but to her horror she discovered that the power of speech had left her. She had for some time been struck with a kind of whispering and tittering about her. In order to make out whence this proceeded, she leaned out of her bed, and, peering between the silk curtains, perceived two smart diminutive cupbearers, in garments of blue, with green aprons, and small yellow caps. She had scarcely got sight of the little gentlemen when their whispering took the character of audible words; and the dumb Swanhilda was enabled to overhear the following discourse:

"'But, I pri'thee, tell me, Sweetflower, how this show shall end?' said one of the two cupbearers,—'thou art, we know, the confidant of our queen, and, certes, canst disclose to me somewhat of her plans?'

"'That can I, my small-witted Monsieur Silverfine,' answered Sweetflower. 'Know, therefore, that this sweet and lovely to behold brute of a girl, is now beginning to suffer the castigation due to her innumerable offences. Swanhilda has sinned against all maidenly modesty, has borne herself proud and overbearing towards honourable gentlemen, and, besides, has most seriously offended our queen.'

"'How so?' enquired Silverfine.

"'By storming on her Barbary steed, like the devil himself, through the thick of our States' Assembly, pounding the arms and legs of I don't know how many of our sapient representatives. What makes the matter worse is, that this happened at the very opening of the diet, and whilst the grand prelusive symphony of the whole hidden people was in full burst. We were sitting by hundreds of thousands upon blades, stalks, and leaves; some of us still actively busied arranging comfortable seats for the older people in the blue harebells. For this we had stripped the skins of sixty thousand red field spiders, and wrought them into canopies and hangings. All our talented performers had tuned their instruments, scraped, fluted, twanged, jingled, and shawmed to their hearts' content, and had resined their fiddlesticks upon the freshest of dewdrops. All at once, tearing out of the wood, with your leave, or without your leave, comes this monster of a girl, plump upon upper house and lower house together. Ah, lack-a-daisy! what a massacre it was! The first hoof struck a thousand of our prime orators dead upon the spot, the other three hoofs scattered the Imperial diet in all directions, and, what is worse than all, tore to pieces a multitude of our exquisite caps. Our queen was almost frantic at the breach of the peace—she stamped with her foot, and cried out, "LIGHTNING!" and what that means we all pretty well know. Just at this time, too, she received information of the maiden's arrogant behaviour towards her suitors, and on the instant she determined to put the sinner to her prayers. We began by devouring every thing clean up, giving her the pleasure of looking on.'

"'Silly, absurd creatures!' thought Swanhilda, as the little butler advanced to the table to put on some fresh wine. During his absence she had time to note how perhaps a dozen other Fairies drew up through the floor whole pailfuls of wine and smoking meats, which were conveyed immediately to the table, and there consumed as if by the wind. She was heartily longing for the day to dawn, that the sun might dissipate her dream, when the sprightly little speaker came to his place again.

"'Now we can gossip a little longer,' said Sweetflower. 'My guests are provided for, and between this and cock-crow—when house and cellar will be emptied—there's some time yet.'

"Swanhilda uttered (mentally) a prodigious imprecation, and turned herself so violently in the bed, that the little gentlemen were absolutely terrified.

"'I verily believe we are going to have an earthquake!' said Silverfine.

"'No such thing!' answered Sweetflower. 'The amiable young lady in bed there has seen the sport perhaps, and is very likely not altogether pleased with it.'

"'Don't you think she would speak, if she saw all this wastefulness going on?' asked Silverfine.

"'Yes, if she could!' chuckled Sweetflower. 'But our queen has been cruel enough to strike her dumb, whilst she looks upon this heartbreaking spectacle. If she once wakes, she won't be troubled again with sleep before cock-crow.'

"'A pretty business!' thought Swanhilda, once more tossing herself passionately about in her bed.

"'Quite right!' said Sweetflower triumphantly. 'The imp of a girl has waked up.'

"'Insolent wretches!' said Swanhilda (internally.) 'Brute and imp to me! Oh, if I could only speak!'

"'Why, the whole fun of the thing is,' said Sweetflower, almost bursting with laughter, 'just that that wish won't be gratified. Does the fool of a woman think that she is to trample down our orchestra with impunity, to put our States' Assembly to flight, and to crush our very selves into a jelly!'

"'And the unbidden guests divine my very thoughts!' thought Swanhilda. 'Upon my life, it looks as if a spice of omniscience had really crept under their caps!'

"'Why, of course!' answered Sweetflower.

"'Then will I think no more!' resolved Swanhilda.

"'And there, my prudent damsel, you show a good discretion,' returned Sweetflower, saluting her with an ironical bow.

"'How will it be, then, with our caps?' enquired Silverfine. 'Are they to be repaired?'

"'Oh, certainly,' returned Sweetflower; 'and that will cost our Amazon here more than all. Indeed, the conditions of her punishment are, to make good the caps, to pledge her troth to one of her despised suitors, to compensate the rest with magnificent gifts, and, for the future, never to mount hunter more, but to amble upon a gentle palfrey, as a lady should. And, till all this is done, am I to have the teaching of her.'

"'Pretty conditions truly!' thought Swanhilda. 'I would rather die than keep them.'

"'Just as you please, most worthy madam,' answered Sweetflower; 'but you'll think better of it yet, perhaps.'

"'It will fall heavy enough upon her,' said Silverfine, 'seeing that we have it in command to seize upon all the lady's treasures.'

"'Capital, capital!' shouted Sweetflower. 'That's peppering the punishment truly! For now must this haughty man-hating creature go about begging, catching and carrying fish to market, and so submitting herself to the scorn and laughter of all her former lovers, till her trade makes her rich again. Nothing but luck in fishing will our queen vouchsafe the audacious madam. Three years are allowed her. But, in the interim, she must starve and famish like a white mouse learning to dance.'

"At this moment a monstrous burst of laughter roared from the table. The guests sang aloud—

"'The last flagon we end,