by Edwin Sidney Hartland
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In both these cases the thief is unsuccessful, and the punishment of his crime is the loss of fairy intercourse; perhaps the mildest form which punishment could take. But sometimes the chevalier d'industrie is lucky enough to secure his spoils. It is related that certain white ghosts were in the habit of playing by night at skittles on a level grass-plot on the Lüningsberg, near Aerzen, in North Germany. A journeyman weaver, who was in love with a miller's daughter, but lacked the means to marry her, thought there could be no harm in robbing the ghosts of one of the golden balls with which they used to play. He accordingly concealed himself one evening; and when the harmless spectres came out he seized one of their balls, and scampered away with it, followed by the angry owners. A stream crossed his path, and, missing the plank bridge which spanned it, he sprang into the water. This saved him, for the spirits had no power there; and a merry wedding was the speedy sequel of his adventure. In like manner a fairy, who, in a Breton saga, was incautious enough to winnow gold in broad daylight in a field where a man was pruning beeches, excited the latter's attention by this singular proceeding; and the man possessed himself of the treasure by simply flinging into it a hallowed rosary. In Germany the water-nix has the reputation of being a good shoemaker. It is related that a man, who once saw a nix on the shore of the March busy at his work, threw a rosary upon it. The nix disappeared, leaving the shoe; and a variant states that the shoe was so well made that the owner wore out successively twelve other shoes which he had caused to be made to match it, without its being any the worse.[106]
We have already seen in the last chapter that the performance of Christian rites and the exhibition of Christian symbols and sacred books have a powerful effect against fairies. But further, the invocation, or indeed the simple utterance, of a sacred name has always been held to counteract enchantments and the wiles of all supernatural beings who are not themselves part and parcel of what I may, without offence and for want of a better term, call the Christian mythology, and who may therefore at times, if not constantly, be supposed to be hostile to the Christian powers and to persons under their protection. These beliefs are, of course, in one form or another part of the machinery of every religion. The tales just quoted are examples of the potency of a symbol. A North German story is equally emphatic as to the value of a holy name. We are told that late one evening a boy saw a great number of hares dancing and leaping. Now hares are specially witch-possessed animals. As he stood and watched them one of them sprang towards him and tried to bite his leg. But he said: ?Go away! thou art not of God, but of the devil.? Instantly the whole company vanished; but he heard a doleful voice exclaiming: ?My silver beaker, my silver beaker!? On reaching home he told his adventure; and his father at once started back with him to the place, where they found a silver beaker inscribed with a name neither they nor the goldsmith, to whom they sold the goblet for a large sum of money, could read. The district whence this story comes furnishes us also with an account of a man who, being out late one night, came upon a fire surrounded by a large circle of women sitting at a table. He ventured to seat himself among them. Each one had brought something for the meal; and a man-cook went round them asking each what she had got. When he came to the hero of the story the latter struck him with his stick, saying: ?I have a blow which our Lord God gave the devil.? Thereupon the whole assembly disappeared, leaving nothing behind but the kettle which hung over the fire, and which the man took and long preserved to testify the truth of his story. A Cornish fisherman was scarcely less lucky without the protection of a pious exclamation. For one night going home he found a crowd of ?little people? on the beach. They were sitting in a semicircle holding their hats towards one of their number, who was pitching gold pieces from a heap into them. The fisherman contrived to
