by Edwin Sidney Hartland
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There is one other matter to which I would call attention, namely, that while stories of the type discussed in the foregoing pages are common to both Celts and Teutons, the stolen cup is exclusively a Teutonic possession. More than that, no authentic record of the preservation of the relic itself is found save in the homes and conquests of the Scandinavian race. Is this to be accounted for by the late date of Christianity, and, therefore, the more recent survival of heathen rites among Teutonic, and especially Scandinavian, peoples?
[104] Girald. Cambr., l. i. c. 8.
[105] Davies, ?Mythology,? p. 155. Mr. Wirt Sikes quotes this story without acknowledgment, stating that the legend, ?varying but little in phraseology, is current in the neighbourhood of a dozen different mountain lakes.? As if he had collected it himself! (Sikes, p. 45). Compare an Eskimo story of a girl who, having acquired angakok power, visited the ingnersuit, or underground folk, ?and received presents from them; but while carrying them homewards the gifts were wafted out of her hands and flew back to their first owners? (Rink, p. 460).
[106] Thorpe, vol. iii. p. 120, apparently quoting Harry's ?Sagen, Märchen und Legenden Niedersachsens?; Sébillot, ?Trad. et Sup.? vol. i. p. 115; ?Zeits. f. Volksk.? vol. ii. p. 415, quoting Vernaleken.
[107] Kuhn und Schwartz, pp. 305, 306; ?Choice Notes,? p. 76.
[108] Niederhöffer, vol. iv. p. 130; Bartsch, vol. i. p. 278; Thorpe, vol. iii. p. 56, quoting Müllenhoff; Birlinger, ?Volksthümliches,? vol. i. p. 103; Grimm, ?Tales,? vol. ii. p. 77. A Lusatian tradition quoted by Grimm in a note represents the watersnake-king's crown as not only valuable in itself, but like other fairy property, the bringer of great riches to its possessor. Ibid. 406. Cf. a Hindoo story to the same effect, Day, p. 17; and many other tales.
[109] Thorpe, vol. ii. pp. 148, 146, 121, quoting Thiele, ?Danmarks Folkesagn;? Jahn, p. 75.
[110] Bartsch, vol. i. p. 83 (see also p. 41); Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 6, quoting Faye, ?Norske Folkesagn?; ibid. p. 89, quoting Afzelius, ?Svenske Folkets Sago-Häfder?; Kuhn und Schwartz, p. 26.
[111] Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 142, quoting Thiele. See also Keightley, p. 88; Campbell, vol. ii. p. 97.
[112] Gerv. Tilb., Decis. iii. c. 60; Guil. Neub. ?Chronica Rerum Anglic.? lib. i. c. 28, quoted by Liebrecht in a note to Gerv. Tilb.
[113] Nicholson, p. 83. Mr. Nicholson in a letter to me says that he had the story as given by him from an old inhabitant of Bridlington, and that it is current in the neighbourhood. Birlinger, ?Volkst.? vol. i. pp. 3, 5.
[114] ?Choice Notes,? p. 73.
[115] Aubrey, ?Miscellany,? p. 149.
