Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/502

 460 Reviews.

from the tale of Lars Jensson and his elf-sweetheart) ; nosses or brownies, the Robin Goodfellows who help kindly farmers, trick slattern dames, and frolic in the moonlight, wear short coats and blue or red caps, have tiny tails, love to ride horses, change shapes, play practical jokes ; water-beings, mermen and mermaids, cunning long-fingered and prophetic sea-bogies, dark red, one- footed, fiery, howling and evil ; seals who are the bodies of those who have drowned themselves and are condemned to live as animals their full term on earth ; water-kelpies or " nykur," grey or blackish horses with reversed hoofs and pastern-tufts who are almost always hurtful to mankind \ and huge serpents who live in lakes and rivers ; tnonsters, such as treasure-dragons, lind-worms, were-wolves, ghouls, wheel-snakes, and the like, the tales and beliefs concerning nightmares being exceptionally interesting. The three last sections are concerned with Ghosts and Wraithes ; Wizards and Witches ; Churches, Hidden Treasures and Plagues. The Icelandic ghost has retained most of the more unpleasant peculiarities that have disappeared from the modern English ghost. He is tangible, terribly strong, talkative, able to make verses, kill cattle, and do many other things that only live people are wont to do. The Icelandic wise men and women who deal in black arts can manufacture dreadful sendings or fetches out of raised corpses, and despatch them on cruel and mischievous errands. The poets in Iceland, as in Ireland, have the power to sing beasts to death, and Hallgrim Petersson killed a fox by his car/tmia ; but as his verse was so powerful that he could raise the dead and lay them again, this is hardly surprising. Sent a?iimals are, I think, not so well known elsewhere as in Iceland, and it is even believed there that foxes were in this manner introduced there — all along of an old Finnish woman that was too ugly for a young Icelander whom she fancied to marry her. Milk-hares made out of a few wooden pegs and a stocking-leg are used in Denmark (possibly according to Finnish magic, as Mr. Craigie thinks), and so are carriers [til-beri] in Iceland. A tale-sprite, such as Gaston de Foix made use of, is known in Iceland. Con- jurer's hypnotism is known, as in the East, and Vatna's church in Norway has its sacred spring and horse-hoofprint, just as St. Peter's at Ambleteuse.

The legends of the Black Death are curious, especially that which connects the Norwegian visitation with the advent of one