Page:Norse mythology or, the religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted with an introduction, vocabulary and index.djvu/211

 this would indicate that the giants are their true ancestors. The hanging of bells in the churches has for this reason driven the most of them out of the country.

The nisse is the German kobold and the Scotch brownie. He seems to be of the dwarf family, as he resembles them in appearance, and like them has plenty of money and a dislike to noise and tumult. He is of the size of a year-old child, but has the face of an old man. His usual dress is gray, with a pointed red cap, but on Michaelmas day he wears a round hat like those of the peasants. No farm-house goes on well unless there is a nisse in it, and well it is for the maids and the men when they are in favor with him. They may go to their beds and give themselves no trouble about their work, and yet in the morning the maids will find the kitchen swept and water brought in, and the men will find the horses in the stable well cleaned and curried, and perhaps a supply of corn cribbed for them from the neighbor's barns. But he punishes them for any irregularity that takes place.

The neck is the river-spirit. Sometimes he is represented as sitting during the summer nights on the surface of the water, like a pretty little boy with golden hair hanging in ringlets, and a red cap on his head; sometimes as above the water, like a handsome young man, but beneath like a horse; at other times as an old man with a long beard, out of which he wrings the water as he sits on the cliffs. The neck is very severe against any haughty maiden who makes an ill return to the love of her wooer; but should he himself fall in love with a maid of human kind, he is the most polite and attentive suitor in the world. The neck is also a great musician; he sits on the water and plays on his gold harp, the harmony of which operates on all nature.