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538
GIANTS.
brought by a crow, she dropt it on the way, and there it remains
as Mount Lykabettos. 1 As the Lord God passed over the
earth scattering stones, his bags burst over Montenegro, and the
whole stock came down (Yuk. 5) .
Like the goddess, like the giants, the devil takes such burdens
Hesse I was told as follows : between
upon him. In Upper
Gossfelden and Wetter there was once a village that has now
disappeared, Elbringhausen ; the farmers in it lived so luxuriously
that the devil got power over them, and resolved to shift them
from their good soil to a sandy flat which is flooded every year
by the overflowing Lahn. So he took the village up in his
basket, and carried it through the air to where Sarenau stands :
he began picking out the houses one by one, and setting them
up side by side ; by some accident the basket tipped over, and the
whole lot tumbled pellmell on the ground ; so it came about, that
the first six houses at Sarenau stand in a straight row, and all
the others anyhow. Near Saalfeld in Thuringia lies a village,
Langenschade, numbering but 54 houses, and yet a couple of
miles long, because they stand scattered and in single file. The
devil flew through the air, carrying houses in an apron, but a
hole in it let the houses drop out one by one. On looking back,
he noticed it and cried there s a pity (schade) ! (see Suppl.).
The pretty fable of the giant s daughter picking up the plough
ing husbandman and taking him home to her father in her apron
is widely known, but is best told in the Alsace legend of Nideck
castle :
Irn waldscliloss dort am wasserfall In forest-castle by waterfall
sinn d ritter rise gsinn (gewesen) ;
the barons there were giants ;
a mol (einmal) kummt s fraule hrab ins once the maiden comes down into the
thal > dale,
unn geht spaziere drinn. and goes a-walking therein.
sie thut bis schier noch Haslach gehn,
She doth as far as Haslach go ;
vorm wald im ackerfeld outside the wood, in the cornfield
do blibt sie voU verwundrung stehn she stands still, full of wonder,
unn sieht, wie s feld wurd bestellt. and sees how the field gets tilled.
sie
liiegt dem ding a wil so zu ;
She looks at the thing a while,
der pflui, die ros, die liitt the plough, the horses, the men
ischer ebs (ist ihr etwas) neus ; sie geht are new to her ; she goes thereto
derzu
1
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