Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

leads to glitter, gold and fire.
DKAGON. BEETLE. 691
The Lith. smakas seems borrowed
from Slavic ; whether connected with AS. snaca, is a question.
Jungmann says, zmek is not only a dragon, but a spirit who
appears in the shape of a wet bird/ usually a chicken, and brings
people money; Sup. I, 143 says you must not hurt earth-chicks
or house-adders ; Schm. 1, 104 explains erdhiinlein (earth -chicken)
as a bright round lustre, in the middle of which lies some
thing dark; conf. geuhuon, Helbl. 8, 858.
Renvall thus describes the Finn, mammelainen : femina ma-
ligna, matrix serpentis, divitiarum subterranearum Gustos/ Here
at last the hoard is assigned to a female snake ; in Teutonic and
also Slavic tales on the contrary it is characteristic of the fierce
fiendish dragon (m.) to guard treasure, and the adder or unke (f.)
plays more the part of a friendly homesprite
transformed, so the other appears as a crowned maiden with a
: as the one is a man
serpent s tail (Deut. sag. no. 13), or as a fay. But she can no
more dispense with her golden crown than the dragon with his
guardianship of gold ; and the Boh. zmek is at once dragon and
adder. A story of the adder -If ing is in Bechstenr s Franken p.
290 (see Suppl.).
Amidst all these points of connexion, the being worshipped by
we have only a
the Lombards must remain a matter of doubt ;
right to assume that they ascribed to it a benign and gracious
character.
INSECTS. Some traces of beetle-worship I am able to disclose.
We have two old and pretty general terms : OHG. clievor,
cheviro, MHG. kever, kevere, NHG. loafer, N. Neth. kever, AS.
ceafor, Engl. chafer. We have no business to bring in the Lat.
caper (which is AS. hasfer, ON. hafr) ; the root seems to be the
AS. ceaf, caf=alacer, for the chafer is a brisk lively creature,
and in Swabia they still say kaf ermassig for agilis, vivax (Granim.
2, 571. 1013). The AS. has ceafortiin, cafertun, for atrium, vestibulum
; scarabaeorum oppidum as it were, because chafers
chirp in it ? 3 The second term, OHG. wibil, webil, MHG. wibel,
1
Zmokly is drenched, zmoknuti to wet ; mokry gako zmok, dripping like an
earth- sprite.
2 Here again the female being has the advantage over the male.
3 Helbling, speaking of an ill-shaped garment, starts the query (1, 177), where