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722 SKY AND STARS.
There is a pious custom of saluting the celestial luminaries
before going to bed at night (Sup. I, 112), and among the Mod.
Greeks, of offering a prayer when the evening star is on the rise.
According to the Edda, all the stars were sparks
of fire from
Muspells-heim, that flew about the air at random, till the gods
assigned them seats and orbits, Sn. 9. Sgem. 1.
Ignited vapours, which under a starry sky fall swiftly through
the air like fiery threads Lat. trajectio stellae, stella transvolans,
Ital. stella cadente, Fr. etoile filante, Span, estrella vaga, Swed.
stjernfall, Dan. stiernskud (star-shoot), what the Greeks call
Sidyew trajicere are by our people ascribed to a trimming of
the stars light ; they are like the sparks we let fall in snuffing a
candle. We find this notion already in Wolfram s Wh. 322, 18 :
Dehein sterne ist so lieht,
erufiirbe
sich etswenne. 1
Hence our phrase of (
subst. sternputze, sternschnuppe*
No star so bright
but trims itself somewhen.
the stars snuffing themselves/ and our
These falling stars are ominous, 2
and whoever sees them should say a prayer (Sup. I, 595) : to the
generous girl who has given away her all, they bring down with
them [or turn into] gold-pieces (Kinderm. 153) ; nay, whatever
wish you form while the snuff is falling, is fulfilled (Tobler 408 b
).
The Lithuanians beautifully weave shooting stars into the fate-
mythus : the verpeya (spinneress) begins to spin
the thread of the
new-born on the sky, and each thread ends in a star; when a man
is dying, his thread snaps, and the star turns pale and drops
(Narbutt, 1, 71).
A comet is called tail-star, hair-star in Aventin 74 b . 119 b ,
peacock-tail (Schm. 1, 327) ; and its tail in Detmar 1, 242 schin-
scliove, from schof a bundle of straw. Its appearing betokens
events fraught with peril, especially the death of a king (Greg.
tur. : 4, 9) man siht an der zit einen sterren, sam einen pfaiven
zagel wit (wide as a peacock s tail), so miiezen siben sachen in
der werlt ergan/ MsH. 3, 468h (see Suppl.).
Our old heathen fancies about the fixed stars have for the most
part faded away, their very names are almost all supplanted by
* MS. n. reads subere sich. Even OHG-. has furban (mundare, expiare).
2 So with the Greeks (Reinh. fuchs p. Ixxii.). In a poem of Beranger: mou
enfant, un mortel expire, son etoile tombe a i instant.