Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

458
WIGHTS AND ELVES.
Absit ut inter nos unquam regnaverit
non tarn longaevi tune essemus neque sani.
Inter vos nemo loquitur
nisi corde doloso,
haec fraus !
hinc neque ad aetatem maturam pervenietis :
pro cujusque fide sunt ejus tempora vitae.
Non aliier nisi sicut corde
loquimur
tenemus,
neque cibos varios edimus morbos generantes,
longms incolumes liinc nos durabimus ac vos.
Thus already in the 10th century the dwarf complains
of the
faithlessness of mankind, and partly
accounts thereby for the
shortness of human life, while dwarfs, because they are honest
and feed on simple viands, have long and healthy lives. More
intimately acquainted with the secret powers of nature, they can
with greater certainty avoid unwholesome food. This remark
and
able passage justifies the opinion of the longevity of dwarfs ;
their avoidance of human food, which hastens death, agrees
with the distinction drawn out on p. 318 between men and gods
(see Suppl.).
went hunting in the high woods of Ornekulla ; there they found a bergsmed
(mountain-smith) asleep, and the huntsman ordered the archer to seize him, but
down the hill.
he declined: Pray God shield you ! the bergsmith will fling you
But the huntsman was so daring, he went up and laid hands on the sleeper ; the
bergsmith cried out, and begged they would let him go, he had a wife and seven
littfe ones, and he would forge them anything they liked, they had only to put the
iron and steel on the cliff, and they d presently find the work lying finished in the
same place. Biorn asked him, whom he worked for? Tor my fellows he
replied As Biorn would not release him, he said: Had I my cap-of-darkness
(uddehat, p. 463), you should not carry me away but if
; you don t let me go, none
of your posterity will attain the greatness you enjoy, but will go from bad to worse.
Which afterwards came true. Biorn secured the bergsmith, and had him put in
prison at Bohus, but on the third day he had disappeared.
At Mykleby lived Swen, who went out hunting one Sunday morning, and on t
at the same
hill near Tyfweholan he spied a fine buck with a ring about his neck ;
instant a cry came out of the hill : Look, the man is shooting our !
ring-buck
Nay, cried another voice, he had better not, he has not washed this morning
(i e been sprinkled with holy water in church). When Swen heard that, he
immediately washed himself in , haste, and shot the ring-buck. Then
answered: lou nau. oeiter let it ue, uie wutie t YIH DM*UU. ^j ^..
mendous uproar followed, and a host of trolls filled the wood all round. Swen
threw himself on the ground, and crept under a mass of roots then came into his
;
called the
mind what the troll had said, that the white buck, as he contemptuously
church, would stand by him. So he made a vow, that if God would help him out
of the danger, he would hand over the buck s ring to Mykleby church, the horns to
Torp, and the hide to Langeland. Having got home uninjured, he performed all
this: the ring, down to the year 1732, has been the knocker on Mykleby church
door, and is of some unknown metal, like iron ore ; the buck s horn was preserved
in Torp church, and the skin in Langeland church.