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476 WIGHTS AND ELVES.
Julius Schmidt too (Reichenfels, p. 119) reports from the Vogtland
: The belief in bilsen- or bilver-schnitter (-reapers) l is toler
ably extensive, nay, there seem to be certain persons who believe
themselves to be such : in that case they go into the field before
sunrise on St. John s day, sometimes on Walpurgis-day (May 1),
and cut the stalks with small sickles tied to their great toes, step
ping slantwise across the field. Such persons must have small
three-cornered hats on (bilsenschnitter-hutchen) ; if during their
walk they are saluted by any one, they must die that year.
These bilsenschnitter believe they get half the produce of the
field where they have reaped, and small sickle-shaped instru
ments have been found in some people s houses, after their death.
If the owner of the field can pick up any stubble of the stalks
so cut, and hangs it in the smoke, the bilsenschnitter will gra
dually waste away (see Suppl.).
According to a communication from Thuringia, there are two
ways of baffling the bilms- or binsen-schneider (-cutter), 1 which
ever he is called. One is, on Trinity Sunday or St. John s day,
when the sun is highest in the sky, to go and sit on an elderbush
with a looking-glass on your breast, and look round in every
quarter, then no doubt you can detect the binsenschneider, but
not without great risk, for if he spies you before you see him,
you must die and the binsenschneider remain alive, unless he
happen to catch sight of himself in the mirror on your breast,
in which case he also loses his life that year. Another way is,
to carry some ears that the binsenschneider has cut to a newly
opened grave in silence, and not grasping the ears in your bare
hand ;
if the least word be spoken, or a drop of sweat from your
hand get into the grave with the ears, then, as soon as the ears
rot, he that threw them in is sure to die.
What is here imputed to human sorcerers, is elsewhere laid
to the devil (Superst. no. 523), or to elvish goblins, who may at
once be known by their small hats. Sometimes they are known
as bilgenschneider, as pilver- or hilp&rts-schnitter, sometimes by
altogether different names. Alberus puts sickles in the
women travelling in Hulda s host (supra, p. 269 note).
hands of
In some
places, ace. to Schm. 1, 151, they say bockschnitt, because the
1 Eilse is henbane, and binse a rush, which plants have no business here. They
are merely an adaptation of bilwiz, when this had become unintelligible.
TRANS.