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SCEAT. 479
of the tough persistence of such materials in popular tradition) ;
both the schretel and the word wazzerbern answer perfectly to
the trold and the hvidbiorn. Vintler thinks of the schrdttlin as a
spirit light as wind, and of the size of a child. The Vocab. of
1482 has schretlin (penates) ; Dasypodius nachtschrettele (ephi-
altes) j later ones spell it schrdttele, schrdttel, sclirettele, schr title,
conf. Staid. 2, 350. Schmidts Schwab, wortb. 478. In the Sette
comm. schrata or sckretele is a butterfly, Schm. 3, 519. A
Thidericus Scratman is named in a voucher of 1244 ; Spilcker 2,
84. A district in Lower Hesse is called the Schratweg, Wochenbl.
1833, 952. 984. 1023. And other Teutonic dialects seem to
know the word : AS. scritta, Eng. scrat (hermaphroditus), 1 ON.
skratti (malus genius, gigas) ; a rock on the sea is called
skrattasker (geniorum scopulus), Fornm. sog. 2, 142. Compar
ing these forms with the OHG. ones above, we miss the usual
consonant-change : the truth is, other OHG. forms do shew a
z in place of the t : scraz, Gl. fuld. 14 ; screza (larvae, lares mali),
Gl. lindenbr. 996 b ;
f srezze vel strate (not: screzzol scraito),
Sumerlat. 10, 66; unreiner schraz, Altd. w. 3, 170 (rhymes
vraz). 2 And Upper Germ, dictionaries of the 16th cent, couple
schretzel with alp; Hofer 3, 114, has der schretz, and Schm.
3, 552, der schretzel, das sckretzlein. 3
According
to Mich.
Beham 8. 9 (Mone s Anz. 4, 450-1), every house has its schrezlein
; if fostered, he brings you goods and honour, he rides or
drives the cattle, prepares his table on Brecht-night, etc. 3
The agreement of Slavic words is of weight. 0. Boh. scret
(daemon), Hanka s Zbirka 6 b ; screti, scretti (penates
intimi et
secretales), ibid. 16b ; Boh. skret, skrjtek (penas, idolum) ; Pol.
skrzot, skrziiek ; Sloven, zhkrdt, zhkrdtiz, zhltrcitelj (hill-mannikin).
To the Serv. and Russ. dialects the word seems unknown.
I can find no satisfactory root for the German form. 4 In Slavic
1
Already in Sachsensp. 1, 4 altvile and dverge side by side ;
2 A contraction of schraivaz ? Gudr. 448, schrawaz und merwunder ; Albr. Titur.
27, 299 has schrabaz together with pilwiht ;
der Eon s Wolfdieterich 195. Wolfd. und Saben 496. [ Probably
conf. EA. 410.
schrawatzen und merwunder, Casp. von
of different
origin, says Suppl.]
3 Muchar, Eomisches Noricum 2, 37, and Gastein 147, mentions a capricious
mountain-spirit, schranel.
4 The ON. skratti is said to mean terror also. The Swed. skratta, Dan. skratte,
is to laugh loud. Does the AS. form scritta allow us to compare the Gr. ffxlpros,
a hopping, leaping goblin or satyr (from o-/a/>rdw, I bound)? Lobeck s Aglaoph.,
1311.