Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

490
WIGHTS AND ELVES.
ghostly being; in Nib. 1479, 3 Siglint the one merwoman says
of Hadburc the other :
Durch der waste Hebe hat vmn muome dir gelogen,
tis through love of raiment (weeds) mine aunt hath lied to thee;
these merwomen belong, as swan-maidens, to one sisterhood and
kindred (p. 428), and in Oswald 673-9 <ein ander merwip is
coupled with the first. Several lakes inhabited by
nixes are
called. mummelsee (Deut. sag. nos. 59. 331. Mone s Anz. 3, 92),
otherwise meumke-loch, e.g., in the Paschenburg of Schaumburg.
This explains
the name of a little river Miimling in the Odenwald,
though old docs, spell it Mimling. Mersprites are made to
favour particular pools and streams, e.g., the Saale, the Danube,
the Elbe, 1 as the Romans believed in the bearded river-gods
of individual rivers; it may be that the name of the Neckar
(Nicarus) is immediately connected with our nicor, nechar (see
SuppL).
Biorn gives nennir as another ON. name for hippopotamus,
it seems related to the name of the goddess Nanna (p. 31 0). 2
This nennir or nikur presents himself on the sea-shore as a hand
some dapple-grey horse, and is to be recognised by his hoofs
looking the wrong way ; if any one mounts him, he plunges with
his prey into the deep. There is a way however to catch and
bridle him, and break him in for a time to work. 3 A clever man
at Morland in Bahus fastened an artfully contrived bridle on him,
10 that he could not get away, and ploughed all his land with
;iim ; but the bridle somehow coming loose, the neck y
darted
ike fire into the lake, and drew the harrow in after him. 4 In
he same way German legends tell of a great hulking Hack horse,
,hat had risen out of the sea, being put to the plough, and going
ahead at a mighty pace, till he dragged both plough and plough
man over the cliff. 5 Out of a marsh called the taufe/ near
1 The Elbjungfer and Saalweiblein, Deut. sag. no. 60 ; the river-sprite in the
Oder, ibid. no. 62.
2 Muchar, in Norikum 2, 37, and in Gastein p. 145, mentions an Alpine
sprite Donanadel ; does nadel here stand for nandel ? A misprint for madel (girl)
is scarcely conceivable.
3
Landnamabok, 2, 10 (Islend. sog. 1, 74). Olafsen s Eeise igiennem Island,
1, 55. Sv. vis. 3, 128.
4 P. Kami s Westgota och Bahuslandska resa, 1742, p. 200.
e Letzner s Dasselsche chronik 5, 13.