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NICHUS, NIX. .
493
to play that, and tables and benches, cup and can, gray-beards
and grandmothers, blind and lame, even babes in the cradle
would begin to dance. 1 This melodious stromkarl loves to linger
by mills and waterfalls (conf. Andvari, p. 488). Hence his
Norwegian name fossegrim (fos, Swed. and ON. fors, waterfall).
On p. 52 it was cited as a remnant of heathen sacrifices, that to
this daemonic being people offered a black lamb, and were taught
music by him in return. The fossegrirn too on calm dark
evenings entices men by his music, and instructs in the fiddle
or other .stringed instrument any one who will on a Thursday
evening, with his head turned away, offer him a little white he-goat
and throw it into a forse that falls northwards (supra, p. 34).
If the victim is lean, the pupil gets no farther than the tuning of
the fiddle ;
if fat, the fossegrim clutches hold of the player s right
hand, and guides it up and down till the blood starts out of all
his finger-tips, then the pupil is perfect in his art, and can play
so that the trees shall dance and torrents in their fall stand still
(see Suppl.). 3
Although Christianity forbids such offerings, and pronounces
the old water-sprites diabolic beings, yet the common people
retain a certain awe and reverence, and have not quite given up
all faith in their power and influence : accursed beings they
are, but they may some day become partakers of salvation. This
is the drift of the touching account, how the stromkarl or neck
wants you not only to sacrifice to him in return for musical
instruction, but
Two boys were
to promise him
playing by the
resurrection and redemption?
riverside, the neck sat there
touching his harp, and the children cried to him : What do you
sit and play here for, neck ? you know you will never be saved/
The neck began to weep bitterly, threw his harp away, and sank
to the bottom. When the boys got home, they told their father
1 Arndt s Eeise nach Schweden 4, 241 ; similar dances spoken of in Herraudssaga,
cap. 11. pp. 4952.
2
Faye p. 57. Conf. Thiele 1, 135 on the kirkegrim.
3 Odrnan s Bahuslan, p. 80 : Om speleman i hogar ok forsar bar man ok
atskilliga sagor for 15 ar ; tilbacka har man har uti hogen under Garen i Tanums
gall beliigit hort spela som the baste musicanter. Then som har viol ok vill lara
spela, blir i ognableket lard, allenast han lofvar upstdndelse ; en som ej lofte thet,
fick bora hum the i hogen slogo sonder sina violer ok greto bitterliga. (He that has
a fiddle and will learn to play, becomes in a moment learned, only he promises
resurrection ; one who promised not that, did hear how they in the hill beat
asunder their fiddles and wept bitterly.)