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WIGHTS AND ELVES.
(of about 1327) is to be found in Kantzow s Pomerania 1, 333.
The similar and equally Low-German name Wolterken seems
to have a wider circulation. Samuel Meiger in his Panurgia
lamiarum (Hamb. 1587. 4), bok 3 cap. 2, treats
domesticis edder husknechtkens, de men ok
van den laribus
WolterJcen unde
Chimfcen an etliken orden nomet/ These Wolterkens are also
mentioned by Arnkiel (Cimbr. heidenth. 1, 49) ;
in the Nether
lands they are called Wouters, Wouterken, and Tuinman 2, 201
has a proverb t is een wilde Wouter, though incorrectly he
refers it to wout (silva). Wouter, Wolter is nothing but the
human proper name Walter bestowed on a home-sprite. It is
quite of a piece with the familiar intercourse between these spirits
and mankind,, that, beside the usual appellatives, certain proper
names should be given them, the diminutives of Henry, Joachim,
Walter. Not otherwise do I understand the Robin and Nissen in
the wonted names for the English and Danish goblins Robin
goodfellow and Nissen god dreng. Robin is a French-English
form of the name Robert, OHG. Hruodperaht, MHG. Ruotperht,
our Ruprecht, Rupert, Ruppert ; and Robin fellow is the same
home-sprite whom we in Germany call kneM Ruprecht, and
exhibit to children at Christmas, but who in the comedies of the
16-1 7th centuries becomes a mere Riipel or Riippel, i.e. a merry
fool in general. 1 In England, Robin Goodfellow seems to get
mixed up with Robin Hood the archer, as Hood himself reminds
us of Hodeken (p. 463) ; and I think this derivation from a
being of the goblin kind, and universally known to the people,
is preferable to the attempted historical ones from Rubertus
a Saxon mass-priest, or the English Robertus knight, one
of the slayers of Thomas Becket. Nisse, Nissen, current in
Denmark and Norway, must be explained from Niels, Nielsen,
1
Ayrer s Fastnachtspiele 73* 1 confirms the fact of Rupel being a dimin. of
Ruprecht. Some dialects use Riipel, Riepel as a name for the tom-cat again in
;
witch-trials a little young devil is named Rubel. Ace. to the Leipzig Avanturier 1,
22-3,Jcnecht Ruprecht appears in shaggy clothes, sack on back and rod in hand.
[II Hob in hobgoblin stands for Eobert, it is another instance of the friendly or at
least
conciliatory feeling that prompted the giving of such names. In Mids. N.
Dream n. 1, the same spirit that has just been called Robin Groodfellow. is thus
addressed :
Those that Jfo&-goblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck.
Of course Hob as a man s name is Robert, as Hodge is Roger. TRANS.]