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HOME-SPEITE. 515
attendance on the real gift-giver, the infant Christ or dame
Berhta : while these dole out their favours, those come on with
rod and sack, threatening to thrash disobedient children, to
throw them into the water, to puff their eyes out (Rockenphilos.
6, 353). Their pranks, their roughness, act as foil to the gracious
higher being from whom the gifts proceed; they are almost as
essential to the festival as Jackpudding to our old comedy. I
can well imagine that even in heathen times the divinity, whose
appearing heralded a happy time, had at his side some merry elf
or dwarf as his attendant embodying to the vulgar eye the bless
Strongly in favour of this view are the
North Franconian names Hullepopel (Popowitsch 522), Hollepeter
(Schm. 2, 174), the Bavarian Semper, of whom they say he cuts
ings that he brought. 1
naughty children s bodies open and stuffs them with pebbles
(Schm. 3, 12. 250), exactly after the manner of Holla and Berhta
(p. 273) 2
; and consider faithful Eckart, who escorts Holla.
In Christian times they would at first choose some saint to
accompany the infant Christ or the mother of God in their dis
tribution of boons, but the saint would imperceptibly degenerate
into the old goblin again, but now a coarser one. The Christmas
plays sometimes present
the Saviour with His usual attendant
Peter, or else with Niclas, at other times however Mary with
Gabriel, or with her aged Joseph, who, disguised as a peasant,
acts the part of knecht Ruprecht. Nicolaus again has converted
himself into a ( man Globes or Rupert ; as a rule, it is true,
there is still a Niclas, a saintly bishop and benevolent being,
distinct from the man who scares children ; but the characters
get mixed, and Globes by himself acts the man (Tobler 105 b
,
106 a
); the Austrian Grampus (Hofer 1, 313. Schm. 2, 110),
Krdmpus, Kramlas, is possibly for Hieronymus, but how to ex
plain the Swiss Schmutzli (Staid. 2, 337) I do not rightly know,
perhaps simply from his smutty sooty aspect ? Instead of Grampus
there is also in Styria a Bdrthel (pointing to Berhta, or Bartho
lomew ?) Schmutzbartel 3 and Klaubauf, who rattles, rackets, and
1 Heinrich and Ruprecht were once common names for serving-men, as Hans
and Glaus are now.
2 Zember about Eger in German Bohemia (Popowitsch 523) ; at the same time
the Lausitz idol Sompar (supra, p. 71 note) is worth considering.
3 The phrase he knows where Barthel gets his must, notwithstanding other
explanations, may refer to a home-sprite well-known in the cellar.