Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

and the solemn fates of mortals. They
SPRITES. GENII. 517
feel themselves drawn to
men, and repelled by them. The downfall of heathenism must
have wrought great changes in the old-established relationship :
the spirits acquired a new and terrible aspect as ministers and
messengers of Satan. 1 Some put on a more sava.ge look that
savours of the giant,, especially the woodsprites. GrendePs
nature borders on those of giants and gods. Not so with the
females however : the wild women and female nixes drop into
the class of fortune-telling swan-maids who are of human kind,
while the elfins that present the drinking-horn melt into the
circle of valkyrs ; and here again we recognise a general beauty
them above the
pervading all the female spirits, and raising
males, whose characteristics come out more individually. In
wichtels, dwarfs and goblins, especially in that children s bugbear
the man Ruprecht, there shews itself a comic faculty derived
from the oldest times.
Through the whole existence of elves, nixes, and goblins there
runs a low under-current of the unsatisfied, disconsolate : they
do not rightly know how to turn their glorious gifts to account,
they always require to lean upon men. Not only do they seek
to renovate their race by intermarriage with mankind, they also
need the counsel and assistance of men in their affairs. Though
acquainted in a higher degree than men with the hidden virtues
of stones and herbs, they yet invoke human aid for their sick
and their women in labour (pp. 457. 492), they borrow men s
vessels for baking and brewing (p. 454 n.), they even celebrate
their weddings and hightides in the halls of men. Hence too
their doubting whether they can be partakers of salvation, and
their unconcealed grief when a negative answer is given.
1 Bruder Rausch (friar Rush) a veritable goblin, is without hesitation [described
as being] despatched from hell among the monks ; his name is to be derived from
russ = fuligo (as kohlrausch was formerly spelt kolruss).