TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

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GODDESSES.
And the same threat is held out in other districts also (see
Suppl.)-
Borner s Folk-tales of the Orlagau (between the Saale and the
Orle) furnish abundant details. At p. 153: The night before
Twelfthday, PercUha always examines the spinning-rooms
of the
whole neighbourhood, she brings the spinners empty reels, with
directions to spin them full within a very brief time, and if all she
demands cannot be delivered, she punishes them by tangling and
befouling the flax. On the same occasion she cuts open any one s
body, that has not eaten zemmcde l that day, takes out any other
food he has had, and fills the empty space with hay or straw wisps
and bricks, and at last sews his body up again, using a ploughshare
At Oppurg, the
for a needle, and for thread a rohm chain. P. 159 :
same night of the year, PercUha found the spinning-room full of
merrymaking guests, and in a towering rage she handed in through the
window tivelve empty reels, which were to be spun full to the rim within
an hour, when she would come back ;
one quarter of an hour had
passed after another in fearful expectation, when a saucy girl ran
up to the garret, reached down a roll of tow, and it wrapped round
the empty reels, then they spun two or three thicknesses of thread
over the tow, so that the reels looked full. Perchtha came, they
handed over to her their finished work, and she walked off with it,
shaking her head. (Conf. the similar story of the white manikin in
Bader, p. 369). P. 167: At Langendembach lived an old spinningwife
who swiftly wound the thread all the winter through, and did
not so much as leave off on Twelfth day-eve, though son and
daughter-in-law warned her : If Perchtha comes, it will go hard
with you . ! Heyday was her answer, Perchtha brings me no
Shirts, I must spin them myself/
After a while the window is
pushed open, Perchtha looks into the room, and throws some empty
Selphirtes reel (Wackernagel s Ib. 903), there is exhibited together with
brSr Zornli and hruoder Ergerli,
a bruoder Werra dor sin herze mi t wettlichen
din^en also beworren hat (has so entangled his heart with worldly things),
dazda n?htme in . mag And that notion tangled ^ thrcud
^dhcar,^ucl
about Bertha and Holda, may after al be akin to this
prevails n^ Zuncfc
She is called de Chlunqere, because she puts chlungel (knots lumps) in tne
n s ed yarn of slothful n.aidens, Alb. Schott, Deutsclie colomen in
P^nt,
Wk thou-h her day comes on Dec. 13. Fran Lutz cuts the belly open,
Schmeller 2, 532. JosT Rank, Bohmerwald, P . 137. Conf. the Lusse in Sweden,
p 282 In Bavaria and German Bohemia, Berhta is often represented by S
.
.
Wiesejlgren. 386^ ^ ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^^ n & ^
evidently.
fasting fore>