TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

PERAHTA, BERCHTE. 275
spools to her, which she must have back, spun full, in an hour s
time. The spinner took heart of grace, spun a few rounds on each
spool for dear life, and threw them, one and all, into the brook that
ran past the house (and by that, Perchtha seems to have been
appeased). P. 173 : As a miner was returning from Bucha to
Konitz on Perchtha s night, she came up to him at the cross-roads,
and demanded with threats, that he should put a wedge in her
waggon. He took his knife, cut the wedge as well as he could, and
fitted it into
fallen chips.
Perchtha s waggon, who made him a present of the
He picked them up, and at home he drew gold out of
every pocket in which he had put Perchtha s gifts. P. 182 : Two
peasants of Jiidewein, after stopping at the alehouse in Kostriz till
late on Perchtha s eve, had gone but a little way, when Perchtha
came driving in a waggon, and called to them to put a peg in the
pole of her waggon. One of the men had a knife, and Perchtha
supplied him with wood, the peg was let in, and the handy man
carried home several pieces of money in his shoe as a reward.
P. 113 : Between Bucha and Wilhelmsdorf in the fruitful vale of
the Saale, Perchtha queen of the heimchen had her dwelling of old ;
at her command the heimchen had to water the fields of men,
while she worked underground with her plough. At last the
people fell out with her, and she determined to quit the country ;
on Perchtha s eve the ferryman at Altar village received notice to
be ready late in the night, and when he came to the Saale bank,
his eyes beheld a tall stately dame surrounded by weeping children,
and demanding to be ferried over. She stept into the craft, the
little ones dragged a plough and a number of other tools in, loudly
lamenting that they had to leave that lovely region. Arrived at
the other side, Perchtha bade the boatman cross once more and
fetch the heimchen that had been left behind, which under compul
sion he did. She in the meantime had been mending the plough,
she pointed to the chips, and said to the ferryman, There, take
that to reward thy trouble . Grumbling,
he pocketed
three of the
chips, and at home flung them on the window-shelf, and himself,
ill at ease, into bed. In the morning, three gold -pieces lay where
he had thrown the chips.
The memory of Perchtha s passage is also
preserved at Kaulsdorf on the Saale, and at Kostriz on the Elster,
not far from Gera. P. 126 : Late one night, the master wheel
wright at Colba was coming home from Oppurg, where he had